I don’t know about you but I have a confession to make.  I have found this year challenging in some ways.  In particularly from the point of view of realising the constant amount of change and flux in the world and having to keep up with it all.  There are many people (me included), who at times may feel overwhelmed, stressed and frustrated with their work and never being able to keep up or even finish a project before a new one starts.

Some years ago, I began to realise that the world I knew yesterday was not the world of today and certainly will not be the world of tomorrow.

In the words of the Game of Thrones, “You Know Nothing”.

I am now comfortable with not knowing –  although in the early days when I was in the corporate world, I was not.

Initially, irritation, disappointment and annoyance set in.  All that hard work, experience, business school studies, was that all for nought I’d ask myself? Why don’t people see my value anymore?  What just happened? Why am I feeling as if I’m in Ground Hog Day doing the same things over and over and achieving nothing to show for it?

Then I had an epiphany.

I realised I couldn’t use the old models anymore to make sense of my current world.

I had to change MYSELF and MY thinking.

Most of all, I had to let go of the tools, templates, models, frameworks, the ‘crutches’ of my Learning and Development profession and toss them aside.  In their place, I had to open my eyes, mind and heart and welcome the flux. I made a choice to share my work and learning publicly and accept the risk and vulnerability that came with it.

This meant an acceptance of not having all the answers anymore and most of all, not having to answer to anyone but myself.

If you approach things from the perspective of not knowing, you’re more likely to explore, discover and create new ways to deal with problems and that’s the path I chose to follow.

This year, I’ve had many people question my writing and actions openly and also privately.

From the use of certain tools such as Blab, Vlogging, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, Gamification and Snapchat (for some strange reason this particular platform has touched a raw nerve for some people), to other cyclical conversations and continual debates on the relevance of social learning, 70-20-10 and social media for networked learning with people in my field of corporate Learning and Development.

Some have been in the spirit of heated discussion and debate, others have been personal attacks from a position of assumed authority.

Regardless of what they were,  I wanted to share that the discovery journeys I go on and share on this blog publicly are just that – my own learning journeys, experiences and reflections.

They are the things that capture my imagination and ideas at the time and ones where I try, share, play and explore publicly and openly with my readers.

They are not endorsements of the product, tools, technology, platform or technology nor do I want to have you believe that I am forcing you to change your current behaviour and thinking toward them. Only you’re responsible for that.  (If there are any endorsements, I will explicitly say so).

My aim is to merely share my own thinking, adventures and experiments with  new tools and platforms and how they may be used for communicating, working, connecting and learning.

If you’re someone who wants to come along for the ride too and try them out with me, I welcome you – we can both learn together.

But if you’re not, that’s okay too and welcome any opportunity to read your alternative views and perspectives of your own discoveries and experiments!