Teachers and Mentors

Seth Godin has a great blog post  about two different types of teaching- one that’s all about facts and procedures, and one that’s more about learning to see and solve interesting problems.  This caught my attention, because I’ve been having alot of conversations lately with folks about what makes a good teacher, and the difference between “teaching” and being a mentor.

In the medical profession, folks graduate from medical school, but they are not yet ready to go out and practice medicine- they need to do some more formal training- a residency- usually in some sort of specialty.  (Even family practice is a specialty.)  Yet in residency, the training and additional education young doctors need before they can practice on their own comes in two forms.  One is specialized reading- sometimes the reading is assigned, but most of the time, it is assumed you will use your “educational money” and buy the specialty text books you’ll need, not only as a resident but in practice, when you come up against something you might not have seen before.  The second is on the job practice, where you see patients but are supervised by another “attending” physician, who is supposed to help you learn and guide you, like a mentor.  Not all doctors teaching residents are good at imparting the art of their practice to others, as well as the base knowledge required to do the job.  Practicing medicine and teaching it are two different things, and not everyone is good at both.

Similarly, many teachers went into teaching because they love learning.  They loved being in school themselves.  They loved having a guiding path through all the cool stuff there is to know, and somewhere along the way, decided they wanted to do this themselves.  They mastered the whole school process, start to finish. They almost have a nostalgia for school- it is a precious place to them.   But the problem is often that the best students don’t always make the best teachers.

Teaching is a different skill set from learning.  While teaching and learning are clearly complimentary, they are not the same thing.  My dad, for example, was a brilliant engineer, and fantastic at math.  Yet when he tried to help me with calculus homework, I often ended up frustrated and in tears.  For me, the conflict arose because he largely couldn’t remember what it was like not to know all this math, and couldn’t explain it in a way a neophyte would understand- what the Heath Brothers call “The Curse of Knowledge” in their great book, Made to Stick. I think many teachers suffer from this problem as well-they love their subject matter and understand it so well that they have a hard time remembering what it was like not to know.

The skill of being able to be a guide through complicated material, all while making it an exciting and engaging process is a rare skill.  While I think there are methods and checklists and other tools people can use to help make what they know accessible to others, great teaching is an art form.  It requires not only understanding the subject area, but understanding it well enough and liking it enough that you can make it exciting for almost anyone.  It requires a bit of stage presence, improv skills, and being able to communicate with the students so you know what they understand and what they don’t.  Teaching at its best, is an interactive experience between teacher and student. (This is also why going to high school or college just by watching a bunch of DVD’s is not equivalent to being enrolled in a real school with real classrooms, but I digress.)

Sometimes the best teachers are people who are less interested in the one true path, but recognize there are many individual ways to get to the same goal.  They are good mentors, guides and parents.  They are interested in someone else’s success, and they get joy in seeing others succeed, and don’t worry that someone else may be smarter than they are- in fact, the best teachers are often looking for those smarter than themselves, so they can continue learning and growing themselves.

The essence of a great teacher involves being passionate about your subject area, and being a fantastic communicator, who can turn that love of knowledge into a spark of inspiration and curiosity in others.  It’s the reason why I think all teachers should learn a bit about marketing and the way people turn commercial ideas into what Seth Godin would call “an idea virus” that spreads on its own.  Using the tools the Heath Brothers talk about in Made to Stick, for example, can help anybody make their ideas and communications more effective and more memorable, by essentially hacking what our brain natively finds most interesting.  This can help business people end “death by powerpoint” presentations, but it can just as easily make you a better writer, a better teacher, and a better communicator across the board.

In the end, good teaching requires that people are personally invested in the process and look on it as mentoring as well as a delivery of knowledge vehicle.  The teacher might be driving the bus, but the bus can be an old school bus, a greyhound, a tricked out  tour bus, a local or express.  The bus comes in many sizes, varieties and with different amenities.  But unless the bus is responsive to the needs of the passengers, and can get them to where they need to be, it’s not very useful.  The driver, like a good teacher, needs to be aware of the road, the path, and the needs of the passengers in order to do the best job possible.

