Co-Creating a live learning narrative

I’m at a conference today where we’re using a live Twitter stream to co-create a shared learning narrative, using a range of media to explore innovation and creativity. There’s poetry, presentations, yoga and films, interviews, a book festival and conversations galore. It’s a bold departure from the usual format of these things and i like how it’s willing to try some more creative approaches to building a narrative.

Formal learning events are great, but they often create abstract knowledge. They can have relevance on the day, but fail to make the transition back to your everyday reality. Events like this help bridge the gap in two ways: firstly, being semi formal, they’re more willing to explore the wider and richer languages of learning, and, secondly, by allowing for the dynamic co-creation of a narrative, they create meaning. In other words, the experiences are rich, dynamic and result in stories with meaning to me as an individual, rather than just being relevant to the organisation.

This event brings together people with wide perspectives, divergent viewpoints. The very difference creates conversations, and conversations are where we co-create meaning. We need to create spaces for these things to happen, to be bold enough to speak and use the wider and richer languages of learning. These are things that we engage with: they challenge our conservative views, they force us to broaden our perspective.

What the outcome will be, i don’t yet know, but i do know that today will create disturbance in my thinking, and I’ll be part of the shared narrative that we create from that.