It's about people. Like you.
This whole blog might occasionally look like a potpourri of topics, but in reality it's about connections. When we make a connection, our world expands a little bit. We learn something. We grow. We have an opportunity to develop something meaningful and deep and quite possibly lasting.
When we make a connection, we have an opportunity to be of use. If we sequester this new knowledge like it's top-secret, we render it inert and useless. If we openly share it, then we have value.
Growth is an endless cycle of making connections, seeking connections, and offering connections.
This blog is about three kinds of connections.
- Connecting people with people. What else can possibly play a larger role in our progress? Think about the people who mean the most to you. With the possible exception of your mother (if she's on the list), there was a moment for all of them at which you did not know them yet. Something happened. A connection was made. Your life was enriched, and you enriched the life of another.
It makes me sad to meet others who aren't interested in making more connections with people. This isn't simple introversion. There are introverts and extroverts in this crowd. It's more like low self-esteem. It's an active refusal to recognize self-value and admit that others might actually like to find out more about you.
At this holiday season, make an effort to reach out to three new people. These could become the most significant friends of the remainder of your life! - Connecting people with ideas. New knowledge allows us to make more responsible decisions, and to relate better to the world around us. We learn, we grow, we test, we fail, we learn some more, we master, and then we teach.
Our responsibility is to maintain minds open enough to recognize new good ideas, and to internalize and then actualize the best of them so others can benefit from it. Once a good idea has been connected with us, we should then connect it with other people. - Connecting ideas with other ideas. Knowledge builds. And insights come from knowledge on lots of subjects. You can be an expert on math, or on religion, or on science, or on history. But you'll be a better expert on history if you have some understanding of math and religion and science.
So you'll see posts here that make connections between seemingly unrelated issues.
The biggie will be how to use technology to connect other knowledge to people. That's what we instructional designers do.
What seemingly unrelated thoughts crossed your mind as you were reading this post?
