The future of learning is lateral.
“Everybody is an f-ing teacher!” I said all of a sudden. My wife and I were on our way home from a wonderful conference we attended a couple years ago. My outburst was the result of my constant wondering why some people had been on stage during the conference, while others had been participants. Frankly, I had had some very interesting conversations with participants, many of whom could have been presenting and leading lectures and workshops. It wasn’t that I thought the wrong people were chosen for those roles, rather my point is that I could have learned something of value from pretty much everyone who was there. As much as this realization excited me, it also upset me. It was concerning just how many people didn’t realize this about themselves: they are interesting and they have something to teach. Let’s get personal: You are interesting. And yes, YOU have something to teach!
Immediately my mind started to race: there wasn’t anything that set this event apart – this must be true all the time, in every situation in my life; if I learned and studied with my amazing friends, I would be so well educated! I could learn exactly what I wanted.... I could create my own custom education by meeting and talking to the right people; we could bypass tradition top-down education and learn horizontally; skills and wisdom are what count, not titles and degrees. Knowledge that is not taught in the traditional class setting will be made accessible. Everybody can share life skills. People can offer their skills, but more importantly they can put out requests for skills and knowledge they would like to learn. Seeing those requests will help other people realize they have something to contribute. It would make learning demand driven.
I call this kind of learning “Lateral Learning...” just like lateral thinking it is “outside the box” and horizontal rather than top down: It is lateral.
It became more and more apparent that lateral learning is the future of learning and the world needs a way to share knowledge, wisdom and skills. So we began to create Knowded, a platform that makes the invisible knowledge and wisdom in our surroundings visible; a platform where everybody can offer and request to learn skills; a platform connecting people to learn from each other.
Knowded.com is now online and we are all one step closer to being able to find out what amazing knowledge surrounds us all the time. I am excited to see what the lateral future will look like!
