Learning: Amassing Knowledge vs. Creating Understanding

March 14, 2010

In my “New Year’s Resolution” post I promised to write more…that hasn’t really happened as most of my writing time is committed to Greenhorn Connect related content.  However, I’ve just had an inspiration for a post and so I’d like to share it here.

Since I really dove into entrepreneurship a few years ago, I’ve found I have an insatiable thirst for learning anything and everything related to the topic.  All this time though, I’ve been thinking about what that really means, “to learn.”  I think that in life there are many that seek to learn, but often it’s merely to amass knowledge; I know this fact or that statistic. I’m well-read on this subject.  That’s all well and good, but if they’re just facts and merely someone else’s ideas…how much has been gained?

My goal is not to just amass facts. I’m not looking to be an encyclopedia.  I want to understand. I have so many questions about so many things. And yes, studying and reading always helps, but I always consider it in the context of greater understanding. I think this analogy may help:

You have a farm. On this farm all kinds of fruits and vegetables grow.  Those that are merely amassing knowledge would look at what they have and say that they have hundreds of broccoli heads and thousands of ears of corn.  Those building understanding look deeper and understand how they can take the vegetables and make salads and juices and other unique dishes; each item grown on the farm represents an ingredient, not an end result. When they file this knowledge away of the farm and its produce, those with understanding are thinking of it from the perspective of how the different dishes were made from the farm, while those amassing knowledge only see it in the narrow verticals of each fruit or vegetable produced Those with understanding are also more easily able to transport the concepts created from the dishes from the farm into other areas; everything around them is a small piece to a bigger picture…one that is not necessarily completely clear, but is larger and better than before because of what’s been added.

I think that it’s as important what the question you’re asking is as the means to which you’re going about your learning. For example, I’ve recently become very interested in user experience.  The questions I have are related to better understanding people. I want to be able to better step out of what I think (and all the biases and preconceived notions distorting it) and be able to understand others.  My impressions when I come to a website are not the same as someone else’s.  To accomplish this, I could go straight to a bunch of UI/UX web books, but I think it’s important to go broader than that, so I’m going to try to cast a wider net to truly understand people.  Incidentally, as I work towards this goal, I believe I will be able to apply this new understanding to other areas of my life in human interaction.

How thoughtful are you with your learning? Are you amassing knowledge or creating understanding?

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Posted by Jason Evanish

New Year’s Resolutions Check Up

January 16, 2010

I’m two weeks into my resolutions for New Year’s and so I wanted to check up on how I was doing. I figured I might as well share my progress:

8 Resolutions in 2010

1) Improve my Punctuality: I’ve gotten a little better, but I’m still far from perfect. Going to keep at it.

2)  Improve Time Management: I’ve found that by making a list broken down by project (I’m involved in 3 startups these days) right before I go to bed, I wake up ready to get all the things done. It’s working, but will probably keep evolving.

3) Get Back to the Gym: I finally made it back to the gym on Wednesday and then went again on Friday. It felt better than I expected getting back into. Apparently the pull ups and situps I’d been doing in my apartment kept me from losing too much strength. I am incredibly sore right now, but that comes with the territory. I also feel energized, so it’s a fair tradeoff. I just need to get a routine going and I’ll be good.

4) Get back to Running: Waiting for warmer weather…

5) Read a Book per Week: I’m 2 for 2 so far as I’ve made it through Trust Agents and Crush It. I’m now onto a bit heavier reading with 4 Steps to the Epiphany, so we’ll see if I can get through that in a week as well. Taking books with me on the subway has definitely helped a lot. I didn’t realize how much time I was wasting each day just not thinking while on the subway. You’ll now know what I’m reading if you see me at an event at night as I’m taking reading material for the trips to and from.

6) Post More Often: This is my 6th post of the year, so that’s going well. I’ve also successfully started writing shorter posts as evidenced by my business card and winter wardrobe posts.

7) Keep learning: This one wasn’t so much anything new as trying to do more of the same.  A number of you have been great in providing me more feedback and comments, so please keep it coming!

