The value of social learning

The photo below is my view today. It’s a holiday view rather than an everyday view, but I’ve been going to bed with the sounds of waves crashing on the beach and curling up in front of this massive window and reading books on my Kindle. Jealous much?

I often get asked by well meaning parentals and grandparents why I don’t consider moving over seas. Not that they are trying to get rid of me, but they consider places like London and Sydney as providing more opportunities for someone my age, and better money as a result.

But every time I travel (thus far Italy, Mexico, USA, Vietnam, Australia) I always enjoy coming home to little ol’ NZ. And, when I look out my window and see views like this, I’m glad that I live and work in the country that I do.

Aside from being on holiday, I can drive 15mins from my home in Auckland and be in the country, the bush, and/or the beach. These places are clean, free to access, un-crowded and just beautiful. I love my work, but it is not all I do. My work enriches my life, my life enriches my work, and I like having a life. 

However, living and working in New Zealand does have its limitations. Apart from our proximity from Australia, we are geographically separated from much of the western world. The main limitation of this that concerns me is the transfer of knowledge. I see social learning through the use of social media as a way to break down the barriers in the transfer of knowledge. I talked about my husband Gareth’s tequila story a couple of weeks ago. Geographical location has not stopped him learning so much about tequila and this is all through social media.

New Zealand is still a bit behind in social learning, but it just means there is so much cool stuff to be learnt. Social media is a tool we can use to keep up with countries such as the US and Europe. As an example, I participated in my first tweet chat last week and I came away with several really valuable things to play with that have enhanced my own learning. Tweet chatting is something really new and seems to be really new to most other people to. But I found the opportunity to connect with like-minded people across the world simply awesome.

There is so much potential in social media to break down communication and geographical barriers, to learn from different people, different cultures and different ways of seeing the world. I think it’s so exciting, and look forward to my next tweet chat so I can keep on building my own learning.