{"id":1956,"date":"2013-08-14T10:00:40","date_gmt":"2013-08-14T10:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/?p=592"},"modified":"2013-08-14T10:00:40","modified_gmt":"2013-08-14T10:00:40","slug":"learn-to-participate-and-participate-to-learn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/learn-to-participate-and-participate-to-learn\/","title":{"rendered":"Learn to Participate and Participate to Learn"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Change is a difficult thing.\u00a0 It is certainly one of those things that falls under the \u201ceasier said than done\u201d category.\u00a0 We talk about how we will exercise more, stop smoking, read that book we\u2019ve started 5 times and never finished, but many times we fall short.\u00a0 Many will blame this on a lack of willpower or conviction, but I disagree.\u00a0 We get up every day for work, some of us commute, and we deal with angry customers or frustrating staff.\u00a0 Many of us have kids that can drive us up a wall, or battle with an annoying medical condition like acid reflux or indigestion.\u00a0 The fact that we don\u2019t just give up and never get out of bed shows the incredible amount of willpower we have.\u00a0 So what is the problem?\u00a0 It is our culture.\u00a0 A culture of watching, viewing, observing from afar, without ever having to participate.<\/p>\n<p>The term I have seen commonly used for people who don\u2019t participate is \u201cLurker.\u201d\u00a0 This is much like its definition when referring to a forum user who reads the content but doesn\u2019t contribute.\u00a0 We have all become very good lurkers, mostly because we haven\u2019t had to do much by ourselves.\u00a0 Our devices, vendors, and IT departments have worked to make everything as self-sufficient as possible, reducing user interaction to the bare minimum.\u00a0 Although tech departments have made trainings and walkthroughs more advanced and interactive, helpdesks still are flooded with the same calls about simple things like hooking up a laptop to a projector or setting a default printer.<\/p>\n<p>Am I saying all these advancements in technology are a bad thing?\u00a0 Absolutely not.\u00a0 We certainly want our devices to be easier to use, and we want our IT departments to make more advanced trainings.\u00a0 But we can\u2019t forget that we have an incredible ability to learn, and all it takes is a little participation.\u00a0 Focusing on becoming a professional learner as opposed to a watcher will lead to an increase in productivity and will make you feel better.<\/p>\n<p>Here are some ways you can help become a Professional Learner:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Determine Why Learning a Certain Skill is Important to You<\/li>\n<li>Put the New Skill Into Practice. Hold Others Accountable.<\/li>\n<li>Determine What You Don\u2019t Know, and What Questions You Need to Ask<\/li>\n<li>Get Others Involved in the Training Process<\/li>\n<li>Have Fun Learning<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Change is a difficult thing.\u00a0 It is certainly one of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[508],"tags":[466,467,468],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1956"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1956\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}