8.) Pay it forward: I still help who I can. The best example is the other night at an event a woman was lamenting that she couldn’t find much support as a woman entrepreneur. I was able to pass her along info of all the resources for women entrepreneurs listed at Greenhorn Connect.

So all in all…doing well. Need to keep improving in the punctuality department, build the gym back into my routine fully and stick with the book reading regimen.

How are YOU doing on your resolutions?

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Posted by Jason Evanish

8 Resolutions in 2010

January 4, 2010

With the turning of the new year, it’s that time when people make resolutions. Yes, most people make them and soon break them, but I’m hoping to be different.  These are issues I’ve recognized and was already working to improve before the New Year. I’m simply using the turning of the year to make these goals public; I think by putting them out there for the world to see, you put a bit more pressure on yourself to deliver.  So, below are my resolutions and a few items for how YOU can help me make these all happen.

8 Resolutions in 2010

1) Improve my Punctuality: I’ve had many meetings over the past few months and unfortunately, I’ve had a bad habit of not making it on time to many of them. Sometimes it’s a beyond my control like when the T didn’t run for an hour while Obama spoke at MIT, but often, I’m just not giving myself enough time to get places.

How You can help me: Hold me accountable for punctuality. I’m open to creative ideas. Currently Cort, who films GreenhornTV for me, has it that I owe him a beer for every 5 min late I am. So far, I haven’t been late yet since we made that arrangement.

2)  Improve Time Management: As I launched Greenhorn Connect, I took the approach of doing everything all the time. That’s not a good strategy. I’ve gotten better as time has gone by, but I still find myself losing some days to doing things, but not Getting Things Done.

How You can help me: Any suggestions on how I can become more effective and efficient (books, articles or tips) are much appreciated. Thanks Apollo and Mike for your help already!

3) Get Back to the Gym: For my first 6+ years in Boston, I was a regular at Northeastern’s awesome gym, the Marino Center.  No matter how busy I was through undergraduate and graduate school, I always made time for the gym every other day.  Since I launched Greenhorn Connect, I’ve watched my gym attendance dwindle to not having made it since before Thanksgiving.  Fortunately, I have a pull up bar in my apartment and I’ve been getting creative by creating quick 20 minute workouts in my apartment, but it would be much better if I got back to my old workout routines that are a bit more diverse.

4) Get back to Running: I was a pretty good runner in high school on my cross country and track teams. I racked up a few thousand miles in that time and really look back at it as some of my favorite memories from high school. Unfortunately, I’ve never been able to hammer out a routine in Boston that compared and so I’ve progressively lost my endurance.  I can’t run on concrete (not that I think anyone really can without injury) and this isn’t suburban PA so I can’t run on the roads.  This means I need to get out and take advantage of the 2 great locations near me: the Esplanade and Jamaica Pond.  This one will probably wait until spring when weather improves.

How You can help me: I think having the team really helped me stick to my running, so if anyone lives in the Back Bay area and is looking for a running partner or knows of any running groups, let me know.  I think I’d be running in the 7-8 min mile pace right now, looking to run 3-5 miles a day.

5) Read a Book per Week: I saw this come across the Twitter scape and thought it was great: Read a Book a Week for a Year. At first I said to myself, “I’m so busy! I don’t have time to read THAT much!” Then I read that post…and I realized, that’s like 30-40 pages a day. That’s not so bad. I can do that! So, I just started this on Jan 1st and am 3 for 3 as of this writing for getting my pages knocked out each day. As I hopefully progress on this I plan to also write reviews on Greenhorn Connect for the books I like best.

How You can help me: Two ways: 1) Recommend any books you suggest I read. 2) Loan me a book. Yes, I know I can go to a library, but if I borrow it from you, I bet you’ve read it and could then compare thoughts on the book briefly.

6) Post More Often: Keeping the Greenhorn Connect Blog going became my priority over the past couple of months, but now I think it’s starting to stabilize. I like the idea of having things I write here and on Greenhorn Connect (much like there are New Years Resolutions at both places). I’m going to try to commit to posting more often. To help that, I’m going to try adopting a new Seth Godin-like style here where I just write a couple paragraphs about a thought I have and leave it open for continued thought by you and I.

