Unlearning 101

Unlearning Bubbles

The Internet, the real estate market, fuel cell technology, nanotechnology and, now, "clean tech" have all experienced an investing "bubble." In retrospect, it is easy to point to signs that the market was inflating to dangerous levels. It is even easier to suggest that such bubbles are a bad thing -- precisely because so many investors got burned and lost a great a deal of money.

Bob Metcalfe, an early and successful Internet entrepreneur, see bubbles differently. He sees bubbles as a good thing. Here's his quote: "From Internet history, we know that bubbles are normal. Bubbles are an accelerator of technology progress. Bubbles go against the status quo. We should encourage bubbles."

I suspect that such statements are much easier to make when you're already a billionaire; as opposed, say, to someone to just lost a large amount of money in the stock market. Nevertheless, there is a certain logic to his argument and we may want not to dismiss all bubbles as cases of irrational investors getting sucked up by the winds of "irrational exuberance." Instead we want to view them as "technology accelerators." (This might not ease the financial pain of those who lost money in the bubble, but it might at least make them feel a little bit better about themselves.)

Unlearning Your Daily Commute

I live in a major metropolitan area and the traffic situation drives me crazy. If someone then told me that they were going to close a road in order to reduce traffic congestion, I’d likely think they were either crazy or stupid. As I mention in my book, Jump the Curve, emerging technologies can, however, often throw people—myself included—for a loop. This story is a perfect case-in-point.

One would think that perfect information on traffic conditions would lead to an optimization of people’s personal travel time. Alas, this is not always the case. In fact, people’s commutes in major cities such as Boston, London and New York can be reduced by 30%, 24% and 28% by selecting the “social optimum” choice instead of the "personally optimum" choice. And, if people are reluctant to unlearn this finding because it defies conventional wisdom, local governments or traffic departments can always choose to close a road or two and force them into a better (i.e. faster) choice . Of course such a scenario smacks of Big Brother-like socialism and makes the civil libertarian in me cringe, but if you read the article you’ll at least understand the logic behind the idea.

Unlearning Meetings

Personally, I'm not a big fan of meetings. I understand that some serve a real purpose, but in this age of accelerating technological change is it really necessary that as many face-to-face meetings take place? According to this new study, it is possible some issues can just as easily be resolved using video-conferencing and virtual reality technology -- such as Second Life.

Are you and your company ready to unlearn how some of your meetings are conducted?

Unlearning Campaigning

Technology Review has an insightful article on the power of social networking entitled "How Obama Really Did It."  What is interesting about the article is that many top leaders within the Hillary Clinton campaign dismissed the power of the Internet and social networking because Howard Dean's 2004 campaign -- which relied heavily on the Internet  - failed. In short, they assumed that because something didn't work the first time that it would never work.

Unlearning requires that people and organizations be cognizant of growing and changing trends. Just because something didn't work yesterday doesn't mean that it won't work tomorrow.

Unlearning Campaigning

Technology Review has an insightful article on the power of social networking entitled "How Obama Really Did It."  What is interesting about the article is that many top leaders within the Hillary Clinton campaign dismissed the power of the Internet and social networking because Howard Dean's 2004 campaign -- which relied heavily on the Internet  - failed. In short, they assumed that because something didn't work the first time that it would never work.

Unlearning requires that people and organizations be cognizant of growing and changing trends. Just because something didn't work yesterday doesn't mean that it won't work tomorrow.

Unlearning Choice

It is easy to believe that having more choices will lead to a greater level of happiness. However, as this new study suggests, people may be more satisfied when selecting from a smaller set of options.

There are a couple of reasons for this somewhat counter-intuitive finding, but the most poignant seems to be that when people select from a wider array of choices they often experience a greater sense of regret (after their selection) because they aren't as confident that they made the optimal choice.

Trying to convince people that having fewer choices is a good idea will be difficult endeavor, but smart companies may be able to enhance their customers feeling of satisfaction by presenting information in new and innovative methods. For instance, think of on-line dating companies. Instead of presenting customers with an ever widening array of potential partners, they might instead employ sophisticated algorithms to narrow the list of prospective mates from which a person selects their choice.

