Inspiration Through Information
Once upon a time, many American companies dedicated a significant amount of their time and resources to training their employees. One standout example, IBM, as far back as the 1930’s, was famous for their employee education programs that were in large part responsible for IBM’s success. Times have changed. Companies today are spending increasingly less […]
If you’re like me, you’ve read and studied a gazillion different personal and professional productivity approaches offered by countless experts, or supposed experts, in the field. And if you’re also like me, most of them don’t work. Or at least they don’t work exactly as described. Why? Because everyone is unique and therefore everyone’s approach […]
This post thread started with my book review of Proving You’re Qualified. In previous posts I discussed some of the elements of an education portfolio – résumés, letters of recommendation, testimonials and work samples. Although what elements go into the making of a good education portfolio varies by individual and job target, a good one might consist […]
I have been a lifelong consumer of self-improvement (personal development) information. In an effort to continually improve myself I’ve read books, watched videos and DVD’s, participated in discussion groups and seminars, reflected on spiritual and philosophical teachings, attempted to practice what I have learned, researched the internet, and thought long and hard about how to […]
Secrets of a Buccaneer-Scholar: How Self-Education and the Pursuit of Passion Can Lead to a Lifetime of Success By James Marcus Bach Published by Scribner Here’s a great book self-educators will enjoy. Bach employs the “buccaneer” analogy to describe his personal quest for a self-directed and personally meaningful education. Bach never finished high school, yet […]
I was just reading a story in the New York Times about the massive student loan debt being incurred by students. They are deeming it another looming financial crisis and I’m guessing they are correct. Since students are leaving school often with $50,000-$100,000 in debt, I used a student loan interest calculator to crunch some numbers. If […]
The World in a Phrase: A Brief History of the Aphorism By James Geary Published by Bloomsbury USA Quotes and aphorisms have always fascinated me. There’s something compelling about short, concise wisdom that packs a punch that longer prose might not. For those people like me who worship these forms of writing, I urge you […]
As I’ve previously mentioned many times, TED is my favorite website. You’ll never feel you’ve wasted a moment of your time by viewing any of the short speeches the site hosts by a wide range of fascinating and interesting people. Incredibly educational. The nice folks running TED have been kind enough to group together their […]
In a previous post I talked about the need to keep informal learning in the workplace truly informal. Another, and even more important, component to successful self education in the workplace is building a learning culture. What do I mean by a learning culture? Companies and organizations, particularly very large ones, tend to get mired […]
In a previous post I visited the question of what education is. However, as I’ve been writing a lot about self-education on this blog, today I again had to pause and think about exactly how I define what an education is. Is it a set of skills and knowledge that prepares us for employment? Is […]