Seminars vs Wikipedia

Thursday, May 18, 2006

Last evening

sriniram and I went to attend a talk. We found it rather technical and dry. It wasn’t what we had expected. It was our shortcoming, of course, for a number of others were clearly gaining from it, even engaging the speaker during the question and answer session.

But I couldn’t help but notice: everything the speaker said could be obtained from Wikipedia, where I can control the pace to ensure clarity. In a seminar I have to put up with uncomfortable seating in an unfamiliar place, a difficult accent, and a pace that doesn’t accommodate the gaps in my understanding.

So is it plausible that with improving access to knowledge, we’re seeing falling demand for speakers who solely describe the facts, versus speakers who augment with anecdotes and opinion, things that you still can’t pick up easily off a search query?

kaykay_arr — May 18, 2006 2:09:02 PM — # ↩

Yes Sir!
I think, it is plausible...
ga_woo — May 18, 2006 3:38:21 PM — # ↩

Even before Wikipedia, even before Google, even before I had Internet access, I could never understand the value of lecturers, teachers, speakers when there were books and a library.
And consequently I never learnt anything from them either. I'll zone out and start day-dreaming in seconds.

In those rare instances in which the speaker is good and I am interested in the topic, I might be able to restrict myself to just 50% of day-dreaming.

Now if the topic is new and there is no book, I used to wonder why the speaker couldn't just print out what zhe knows and send it to us. Send us a pamphlet and stay at home. Or maybe you can send us a pamphlet and just come for one hour of Q&A. That would be a lot more useful.
zeeshanmn — May 18, 2006 3:55:28 PM — # ↩

It depends Kiran, learners learn what they want to learn. It is easier for people like you or me to go up and get to a Web page and extract the information required. Classrooom sessions help retain knowledge, primarily for those getting to learn new skills, by which I mean, let's say, new joinees in a firm. These guys don't seem to be interested to learn the self-paced way. These classroom sessions have facilitators.

Improving access to knowledge would not necessarily cut off the demand for speakers who make the audience interact and make for a constructed outcome.
kingsly — May 18, 2006 6:06:51 PM — # ↩

One thing I've noticed is that not everyone grasps/understands stuff they read easily.

I have had no problems learning things by myself, and have pretty much learnt everything I do professionally by myself.

But I've always found people around who are completely blank when told to read stuff, but grasp things really well explained to them in a classroom/lecture type situation.
sidcarter — May 18, 2006 6:21:25 PM — # ↩

I think it has been so for a long time. Some people prefer going to classrooms/seminars to learn and some others do the learning themselves.
bluesmoon — May 18, 2006 7:49:07 PM — # ↩

There are five types of learners in the world. If you want to know more, go find the paper I refer to.
- Kiran Jonnalagadda — May 18, 2006 9:57:02 PM — # ↩
  
  Sir! Yes, sir! I shall search, sir! Is this it, sir? Or perhaps that, sir?
  - bluesmoon — May 18, 2006 10:33:34 PM — # ↩
    
    perhaps I could replace my search engine with you.
hserus — May 18, 2006 7:59:45 PM — # ↩

Not people who simply rattle off all the facts from a powerpoint - that's for sure. I try not to pick those as speakers in conferences that I help organize (some of which do have a strong teaching component).

However if people are gaining from it and engaging him in a QA session - actively engaging him - he's usually doing rather more than simply rattle off facts. Trust me, the fact rattlers typically result in the audience tuning out and going off to find the bar, or sitting around doing their email.

Randy Bush had an interesting idea at nanog meetings - measure speaker / presentation quality by studying spikes in wifi usage during speeches .. the boring sessions see more people doing email and IM rather than listening .. everybody's got wifi enabled laptops at these conferences so that's usually a quite accurate metric.
spo0nman — May 18, 2006 9:46:37 PM — # ↩

learning
Learning is a complex subject. A good teacher is a valuable thing, she will point you to the right direction, even those you might not be aware of. How will you form a search query that you are not aware of?
- Kiran Jonnalagadda — May 18, 2006 9:51:02 PM — # ↩
  
  Re: learning
  Yup, exactly, but doesn't that mean someone who does little more than dump a Wikipedia-page worth of information is now less useful?
  
  The interesting speakers who can engage the audience will always remain sought.
- bluesmoon — May 18, 2006 10:36:22 PM — # ↩
  
  Re: learning
  a good teacher is not one who gives the right answers but one who asks the right questions
mannu — May 19, 2006 3:54:30 AM — # ↩

Why Wikipedia? Shouldn't that be "seminars vs. the web"? Wikipedia is full of rubbish sometimes.
thaths — May 19, 2006 8:24:07 AM — # ↩

There are two issues here:

1. The audience: Reading is not everybody's cup of tea. I have been shocked by the number of people that I know who don't read either to improve their mind or for entertainment. These people seem to find other ways of learning like listening to seminars, etc.

2. The speaker: There are good ones and bad ones. The good ones have the ability to make things interesting and orchestrate an interactive session with their audience. The bad ones collect pieces of facts and read it off the screen.
sameerds — May 19, 2006 9:44:08 AM — # ↩

hands
It's all about the hands. When absorbing content on a website, there's no one waving hands at you.
- sameerds — May 19, 2006 9:52:53 AM — # ↩
  
  Re: hands
  Jokes apart, I really find it easier when someone is pointing things out in a diagram. The degree to which I grasp something at the first attempt increases in the following order:
  
  1) Someone is explaining a schematic to me
  2) I am trying to follow the description of a schematic in a book
  3) A verbal description in a book
  
  Things quickly fall into place for good, when there's someone saying "this sends a message to that, and then that triggers an event that causes this module here to respond" while waving hands at a schematic.