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Leola Chidester wrote on
my Kindergarten report card, "Although Marcia wants to be President, she'd
make a terrific teacher." She went on to explain that my constant curiosity
and endless energy could be used to help people learn new things and see different
points of view. Years later, after rethinking my political aspirations
on a train across Northern Africa, I recalled Mrs. Chidester's words and I
decided to pursue my passion for learning with a passion.
I have spent much of my life in corporations, often unraveling overly
cumbersome education departments, moving functions into the business line or
redesigning software programs so they don't require endless training. Over the
years this has required work in areas as diverse as education, business development,
marketing, product management, human resources, OD, interface design, usability, learnability,
interactive architecture, publishing, and online community.
I've served as senior counsel to
corporations, schools, governments and non-governmental organizations. I was
Vice President of Education and Information Futurist for PeopleSoft, Senior
Manager of Worldwide Training at Microsoft and Editor-in-Chief of
Learning in the New Economy magazine. I currently write the "Learn At All Levels" column
for Fast Company.
Over the last 25 years I have studied, lived and worked on three continents. Somehow
I found the time to author
Learn More Now (John Wiley & Sons, 2004),
co-create
Creating a Learning Culture (Cambridge University Press, 2004),
forward
Engaging Learning by Clarke Quinn (Jossey-Bass, 2005),
and contribute to dozens of other magazines and books. I've also appeared on
ABC's World News This Morning, the Wall Street Journal and Fortune
magazine.
I'm ultimately interested in helping people tap into how they
learn so they can attain personal productivity and bliss through means other
than lengthy and often costly traditional (even online) training programs. I
refer this as "liberating the learner in each of us." My mission is to evoke and
educe a passion for learning in each person's soul, allowing for the
unconstrained pursuit of personal joys. I'm happy to report, I'm not alone in
this quest.
On the personal front, I'm
married to a brilliant and handsome tennis coach named
Karl. We have a young
son who keeps us humble and animals that keep us grounded. We live and
work out of a 50-acre homestead in
Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. I love whitewater canoeing, and
volunteer my time to talk with parents and teachers about creative solutions for
children who have learning disabilities.
I'm managing director of Ageless Learner, fellow of the
Batten Institute at the
Darden Graduate School of Business
Administration, facilitate workshops on
new
forms of organization design and
complexity, and serve as
advisor to some terrific executives around the
globe.
At work or at play, I love
learning and helping other people learn. I hate to see people miss out on what's
interesting around them because they haven't
figured out how to master new information quicker. Sometimes this
knowledge-transfer happens in a classroom — most of the time it happens
informally and when we least expect it.
I also love to share what I know and I am learning
so if you're interested in these same sorts of things,
let me know what
resources you've found particularly useful. Always learning,
learning all ways,
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Fast
Company
Ageless
Learner
Learn More Now
Creating a Learning Culture
Learning in the New Economy Magazine
(LiNE Zine)
Learnativity
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Leola Chidester, Sally, Beth, Paul, Sherry, Barry, Laura, Mike, Andrea.
Middle: Ellen, Kevin, Nina, Doug, ?, Pat, Mary, Tom. Bottom: Steve,
Me, Mark, Linda, Scott, Lori,
Richie,
Kim.
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