7) Keep learning: Since I started grad school in September 2008, I feel like I’ve been drinking from the fire hose in learning about entrepreneurship. I look at everything I do as a learning experience and that’s led to zero regrets in my somewhat unorthodox journey.  I hope to keep that mindset in 2010 and continue to leverage past experiences to develop future success.

How You can help me: Give me constructive criticism. I really take all the advice and feedback I get from people to heart. I find many are apprehensive to give feedback, but it’s the only way you can truly improve. So please…share your advice, suggestions and criticisms…I’m listening, and more importantly, acting on them.

8.) Pay it forward: One of the things I’ve learned over the past few months is that often, you can’t help those that are helping you. Instead, the best thing you can do is pay it forward and help others regardless of what they can do for you.  I’ve met with a number of people to share what I’ve learned from Greenhorn Connect and other recent experiences and look forward to helping when and how I can in the future.

How I can help You: Ask! You don’t know unless you try. If I can help you I will.

To me, these are more than resolutions; they’re part of my evolution. I think they actually all tie together as there’s a greater theme of curiosity, learning and organization.  Success in one is likely help success in the others.   Please comment or contact me if you can help with any of those or I can help you.

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Posted by Jason Evanish

Tech Addiction: What it means to ask what we’ll give up…

October 20, 2009

I just came across the following article from Mashable on a study for Gen Y.  The premise is asking Gen Y members, “Of the activities listed here, which one would you least like to give up for a week?”  I’ve copied the results here:

Gen Y: Of the activities listed here, which one would you least like to give up for a week?

Gen Y: “Of the activities listed here, which one would you least like to give up for a week?”

To me, this is an exercise in common sense. If you simply understand what Gen Y people use each for, it all adds up.  Number one on the list was Emailing, which is not surprising. It’s the hub of everything we do personally and professionally. You can’t do your job, contact your friends or do the most basic free communication without email.  It’s at the core of what you do. Text messaging isn’t far behind, because of again, how we use it.  Setting up to go places, Gen Y people rarely use the phone.  It’s quicker to just say it in a text where you are, where you’re going or just say something quick to a friend…it’s like a DM on Twitter.  When you’re at a noisy bar or in a meeting, you can’t take a phone call, but you can text to share information.  Take away texting, and things would get a lot harder.  The rest are a smattering of our personal interests.  For some, not having TV to watch would leave them bored when they aren’t working. For others, web surfing is a core part of their day.  All that’s left to understand then is the “Visiting Social Networking Websites”…

The reason we use social networks is because it adds value to our lives. Whether you plan your party or are just making a new connection on Facebook, it makes your social life easier and more robust.  Our parents got by on land line phones and handwritten notes.  Social networks are just the furthest down the line in “convenience we need most.”  It’s no different than a survey asking “What food would you least give up?”  Sure some people are chocoholics, but in the end, it’s your “meat and potatoes” (email and text) core of your diet you can’t give up.  That doesn’t mean you don’t love your chocolate (social networks and TV) or that cocoa farmers have anything to worry about…it just means you have a logical priority level.  I’d actually be concerned if more people thought they needed email, phone calls and texts less than their social networks.

I’m glad someone did a study to confirm the obvious.  Our government commissions a lot of those too.

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Posted by Jason Evanish

Inspiration

September 24, 2009

Many have written about their experiences as emerging entrepreneurs to great effect. These books, blogs and articles all serve as inspiration to me and fellow young entrepreneurs.  One of my favorite items I’ve read is Mark Cuban’s insight on that journey.  It’s easy to look at him and say, “Wow. He has everything. He’s a billionaire. He owns the Mavericks. He has a gorgeous wife and a great family.”  But did you know he slept on the floor of a cramped, trashy apartment for a few years while he was trying to get his first company off the ground? Or that he read computer manuals in his free time so that he could become an expert with them? Behind every success story is years of hard work and sacrifice…

http://blogmaverick.com/2009/05/13/success-motivation/
http://blogmaverick.com/2009/06/09/success-motivation-2009/