Unlearning Learning

When contemplating the future, people need to keep a very open mind about what might be possible. Consider this article which describes how researchers at UC San Diego are developing facial recognition technology that can recognize if a person is having trouble understanding an educational lesson—say in mathematics or biology.

As the technology continues to improve, one possible implication is that smart devices and robots will become better and more effective teachers because they will be able to pace lesson plans to an individual student’s ability to comprehend the information which is being presented.

Longer term, it is possible that robots and other smart devices will become more effective teachers than even human teachers because the machines will understand each student’s learning idiosyncrasies and then present material in a manner which is optimized for that individual student’s learning style.

Now, I understand how discomforting the idea that a robot might be a better teacher than your old favorite third grade teacher, Mrs. Hubbard, ever was; but, as that wise American philosopher Yoggi Berra once said, “The future ain’t what it used to be.”

For a more contemporary look at how technology is transforming education, I’d invite you to read this article which explains how Nintendo DS is helping Japanese students learn the English language, or this article which explains how video games are actually helping students learn such topics as history and world affairs.

In each case, advances in technology may result in parents, teachers and administrators having to unlearn some long-held assumptions -- such as the idea that teachers are the only ones who can teach, or that video games impede students ability to learn.

P.S. For opposing view on why robots might never make good teachers, I'd invite you to read this review of a recent article which appeared in the New Yorker.

Top-Secret Unlearning

Computer World has an interesting article discussing the CIA's use of Intellipedia -- a Wikipedia-like project for its analysts. As a former naval intelligence officer, I think this is a fantastic idea but -- perhaps not unsurprisingly -- the idea has been met with some resistance from within the intelligence community. According to the article, in fact, the founders of the initiative were originally called "traitors."

The idea of sharing knowledge and working among different agencies is undoubtedly foreign to many in the intelligence community; but it is unrealistic to expect even the most talented analyst to stay abreast of all the information, data and knowledge that is necessary to track, monitor and anticipate our enemies actions. It is only prudent that we adopt new tools such as Intellipedia -- which may help alleviate some of the burden.

However, before the tool can reach its full potential, it is essential that those intelligence officers who are not contributing to the wiki "unlearn" the idea that intelligence can only be analyzed one way or by a small group of people.

Interestingly, some of the most eager users of Intelliedia are older intelligence officers who view it as a way of sharing their vast knowledge with their younger associates before they retire.

(For those interested in better understanding the power of open-source initiatives, I'd refer you to the now classic story of how Gold Corp tapped the power of the Internet to find $3 billion in gold or this intriguing story, which I cite in my book, about how a citizen sleuth used Google Earth to uncover a Chinese military secret.)

Embrace a New Dimension

It has been said that the reason doctors and surgeons have not embraced simulated training to the same degree as airline pilots is because they don’t “go down” with their patients. The implicit message is that pilots have an incentive to utilize the very best training tools.

This distinction is important because as 3-D display and virtual reality technology continues to improve it will soon reach a point where it is just as good if not better than current training techniques. The U.S. military has already embraced virtual reality training to prepare soldiers before they go into actual combat because it has been demonstrated to save lives. The same will soon be true in the health care industry, but first doctors and surgeons (and the medical institutions that train them) may need to unlearn the training methods that they have relied on for the past many decades.

This lesson in unlearning, however, is not limited to the health care sector. As this article suggests, innovative leaders in the automotive industry are already embracing 3-D and virtual reality technology. There is no reason educators and professionals in a host of other industries can’t do the same.

Unlearn the Need for Paper

Yesterday, I watched this five-minute video of futurist Patrick Dixon discuss why the future of paper is bright for the foreseeable future. He could very well be correct, but if you watch the video below it is possible to envision a scenario in which the future of paper is not so rosy. As flexible electronic technology continues to get better, it'll be interesting to see if schools, newspapers, traditional media and scores of other businesses (including the paper industry) can unlearn their old ways of doing business and embrace the new opportunities that this technology portends.