Learn something new

I've worked at lynda.com for over 2 years and I'm ashamed to say that I've spent very little time learning on our site. I've spent lots of time on our site for work, and as Director of Product Management for our Enterprise products, I've spent lots of time talking to all kinds of people about how they use or would like to use lynda.com in their organizations. You'd think that I'd be a lynda.com power user, but the truth is, once I log off my computer at the end of the work day, I usually don't log back in, even though I really want to take ALL of the photography classes and my pivot table knowledge in Excel could use some refreshing.

I've been thinking about how immersive learning design applies to me expanding my other design skills. I wrote a whole book on immersive design and still I struggle just like everyone else to find the motivation to jump in an practice a new skill consistently to improve my performance. I have two skills I want to master by the end of this year. First, I want to be able to play my Evelyn Evelyn ukelele from Amanda Palmer (as shown in the awesome birthday package I received a few years ago...).

Second, I want to learn how to improve my drawing skills. Ever since I hand drew wireframes for a new feature flow, my team has been making comments about my now legendary lack of drawing skills. And my newest addiction with the French Girls app has made me even more interested in pushing myself to grow in my ability to draw.

So, applying my immersive design expertise, I'm going to tackle these two goals in the context of immersive learning.

My ukelele playing is going to improve with a simple design that's a tiered system of practice/performance with the ultimate goal of playing my husband, John, a song of his choice for his 40th birthday this November. I'm still working out the performance schedule, but stepping stones include a song for our trip to Yosemite this month, a song for my daughter's birthday in September, a song for our dear friends' wedding in October, a song for DevLearn at the end of October, all leading up to a song for John's birthday. I'll keep you posted with progress!

My drawing is getting jump-started this month with a design challenge through lynda.com. It starts today, and I'm looking forward to posting my progress. If you're interested in improving your drawing skills too, draw along with me! I'd love the company, and it would be great to have some peer pressure to complete the challenge every day. You can sign up for the challenge here: http://on.fb.me/SfajBd

I've already completed today's drawing challenge, "draw a cat." So far, so good...

If immersive learning is learning by doing, then let's do this!