Chris Lott

In a post about Marco Torres’ NMC Keynote today Gardner writes something that echoes a comment he left here yesterday. Today he writes:

I wonder if Torres’ frequent and heartfelt connections to Kathy Sierra’s presentation yesterday will help elicit and frame some of its more subtle depths. Just because someone is a dynamic speaker with a message they carry in much the same way from venue to venue doesn’t mean the person or the talk is superficial or inauthentic. If learning is self-help … or vice-versa … bring it on.

I can’t help but think this is in part directed to what I wrote yesterday about Kathy’s presentation. And I can’t help but clarify.

Here’s the deal: stump speeches aren’t bad things. I’m not accusing Kathy of being inauthentic. And not really even being superficial. And I’m certainly not saying she is shallow! I’m dinging her (and very slightly, really) because I expect more from a keynote than a stump speech. Stump speeches are for the regular campaign stops… a keynote should be, in my opinion, a place to share something new and/or something that has been considered for that particular audience or organization. Is that really such a high bar? I’d prefer a keynote to be more like Obama’s 2004 Democratic Convention speech and less like the one delivered in Peoria, the 4th in two days.

Perhaps I would feel differently if I were asked to keynote speak as often as Kathy Sierra. Or perhaps I would simply choose NOT to give such addresses so often that the only way to keep up would be to repeat myself so often. I don’t mind connecting dots. In fact, that’s one of my favorite activities. But it’s really great to have a few new dots to connect!

The second problem with the stump speech is that—and this critical in this context—is that it’s really hard to be particularly convincing or passionate about something that you’ve said and presented many times before. In politics that’s expected. I don’t expect the stumping politician to wow them at every stop. If one has different expectations for a keynote, perhaps the same logic works there. But not only do I expect more, but Kathy’s presentation is about passion and kicking ass. Am I crazy in thinking that she might demonstrate more of that in the presentation itself?

I’m reminded of the disappointment of listening to a band live that I’ve admired for a long time for their studio recordings. It’s perfectly ok with me that live performances are a different thing, and perhaps in some ways lesser than the careful recordings, but if there’s nothing in the performance to compensate for those shortcomings or to balance out the differences, it’s lackluster and a little disappointing even if it doesn’t change my love for the band.

I like Kathy Sierra a lot. But her keynote wasn’t a great performance, it didn’t take any steps toward anything new, and it didn’t demonstrate the concepts she was promoting as much as I’d have liked. That might be OK in a breakout session… it just wasn’t that inspiring (despite being very much in tune and agreement with her impressive ideas) as a keynote.

 
[photo by dottavi]

I watched Kathy Sierra’s opening plenary performance "Creating Passionate Learners" with a mixture of excitement and disappointment.

Sierra is an engaging, funny speaker. She creates wonderful graphs using a unique, personal style (an enviable talent, with results I’d put on the spectrum nearer Indexed than Excel).

[photo by GavinBell]

And I certainly don’t disagree with many of Sierra’s ideas. What I love about her is that she unabashedly drills right into the heart of the matter (of many matters): being passionate, engaging with passion, the feeling of flow that comes from "kicking ass" and how that feeling can be predictably enjoyed only as the result of practice and mastery.

My disappointment stems from Sierra’s presentation being essentially a stump speech, and one that I know pretty well because I’m a regular reader of her blog posts and other writing. Perhaps I’m too demanding when it comes to keynotes (and I acknowledge Alan’s point that keynotes are a difficult proposition given the difficulty in knowing the dynamics and composition of the group being addressed), but I would have enjoyed the presentation much more if she’d dug in enough to at least replace the software developer and technical writing references with parallels and examples from education proper. I’m not averse to connecting the dots! Nor am I saying that the examples should be drawn from education… but the address would’ve been much more interesting if some of the implied cross-domain parallels and analogies between the activities had been teased out.

Despite Sierra’s overt engagement in the gaming community, her presentation here invoked many characteristics of game mechanics with hardly a mention of games or gaming. I couldn’t help but consider presentations I’ve seen at the O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference by speakers such as Amy Jo Kim and Jane McGonigal, both of whom were careful to make explicit how characteristics, principles and techniques from one domain (game mechanics) could– and should– be implemented in another (social software systems; the real world). Specifics could help in two ways: the obvious, making it easier to actually envision and implement the ideas, and the more subtle, which is to battle the conflation of game mechanics as a way of developing rich educational experiences and the feeble, shallow stereotypes of "educational gaming" that seems to lurk everywhere in the discussions within the academy.

The concept of "hi-res experience" is an important one. Discussions in education often break down between the polarized perspectives of education as content transfer and education as a rich social experience in which knowledge is almost (if not actually) a byproduct. But beyond the initial taste and first impression(s), I don’t see how passionate engagement can exist without the "stuff" around and within which that passion is built. Fervor and zeal are complex emotions that quickly break the thin threads of pure, instinctive emotion. I don’t mean that education must be all serious all the time or we must elevate "book learning" above experience… a rich manifold of engagement has to include formal and informal learning, times of distinct, single-purpose focus and times of mindful wandering. At the same time, there’s nothing intrinsically elitist about the idea that the "thick" appreciation borne of study and practice and an understanding of context– which as often as not is a characteristic of the natural enthusiast as the dedicated student (and, ideally, how much difference is there between the two?)– represents a heightened, qualitatively better experience than its "thin" counterpart…

Another important area covered at some length in Kathy’s presentation was that of practice. I feel like a broken record when it comes to the importance of practice, not just in the sense of rote repetition, but the kind of attentive repetition that leads to mastery and overlearning and, when everything comes together, that wonderful feeling of flow. It’s essential that educators help students discover the power of practice, but also that they help them "shrink the 10,000" hours as Kathy put it. A few ways that come to me to achieve this end: increase the intensity of the practice, increase the richness of the practice (which might amount to the same thing), learn– and make habits of– a variety of ways of thinking (particularly pattern recognition, a skill with nearly ubiquitous application in our connected learning environment), and increase the number of opportunities to practice. Kathy’s example of her homemade saddle chair, which literally has a saddle for a seat, is a great example of the last method… it’s not just about the amount of the opportunity cost for practicing but when and where we have the chance to pay it.

