(2017-03-04) Jarche Gamers Artists And Citizens

Harold Jarche: gamers, artists, and citizens. Learning is the new literacy. (cf Hackers and Painters)

By not being active learners we lose the agility to react quickly to changing situations

When our son was in junior high school he came home one afternoon and said, “There seem to be two types of people, Dad.” “What are they?” I asked. “Gamers, and non-gamers”

As an active computer gamer, he was comfortable being given a problem with no evident solution. (Reality Hacker)

How do gamers learn? They try things out and usually fail: lots of times. They learn from these mistakes and look for patterns. If they get stuck, they check out what others have shared, in online forums.

While we cannot all be computer geeks, we live in a computer-driven network age. We ignore automation, the Cloud, the Internet of Things, and surveillance technologies at our peril.

Learning is the only literacy that will enable us to counter the negative effects of digital technologies.

This literacy is also social.

How many of those permanently laid-off workers over 55 have external professional social networks that can help them find work or get support?

Being an active learner by connecting with others outside our everyday lives can expose us to a diversity of skills, knowledge, and perspectives. In a creative economy we are only as good as our networks.

Artists are like gamers as they too have to fail many times as they master their craft. Today, we all need to think like gamers and artists. But being an artist is not easy. Scott Berkun says that, “it’s a discovery all artists make: the most interesting and bravest work is likely the hardest to make a living from.” There are no simple recipes to become an artist.

One challenge with thinking, acting, and working like an artist is that the mind-set is not suitable for traditional salaried employment.

For the past century we have compartmentalized the life of the citizen. At work, the citizen is an ‘employee’. Outside the office he may be a ‘consumer’. Sometimes she is referred to as a ‘taxpayer’. All of these are constraining labels, ignoring the full spectrum of citizenship. As the network era connects people and things, society needs to reconnect with the multifaceted citizen. Gamers and artists already blur these lines.

Alexis de Tocqueville wrote Democracy in America based on his travels in 1831, and identified ‘associations’ of citizens to be a driving force in the new democracy. These associations could also be described as communities of practice. (Community of Practice)

As de Tocqueville saw how a society could function without an aristocracy, we now must see how companies can function without a managerial elite, and people can operate without bureaucratic overlords.