We need to make sure all of our teachers- at every level, from elementary through graduate school, training and beyond- understand not only how to make lesson plans, but how to meet the needs of kids in their classrooms.  And sometimes, it’s going to require “marketing” that science lesson, history or math to a group of reluctant learners, to get them on the right road in the long run.

Are you a good teacher?  What makes a good teacher to you?  Is it a skill or an art or a mixture of both?

Tags: education, heath brothers, made to stick, mentors, seth godin, teaching

Longevity of New Media

Someone on Twitter was talking about how to celebrate a big Tweet number- 25,000 tweets. Some people have chosen to try to raise money for their momentous tweet, but what struck me was what might have been said in those 25,000 tweets. Does that equal a novel? A Book? Since Tweets, for most purposes, disappear after about two weeks (1) much of the content created is history.

This made me think about the longevity of digital media. Some things, like blogs and podcasts, are more durable. This information is stored not only on your website and servers, but by others, including the Internet Wayback Machine. Twitter, and to a certain extent, Facebook, relies more on real-time day to day content, rather than provide any sort of long term search-ability or archiving. Yet with more and more people sharing news items on Twitter, communicating with customers and the like, how much of this information will continue to exist in the future? What becomes “evidence” could be saved for later on, whether its for journalists researching a story, hisotrians, or even laywers?  Would this stuff be admissible in a Court of Law? I’m not sure whether or not we know the answer to any of these questions yet.

For me, I often share information and links on Facebook, sometimes for me, sometimes for friends. I’ve opted to share many things through Delicious, and to Facebook through Friendfeed. This means I have a tagged list of blog posts and articles, creating my own clip file, my own library and encyclopedia that grows over time. But if I only tagged this stuff and shared it out through Twitter, it would likely be gone.

How much of what you are creating online is meant to have a lifespan?  How long to you want to be held responsible for opinions, tweets, snarky comments, etc.?  How much is intended to be in the moment alone?

A case in point is the LD Podcast.  I have had the show on hiatus, and I’m working hard to put it back into production in the near future, spurned on by recent emails from a number of sources who are discovering the content for the first time.  I’m realizing that the content I create has a lifespan far longer than my attention span, and it continues to provide value to others, long after I have taken it for granted.

I hope this provides a little food for thought- Where are you putting your digital media energies?  What’s providing the most real time versus long tail value?  And, what can you do to create both?

Most of all, don’t forget that sometimes, creating content with longevity might actually create the most long term value.

(1) unless they have been stored, archived or otherwise placed in different formats…

Tags: creation, creativity, facebook, ld podcast, longevity, media, podcast, twitter

Repairing Relationships

Yesterday, I spoke at the Social Media Plus conference, and finally got to meet the great Jason Falls.  In Jason’s presentation, he spoke about how sometimes, a relationship with a customer gets damaged, and there may be no going back.  Sometimes, there’s nothing you can do to make someone else happy.  But if that person is noisy, how do we make them at least pacified and less of a thorn in your side?  How can you declare a truce or at least an end to open hostilities?

A friend of mine had an issue with a local coffee shop, that I happen to love.  There was an issue with credit card numbers being harvested, most likely by an employee, and this caused a headache both for the customers and the business.  My friend now has a vendetta against the shop, because she felt they did not act fast enough, or seem to take it seriously enough from her perspective.  From an outsider’s perspective, I see the notice in the shop about the incident and why they no longer accept credit cards.  I’ve always paid in cash, so I am largely unaffected, and feel like the business has done what it could to make the situation better, and solve the problem.  Yet, when I check in on Foursquare at the location, I receive a warning text from my friend not to trust this business.

I get that my friend is irate and sees this as an opportunity to both protect others and send a message to the business that they should treat their customers better.  But I wonder when this bad experience becomes slander.  When is it a vendetta?  What can the business do to show my friend that they made a mistake?  That they get it now?  That they have done what they can, and need to move on?  When will my friend decide that they have done enough electronic mayhem and decide that it’s okay to let go now?  (Side note- What’s the difference between a pit bull and a REALLY pissed off customer?  A pit bull will eventually let go.)