Total immersion is, in essence, highly compressed practice. It provides an opportunity to reach that point when we can actually change our minds– when we can get "in the zone"– more readily. The best form of immersion (total immersion jams) are tied, as Kathy mentioned, to actually creating some kind of product, providing the constraint that– paradoxically– grants freedom of thought.

As expected, Sierra’s points can be distilled to the triad of dyads I wish were an inevitable part of these discussions: love & trust, passion & fearlessness, and practice & attention.

Fleeting thoughts, reflection later.

One of the great things about the NMC Summer Conference is the variety of formats– plenary sessions and breakouts, of course, but also 5-minute talks, interactive posters, and a great system for attendees to connect with one another… but there’s nothing like a great opening keynote to set the tone. I’ve been trying to find an opportunity to see Kathy Sierra speak ever since she was forced to cancel her keynote at the O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference a few years ago.

Opening slide: Cognitive Seduction.

I like.

Pop Quiz Which is better: This company kicks ass? This product kicks ass?

The question is: will this go in the direction of marketing and branding or teaching and learning? Because in the first case I’d go with A, but in the second I’d go with B. Gardner was right: the answer is the secret answer: I kick ass!

Good to hear Kathy qualify her use of the word "user"– that she is using that term in the best possible way, thinking of usability and people. Silences my alarm whenever I hear things like "user generated content."

Look at Amazon reviews– the ones that matter reflect on the person writing the review.

They say "because of this book or toaster or widget, I was able to do something new, be a better person, cook perfectly browned toast for the first time." This is the essence of usability.

Q: What did (do) you want to be really, really good at? What do you want to kick ass at?

Considering our own answers: Leslie and Gardner echo my own answer: mastering a musical instrument. Think about how it would feel to be able to enable someone else to reach that level of mastery… how good that would feel. That’s at the heart of education (and, incendentally, gets back to part of my call at TTIX just last week– the mastery and satisfaction that come with mindfulness).

Hi-res experience… when a listener learns more about jazz, they hear more than other listeners. It’s a hi-res experience.

Great graph: move up the scale from the "suck threshold" to the "passion threshold." Does this have to be a function of time? How does the "first time" experience shape the resulting curve? How fast can you move "from suck to skill?"

This is sounding familiar: it’s not about the tools you build (or use). Example: Nikon brochure vs manual… the first works because it’s about the pictures people can take, not about the camera. Teach before Tech, putting learning first, insert tattoable-slogan here.

"Your brain and mind are in an epic battle." Our brains are constantly mediating our experience… "the brain’s spam filter" What the brain pays attention to: what the chemistry tells it to.

We want to spark the mind, strike the emotional flint. Engage the chemisty. Many examples of facial expressions and pictures which elicit quick, broad emotion (cute puppies, smiling people, open-mouthed babies, despairing fortune cookies).

This reminds me of Mihály Csíkszentmihályi’s Flow, which would be the sustained engagement, the fire that follows the strike of the flint.

Minor changes in tone from formal to conversational have significant effects on transfer of information.

How does this carry over into the sustained educational context? So far this feels like how to engage the first taste, the first fleeting impression. Where it doesn’t recapitulate effective presentation (or Powerpoint) techniques.

"Talk to the brain, not to the mind."

"Ten Tricks"

1. Focus on what the user does, not what you do.

2. Give them superpowers quickly.

3. Make them smarter.

4. Don’t focus on X, focus on what X is a part of.

5. Shrink the 10,000 hours. Learn the patterns; shorten the duration. Using the GM memory of chess patterns example.

This example is everywhere. Learn/share heuristics. And practice, practice, practice. "Create a culture of practice."

The first couple of these tricks are essentially game mechanics, something I’ve seen Amy Jo Kim and others present persuasively on… while being largely dismissed by the educational community.

Integrated learning. Great example of a "saddle chair" Kathy built.

6. Make your product (or docs) reflect their feelings. "Letting people off the hook" – people feel guilty, they feel like idiots when driven to user manuals and FAQs. Release them.

7. Create a culture of support.

I would bring this back to the dyad of vulnerability and trust… be open to learning, which demands trust.

Community is built around questions. To create a productive community, make users comfortable asking and answering questions.

There are no dumb questions … and there are no dumb answers.
8. Do not insist on inclusivity. Passionate users talk differently.

Social software and systems provide differentiated communities without interfering boundaries. This is the foundation of Third Places (ala Oldenburg). There is a lot of room to improve

9. Make the right things easy, wrong things difficult

10. Total Immersion Jams. 16 hours over two days rather than 16 hours over two months. Interesting example: 24 hour filmmaking festival, two-day music creation. "Less *camp, more *jams"

NaNoWriMo, anyone? Or Nike… just do it? Deadlines, putting the work in front of you.

"Be brave, end mediocrity"

Introduction before the keynote: Diane Harrison, President CSU Monterey Bay… particular thanks to Arlene Krebs (NMC). Learn more and our experience becomes deeper– the evolution of experience.