Thursday F2F with George

I had lunch Thursday with George Siemens, the networked learning and knowledge strcuctures guru from Canada, at my favorite Korean restaurant near my office in Manhattan. Having read George’s work for several years now, it was nice to put a face and voice to the writing. He and his wife are in New York for some conference work, and it was rather stimulating to speak with him about his areas of research interest and the locations where George travels to speak at conferences and other events.

One theme that kept surfacing that struck me is how technology changes so much and so quickly, with seemingly every week a newer social media killer app, that things will not change unless the underlying knowledge structures and our approach to them changes. I recall him speaking about this in his book Knowing Knowledge, though hearing a similar message through a different medium (F2F) and situation (while using chopsticks to eat goon mandoo) makes it so fresh.

Enjoy your time here in New York, George, May it stimulate you to consider how knowledge is larger and wider and louder and more culturally diverse than we have seen throughout history!