In any field with stuff worth learning, knowledge-hoarding is shamefully rampant. Have you ever asked someone you admired about how they made something you’re curious about, only to be rebuffed that “It’s a secret”? It’s happened to me 100s of times, and still, I press on to other sources. After all, there may…

I’ve been thinking lately, what makes someone an "expert" in his or her field? Apparently Lorelle VanFossen has been thinking the same thing, because she recently wrote a post called What Gives You the Right to Tell Me? at The Blog Herald that explores the issue of expertise in some depth. For…

Most of the skills I use to make a living are skills I’ve learned on my own: Web design, desktop publishing, marketing, personal productivity skills, even teaching! And most of what I know about science, politics, computers, art, guitar-playing, world history, writing, and a dozen other topics I’ve picked up outside of any formal education. This…

Most of us have one or two areas of knowledge that we strive to know very well — things related to our jobs, of course, and maybe a hobby or two. But while it’s important to develop a deep understanding of the things that matter most to us, it is just as important to…

The brain is a tangled web of information. We don’t remember single facts, but instead we interlink everything by association. Anytime we experience a new event, our brains tie the sights, smells, sounds and our own impressions together into a new relationship. Our brain remembers things by repetition, association, visual imagery, and all five senses. By…

OEDb consolidates 77 ways to knowledge and learning that can improve your learning performance from varies sources. It includes areas like Health, Balance, Perspective and Focus, Recall Techniques, Visual Ads, Verbal and Auditory Techniques, Kinesthetic Techniques, Self-Motivation Techniques, and Supplemental Techniques. There are also specific tips for teachers, tutors, parents, students and self-studiders on how…

Last week Thursday, I challenged you to consider how you can best take advantage of our “New World” of learning opportunities. The possibilities waiting for you are extraordinary. I asked you to reflect back on when you feel you have learned best, so you can rally together those lessons-learned about when you have been a…

When I think back over a lifetime of learning, I realize that there were certain times I was a great student, and others in which I was just going through the motions, reaping relatively little from the effort. My schooling was a period of time when I learned pretty intensively because that was simply the overall…

Over at Slow Leadership, this week has been all about using your time. I don’t set out to give each week’s postings a single theme, but sometimes it happens that way. It began with considering the relationship between time, action and thought in a posting I called Taking Your Time. Some people…

There’s a common saying that human beings were given two ears (and two eyes), but only one mouth to show that they should listen (and look) at least twice as much as they speak. I think that for managers and leaders that ratio is far too low. Looking and listening should happen maybe ten or…

Corante has a great list of reading materials for aspiring knowledge workers. In North America, summer is upon us, so maybe we’re also prespiring knowledge workers. The list has some greats. Here are a few: Improv Wisdom Bird by Bird The Mind Map Book The Creative Habit Thinking for a Living As you can tell, it’s a great list full…