In social media, we openly acknowledge and encourage everyone we know to use the platforms out there to talk, both good and bad, about the experiences you have.  We tell businesses to listen to their customers and respond, because a quick response to bad stuff is primarily good customer service, and secondly, tends to minimize the “I hate (insert business name here) and will do everything at my disposal to let the world know- and aren’t you unlucky that I know how to make this part of your digital footprint???”

From my own perspective, I make every effort to resolve any issues I have locally first.  Then, if it’s a chain or franchise, I may escalate up the ladder.  If I am not getting satisfaction, I may take it to my blog or twitter to see if I get a response.  But mostly, since I know the ‘net is a powerful tool, I save it as the last ditch response to problems, rather than the first.  I try to be someone who is all about building good relationships, especially since you never know if you’re going to need that bridge you’re about to burn later on.  I basically always want to solve the problem, forgive and move on, because frankly, anger takes too much of my time and energy, and does more harm to me than good.

The plain truth is that we’re never going to be perfect.  We’re going to make mistakes.  Acknowledging them early, and doing what you can to solve the problem and save the relationship is optimal, but sometimes, it’s just too far gone to repair.  Asking what you can do to make it better or help make amends goes a long way to dampening down the fire in the belly that happens when people are mad or disappointed, but sometimes, nothing will work and the relationship, like with that old boyfriend or girlfriend, is simply over.  If you can both part and go on about your business- that’s the best for both parties.  Turning someone into Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction and creating a stalker, set on doing you harm, is far from optimal.  But the more you can do to help that person let go and move on, the better off everyone will be in long run.  Preserve everyone’s dignity.  Acknowledge mistakes.  Acknowledge their feelings, and that there’s little you can do to make it up to them in a way that will be satisfying.  And agree to move on, as best as possible.

The metrics we use to repair relationships with friends, family members and coworkers work the same way with business relationships.  Treat everyone- your customers, your business partners, your suppliers, your bosses- everyone- with respect, and the likelihood and frequency of the irreparable relationship will go down.  And that’s for everyone’s benefit in the long run.

Tags: Jason Falls, repairing relationship, social media plus, trust

Filling Niches

One of my favorite concepts from all of those years studying biology was the concept of the niche. An organism or creature finds a spot where the competition isn’t too intense, and raw materials they can work with, and decides to set up shop. They work with their environment and find a place where they can be successful, or they die out. Sometimes the environment around them changes, and the creature needs to adapt or perish.

The same thing is true for businesses, economics, families,you name it- as it’s true for bacteria or lemurs. If you find a niche and can exploit it to your advantage, you have a strategy for success that will carry you far. That is essentially the whole basis for great books like “Blue Ocean Strategy” (Amazon Link) that talk about finding markets where the competition isn’t fierce, or just isn’t there yet- you have the ability to own the niche.

One way businesses achieve this is by creating their own ecosystems.  Apple is brilliant at this, with iTunes and the App Store- it has created a whole economy that it owns.  It lets others play in the sandbox, helping diversify the entire ecosystem, making it more robust, and letting others compete to fill in the niches of best song, or best movie or best work productivity App, all the while taking a percentage, like an agent, as owner of the ecosystem or world.  Amazon has done this, as has Ebay.  All of these ecosystems compete at points of overlap- like a town encroaching on an animal’s habitat- but for large swaths of the ecosystem, there is less competition and life goes on pretty happily.

Finding your niche is difficult for a lot of folks, in part, because it starts with the very hard question of who YOU are, what you do best, and what you love to do.  Sometimes, we can fill a niche because we are perfectly suited for a job that’s available, but if it doesn’t make you thrilled or excited to go to work every day, how are you really going to have the heart required to maximize the opportunity day after day?

Another spot of friction is when you know your talents and strengths, how do you communicate those to others is a short, coherent, easy to grasp way so they can help you find a niche that works?  Some people refer to this as a lobby or elevator pitch- what is your tag line that inspires other people to be interested in you and hire you?