Now Mark Cuban is a great personal entrepreneurial “hero” of mine, but if we’re talking about inspiration to pursue your goals, nothing compares to Dr. Randy Pousch. At age 47 this Carnegie Mellon professor was given a diagnosis of terminal cancer.  Randy decided cancer could kill him, but not his spirit. In his “Last Lesson,” he shared with everyone his life story and lessons learned.  Below you’ll find the full video of this “Last Lesson.” It’s about the length of a movie, but I dare you to find one as powerful and moving:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5700431505846055184&hl=en#

I saved a number of quotes from Dr. Pausch for myself, but I’d like to comment on a few that resonated the most with me and others I showed the video (approximate time in the video listed in parenthesis):

(18:40) “When you see yourself doing something badly and no one is saying anything anymore…that’s a problem. It means they’ve given up on you”

I think this emphasizes the fact that feedback is so important. You always want to improve yourself and sometimes it’s really hard to get constructive criticism out of people. It’s often because they don’t want to hurt your feelings, but they’re only doing you a disservice.  Of course, if they just don’t care, you have a bigger problem.  If you ever have constructive criticism on my blog, please comment!

(1:10:35)“Decide if you’re a Tigger or Eyeore”

As my father so eloquently put it, “I always thought Tigger was an airhead.” Yes, in the most literal sense that may be true. But to me, this is about optimism and hope vs. pessimism and acceptance.  Tigger sees all the great in the world and pursues his goals of being happy in life, while Eyeore is always depressed about something and never does anything to change his situation. To me, the Tiggers of the world are those that see problems in the world as opportunities to make a difference.  I’m a Tigger. Are you?

(53:00) “If you do anything that is pioneering, you have to put up with the arrows in the back”

This quote relates to entrepreneurs in two ways.  First, there will always be doubters, critics and haters.  You have to know when to listen to them…is it constructive criticism, or deep down, do you know they’re wrong? In general, I’ve found the best way to know if I believe in what I’m doing is simply to have someone try to encourage me to go another way; if I strongly disagree with their suggestion, I know I’m fully committed to my decision.  The second way this affects us is competition.  There is always someone else with the same idea.  Even if you get a head start and have more customers, better market presence, or superior technology, they’re gunning for you.  As I learned in running cross country, if you aren’t passing someone, someone else is likely passing you.

(26:40) “The brick walls are there for a reason.
The brick walls are not there to keep us out.
The brick walls are there to show us
how badly we want something
The brick walls are there to stop those
who don’t want it badly enough.
They’re there to stop other people.”

When I was a freshman in high school, I joined the track team.  Since my father ran track in college I thought I would be good too.  As it turned out…I wasn’t a natural.  At the end of the year, we had a banquet and the coaches honored all of the best athletes, which obviously didn’t include me. I decided I wanted to be one of those guys.  My coach told me I should join the Cross Country team and so after that banquet, I told him I was going to try to make varsity that fall.  He’s a nice guy, so he didn’t tell me no way, but he basically shrugged me off. He knew I ran a 7:30 mile as my best time that track season, and that pace wouldn’t even be good enough to make varsity.  Little did he know how badly I wanted it. All summer I got up every morning and ran 7.5 miles in the morning and 2.5 miles at night.  By the start of the school year I had run over 600 miles and was doing my morning run in under 7 minute mile pace.  I made varsity, to the great surprise of my coaches and my teammates.

When I set a goal, I passionately pursue it with everything I have and refuse to give up.  It hasn’t failed me regardless of whether it’s an athletic, academic or professional challenge.  I see a few “brick walls” in my life right now; I look forward to breaking them down.

—————————————————————————————————————————-

Despite only living half of the average American life, Randy Pousch accomplished a laundry list of lofty and challenging goals including working for Disney Imagineers, experiencing zero gravity, and writing an article for World Book Encyclopedia.  I have a list. Do you have a list? How are you working to check them off?   Don’t be afraid if they’re lofty. Randy’s mentor put it best:

“It’s such a shame people see you as arrogant…it’s going to limit what you’re going to be able to accomplish” -Andy van Dam

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Posted by Jason Evanish