How do I learn?

Last week, I spent a day at the Charity Learning Consortium conference. The day was focussed on eLearning and among a number of very good speakers was one from Google. His talk focussed on how Google rank people internally as a knowledge resource, and have started to engage people as technology mentors and ‘ad hoc’ trainers based on (a) their willingness to fulfil such a role, and (b) their ranking as an ‘expert’ in a particular field by their peers.

This discussion set me thinking about my approach to learning. Some years ago I heard a lecture from Marcus Buckingham based on his book ‘Now Discover Your Strengths’. Marcus works for Gallup and which does thousands and thousands of assessments of people’s individual strengths. I’ll leave you to look up the detail, but anyway, it turns out my number one strength is ‘Learner’. To quote the definition in Marcus’s book: 

‘You love to learn….. The process, more than the content or result, is especially exciting for you.’

Despite this, over the years, I have been on very few training courses. I now learn through a whole new set of media. Number one among them is Google. If I want to find out about a subject, I Google it. I may watch a video, read an article, find a conference, but I pretty much never find a course in a classroom. Why? Because I get bored in classrooms. I read the articles, or the manual and play with the technology (if I can get my hands on it. That’s how I learn. 

Why am I telling you this? Because I used to think this was a poor way to keep up to date, but the Charity Learning Consortium meeting, along with a number of other ‘experts’ in the field who I have heard talk about learning, have confirm to me that it isn’t. And continually learning in the IT world is more important now that it ever has been. If you wait for someone to come along and offer to teach you about the new technologies that are out there, you will be left behind. 

The more I talk to people about this, I realise I am not such an unusual learner. So if you hear about a technology you think sounds interesting, Google it and learn about it. It may be just what your non-profit needs.