For example, on Twitter, I am largely known as LD Podcast, for the podcast I’ve done about learning and learning disabilities.  But the important part there is really the Learning part- that transcends people struggling in school or work with things like dyslexia and ADHD.  I feel I’m all about learning and teaching, and trying to find the most effective ways to make your message clear.  I read business books and marketing books because these fields are all about making messages clear in order to get someone to buy something.  I take all these ideas and concepts and apply them to help businesses, medical education, and other clients/niche owners to make their ideas and talents more easily understood.  When you understand, quickly, what someone or some business is about, you can quickly decide whether you need that service, and you can convey that information easily to others- making the idea a virus, as Seth Godin would say.  The principals are the same whether we’re talking math facts for middle school kids or marketing plans for adults or social media tools-  you’ve got to be able to make a case and sell your ideas for anyone else to understand them and do anything with them.  And that, in a nutshell, is about good, precise communication.

Which brings us back to science.  In science and technical writing, precision is really important.  I’ve spent hours struggling over a sentence or two in an abstract, trying to get the exact language as concise and accurate as possible.  Likewise, in law school, your ability to win a case or argument depends on how you use language to communicate your client’s position to another, and use supporting information to convince the decision maker you are correct.  In business and marketing, you have to do the same thing- use language to convince someone your product or service solves a need or problem- maybe even one they didn’t know they had. (Just ask Ron Popiel, or read about him in Malcolm Gladwell’s “What The Dog Saw“.)

In the end, it’s all about finding your unique niche where you can thrive.  You need enough resources (which includes money and customers for business, often money and students for education) to make the most of the niche, and you have to be constantly willing to adapt and change with the environment.  If you can’t adapt and evolve, you will likely suffer, decline, and possible even go extinct, or at least out of business.

It’s easier said than done of course.  But the process starts and ends with you, not with the shiny new objects or social media tools or anything else.  I’d love to be able to say Get Twitter and life will be perfect, but that’s not true.  Like monkeys figuring out to poke a stick in a log to get food, it’s all about how you use that tool to its greatest effect that will bring you success, and it often involves experimentation, failure, and reinvention time after time.

I know my life is one great experiment.  I think I know something, and that knowledge gets challenged.  I can stick to my guns, or adapt to the new conditions.  I have to apply what I know.  In reading The Checklist Manifesto- How to get Things Right, they talk about two distinct kinds of mistakes we make all the time.  There are errors we make of ignorance- we don’t know what we don’t know- and then there are egregious errors-  when we know the right thing to do, but we just can’t seem to execute as we’re supposed to, leading to disaster.

For example, I know easily 20 different diet plan that promise to help me lose weight, but it’s not a lack of knowledge, it’s the consistent implementation over time that causes trip-ups.  Part of it is programming the environment, and making doing the right thing easier than doing the self-destructive or ignorant or convenient thing.  Part of it is keeping simple rules forefront in your mind, and avoiding the infinite shades of gray.

Success will be measured by how well you can adapt to the “rules” or metrics of your environment, or control the environment to your advantage. It’s how well you can fill your social, cultural or economic niche.

And that’s why studying biology and evolution is essential to everyone.  Period.  Know your niche and optimize it.

Tags: biological basis of business, business, education, finding your niche, ideas, malcolm gladwell, marketing, niche, seth godin, what the dog saw

First Impressions of Linchpin by Seth Godin

I was one of the lucky early few that signed up by making a donation to the Acumen Fund, to get an advanced copy of Linchpin by  Seth Godin.

Seth has asked people to read it, think about it and give a thoughtful review.  I couldn’t wait to tell you about it until I finished the book- I’ve found myself quoting concepts in the first few chapters to friends  already, so I thought it was time to share.

Seth starts out the book by talking about how the old American dream and template we’ve all been fed is history.  There are tons of people who still believe all you have to do is follow the rules and you’ll get a job where you then follow the rules and get rewarded.  But the bottom line that many folks are finding out is that following the rules has ended up being a sucker’s deal, a bait and switch bargain.  The safety and security of jobs and pensions and retirement at a reasonable age, in reasonable health, where you enjoy a permanent vacation until you die is history, and we just have to accept that.  It sounds harsh, but I think we all know that’s true.

