Category Archives: Meaning

Rituals, Artefacts, and the Cohesive Forces of Community

Posted on September 5, 2017 by julianstodd

When i met with Valerie yesterday, she gave me a gift: a small wooden pebble, decorated with some indigenous art, inscribed with the word ‘vision’. She gave different pebbles to other people, each different: considered, kind, meaningful. And worthless. At … Continue reading →

Posted in Meaning | Tagged , , , , , , | 20 Comments

The Concentration of Meaning: Birth of the Social Age

Posted on January 20, 2015 by julianstodd

It’s largely a matter of concentration: not thinking harder but rather a greater aggregation of knowledge and resources. Trace the journey of ‘sense making‘. At first, we had to use our own senses: looking at the world around us, biting … Continue reading →

Posted in Meaning | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 14 Comments

Making Connections: creating meaning

Posted on March 19, 2014 by julianstodd

I’m sat in the transit lounge of Singapore airport, on my way to Manila, so making a connection in a very literal sense. I wrote a book in Singapore in 2012, called ‘Learning, Knowledge and Meaning‘. It was about how … Continue reading →

Posted in Knowledge, Learning, Meaning | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 18 Comments

On the fifth day of Christmas Learning: Social Learning

Posted on December 13, 2013 by julianstodd

I’m dedicating the last twelve days of writing to a series of reflections on key trends and features of learning in the Social Age. Today: Social Learning. It’s late, too late for a small child to be up, but there … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, Everyday Reality, Knowledge, Learning, Meaning, Social Learning, Storytelling | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Miley Cyrus vs Sinead O’Connor: feminism, mental health and the ecosystem of the Social Age

Posted on November 15, 2013 by julianstodd

You may have seen this saga playing out: Miley Cyrus is a former Disney sweetheart, reinvented as raunchy teen seductress, selling records and generating profits for fat middle aged white men whilst being chastised by wiser, older, pillars of the … Continue reading →

Posted in Age, Conformity, Meaning, News, Social Learning, Social Media | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

The first life on earth. A book by Me

Posted on November 12, 2013 by julianstodd

My first book was an adventurous tome, not a story about goblins or spiders, no Teletubbies or Tank Engines, no, my first book was no less than the story of how Life came about on Earth. Don’t let my crayon … Continue reading →

Posted in Book, Curiosity, Discovery, Learning, Meaning | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

The death of the dinosaurs

Posted on November 6, 2013 by julianstodd

Nothing lasts forever. Except possibly bad ideas, which can linger long after their sell by date. I was talking to someone earlier about how we work: remotely, on agile technology, collaborating in different communities on different hardware , co-creating ideas, … Continue reading →

Posted in Agile, Authority, Leadership, Learning, Meaning, Social Learning, Technology | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

How we arrived at Social Learning

Posted on October 25, 2013 by julianstodd

Organisations are increasingly interested in the potential of social learning, recognising that it can greatly help individuals to make sense of new knowledge and skills and to effect real changes in performance. But how did we get here? What’s so … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, Community, Culture, Gangs, Learning, Learning Culture, Learning Journey, Meaning, Social Learning | Tagged , , , , , | 20 Comments

Travelling to learn: reflection and narrative

Posted on October 10, 2013 by julianstodd

After a long day of travelling, i’m home from Singapore, sat back in my local coffee shop, starting that sense making process that always follows a period of travelling: part reflection, part narrative. Travel broadens our horizons: it brings us … Continue reading →

Posted in Adventure, Blogging, Community, Curiosity, Dialogue, Embedding, Introspection, Leadership, Learning, Learning Journey, Meaning, Narrative, Writing | Tagged , , , , , , , | 22 Comments

Social Leadership: Communities and meaning

Posted on October 9, 2013 by julianstodd

We don’t just belong to one community: in the Social Age, we belong to many. Maybe there was a time when we all lived in caves and gathered around campfires to skin mammoths, when we were constrained by being in … Continue reading →

Posted in Authority, Collaboration, Community, Connections, Conversation, Culture, Curation, Group Dynamics, Learning, Meaning, Personal Learning Network, Social Learning | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 33 Comments