Nuts and Bolts: Causing Serendipity

“Bibliographieswere my first Internet.”—Kelly Smith, #lrnchat tweet

I’ve been involved with music, one way or another, mywhole life, and while I’ve a good memory for lyrics I have always struggledwith memorizing chord progressions. The other night at my local ukulele jam wewere playing the old song “Pay Me My Money Down” for the hundredth time whenCarla, next to me, happened to say: “The chord always changes on the word‘money’.” Light. Bulb. Since then I’ve been much more attuned to findingpatterns while I’m playing—and I’m already much better at playing withoutlooking at the sheet music.

Think about a time a casual remark or random encounterset you thinking in a new direction. Or a web search for “personal learningnetwork” led you to an hour spent learning about community management. Or rememberthe time a happenstance event set you on a new career path or a college majorchange. I find that learners in my “social media for learning” courses strugglewith the idea of “supporting serendipity” more than any other: If it’sserendipitous, then how can L&D support or encourage it?

How does serendipitous learning happen?

Sometimeslife thrusts it upon us. Tracy Parish says downhill skiing taught her to rolland bounce. I learned about webdesign in a grad course suddenly staffed with a geeky pinch-hitter instructorwho took the “technology in training” topic off in an unexpected direction. Sofar that course has led me to the publication of six books—and my current job.

Often serendipitous learning happens via “spinoff learning”—we’relearning one thing and happen to learn something else along the way. Matt Guyanlearned about Google+ while exploring PLNs. Bigger? Clark Quinn learned aboutweather and the ocean bottom while learning to surf. I have found that years oftweeting has made the writing in my eLearning designs much tighter and moreconcise. My friend Marlo learned about making cookies, which led to her openingher own company, which led her to learning about web design. Broader? Animprovisation coach says improv taught her empathy.

In 2009 Edutopia ran an interesting piece in which a number of well-known, accomplished people wereasked to describe what they learned while learning about something else. Mezzosoprano Frederica von Stade, for instance, talks of finding her love of musicwhile studying French. Owen Edwards, the author of the article, notes that “the educational road is unpredictable, full of bumps,unmapped detours, and sudden forks.”

What can we do?

Put rocks in the path

Many people describe their moments of accidental,serendipitous learning as “stumbling” over an answer or idea. So let’s givethem things to stumble over. Encourage exploration beyond the traditionalconstraints of a course or other learning intervention. Enrich programs withsuggested reading. Offer libraries, both physical and virtual, and make it partof your practice to refer people to them. Provide Amazon-like suggestions viasystems like your LMS: If you liked thistopic you might like that one. Offerinteresting problems that encourage learners to work with and explore tools. Encourage them to take charge of theirlearning. If you’re already subscribing to a course library like a Lynda.com,encourage them to explore material that’s included in the catalog but to whichthey aren’t necessarily assigned.

Be a curator

Help stock the libraries—physical and virtual—and choose thesuggested reading. If workers are likely to search a topic like “hiring talent,”then help get information in front of them that fits your own organizationalculture and general protocols for hiring. Offer places to browse. Suggest ideasfor maximizing the use of curation tools like Scoopit and Flipboard. Invitethem to share in Diigo groups or shared Evernote notebooks. Forward backchannelrecaps of conferences in their fields. Many, if not most, people complain aboutdrowning in information. We can help with that.

Be a connector—and a participant

As with my ukulele example, proximity can play a big role inserendipitous learning. Just being around other people who are talking aboutsomething that interests you can lead you to new discoveries. So make learnersaware of opportunities to connect with others. Make sure they hear aboutcommunities, both inside and outside the organization, with which they mightfind meaningful connection. (Last summer I was at a conference of governmenttrainers, struggling with eLearning conversations, who were surprised to hearthat there’s an eLearning Guild.) Draw HR people to #TChat. Let it be known toanyone who happens to blog—about work or otherwise—that there’s a weekly#blogchat. Show up for that yourself and participate with them. In other words,do what you can to open up the silo doors.

Encourage reflection

Encourage reflection by asking “How did you learn that?” and“What did you learn this week?” #lrnchat each week opens with the question,“What did you learn today?” Try using that to open a class, or a meeting, or asan item on status reports. Encourage writing and commenting and sharing. Askthem to teach, or help teach. Where you can, encourage them to take the roadless traveled. Colleagues who have long commutes talk of finding alternativeroutes home, which comes in very handy when there’s traffic. So ask learners tohelp with something like redesigning a procedure or finding alternative sourcesof information or otherwise mapping some new path.

Is it all on us?

No. I suppose there are arguments to be made about types ofpeople and their comfort levels. Some seem to more naturally be explorers andexperimenters. Some seem more willing to accept new ideas by letting go of oldones. Some are naturally more reflective. Some seem to be hardwired for agrowth mindset.

But I do believe we can find a way to increasechances. Be there when the spark happens and catch it before it burns out. Tryto help with getting people the time and space they need to explore, connect,and reflect. Figure out ways to reward it: we don’t always show that we valuethe divergent. We can’t create or plan for serendipity. We can’t scheduleaccidents. But we can work to help create an environment in which opportunitiescan serendipitously occur.