As someone with young kids, I know I have to prepare them for a very different world than the one I grew up in, and  that is both scary and challenging.  They’re going to need flexibility, maintain those qualities of being curious, being creative and innovative problem solvers for the rest of their lives.  With schools still programmed, in many sectors, to produce widgets for giant “work”  machines, how can I counteract this effectively?  Certainly, my kids are growing up exposed to innovative thinkers making their own game every day, but I know I still have to find more opportunities for them to flex these muscles on their own now, so they are willing to do so as they get older as well.

Seth encourages all of us to be creative, to be artists, to become remarkable and indispensable.  I wanted to find an exception to this rule, but I found I can’t.  At first, I thought- well, you know the professions- Doctors, Lawyers- we need those folks to make everything else work- how much real creativity do you have as a physician?  Well, and then I took a closer look at what my husband does every day.  Sure, he’s an OB-GYN, but he’s involved with research, working on projects including looking at fetal growth curves, how they can eventually eliminate prematurity, and other projects that at the heart of them require this creative problem solver mentality.  He has to take everything he knows, figure out the problems that are still there, that cause problems big and small every day, and design research protocols to try to make them better, so each patient coming through his clinic gets the best care possible.  It means getting the doctors and nurses and patients in the practice to consider different schedules, to try new clinics like “birth control before breakfast” and step out of their own comfort zones and potential myopia.  He has to ask people to try to do things differently and make a difference- not just by bringing new people into the world (which is pretty amazing in and of itself) but to be able to do so in a constantly changing environment, with financial pressures, with each patient having their own unique set of problems, and being able to improvise on the fly.  The best doctors do this well, and do become linchpins, not only to their patients, but to their colleagues and institutions where they practice.

I wanted to find some exception to Seth’s rule, being a believer that education and formal college educations are not worthless, but have value beyond memorizing facts. I want to believe we do teach people things in school that matter and its not all about grinding creativity out of people.   But I think becoming a linchpin is not about whether you’ve had any formal training or education in anything- it’s ultimately about taking your cumulative knowledge and experience from every thing you have ever done, and be willing to use all of it, at any time, as tools to solve the next problem.

For example, I started reading Seth Godin and a bunch of books in the “business/management” section of the bookstore, not long after my husband introduced me to Marcus Buckingham and the Strength-based approach to, well, everything.  I rapidly found that all the books in the education and parenting section of the book store, where I frequently spent time, were missing the boat.  The really interesting stuff about managing people, developing them to reach their full potential, and the like were all sitting in the business section.  I realized that running a family is exactly like running a small business, and everything I knew had infinite applications outside of the box one might put them in.  “Pediatric logisitics”- managing kids/people, schedules, activities, performance (grades), camp, and keeping an eye on the larger issues at the same time are all the same skill sets I use in my business, in running Podcamps, in every other aspect of my life as well.

The main point here is this- you have to be a person who strives to make a difference in everything you do.  You have to care.  You need to look out for yourself, but you also can’t afford not to look out for others as well.  You need to be able to use all of your experience, no matter where it’s from, and weave it into a new solution to try and make a change for the better.  There are no more silos.  There are no more boxes.    It’s all about bringing all your resources to bear to try to solve problems big and small, and not being afraid of having a “crazy” idea.  Those crazy ideas in the hands fo the right people, shared with other people who care, mean all sorts of resources can be marshaled and then moving the needle becomes easier than ever.

Thanks, Seth, for the jolt of espresso to my creativity, and for reminding me how important it is to care .  Thanks for the reminder that we have  to be willing to try the “impossible” (which turns out only to be a bit difficult) and can be accomplished if we just try to see the possibilities rather than shut down because it seems risky or scary.

I look forward to the chapters to come.

Tags: creativity, education, linchpin, seth godin, taking risk