Learning, the act of gaining knowledge, is a craft unto itself. It starts with questions - the what ifs, how abouts, whys, . . . leading from the unknown to the known, through inquiry, experimentation, travel, and of course pure accident.

This is about how it happens in my life.

Why is always the more interesting question

A few weeks ago I saw a movie with Doris Day and Clark Gable called Teacher's Pet. Doris is Erica Stone, a journalism instructor at a community college, Clark is Jim Gannon, the hard nosed editor who rose up through the ranks of the newspaper. Erica believes journalism is a profession that can be taught, Jim sees it is a trade where the skills are developed only by doing.

All of this unfolds as Jim sits in Erica's class under an alias. Ultimately she challenges him to move beyond his notions that WHAT is all that matters in the news business, insisting that WHY provides the more important, more interesting story that people want to read.
Then just this week I had the pleasure of coffee and croissants while learning from Peter de Jaeger on managing change. If I had to sum up the key to successful change management in one word, it would be WHY. Deal with the WHY and the WHAT will follow more easily.

So, why am I doing this? Well, I'm curious about the whole 23 Things learning process http://plcmclearning.blogspot.com/ and blogging is part of it. And since 23 things is just the beginning I'll continue to use this space as the learning continues.