Lifelong learning is something I am passionate about and I hope everyone embraces. The mindset behind your approach to learning is equally important. The free udemy course Hyperthinking – Improve Your Day to Day Learning and Creativity introduces a framework to develop a new mindset and inspire continued learning.
The course begins by stating something that many people now believe. The world of your parents is gone and with it job security. Therefore you must develop a new mindset. The framework presented in this course is called HyperThinking. It is composed of four pillars:
- HyperShift
- HyperLearn
- HyperLink
- HyperAct
The lectures in the course briefly describe each component.
HyperShift
The first piece of the Hyperthinking framework, HyperShift, is all about perspective. You engage in HyperShifting through a series of steps to look at an issue from multiple perspectives and derive new insights and solutions as a result.
First, you must recognize that the way you see a topic, your business, the world, etc… is only one of many perspectives.
Having realized this, the second step is to see the other person’s perspective. Shift your perspective to look at the issue through the other perspective.
Third, “blank slate” your mind (I added that, from Jim Camp’s Start With No system) and embrace the other perspective. See yourself champion this other perspective as if it were your own. Argue in favor of it and make its case.
Fourth, step back and consider both perspectives. What have you learned from embracing the other view? What have you learned about your own view in this new light? Challenge yourself and the things you believe to be true, to discover new insights.
Finally, create a synthesis of the different perspectives. How can you look at the topic or issue in a new way, using the perspectives you embraced? What new and refreshing perspective can you generate, to help solve challenges and bring people together?
HyperLearn
The second component of the framework, HyperLearning, focuses on two skills: Self-learning and Creativity. Both of these skills should be practiced and improved throughout your lifetime in order to stay relevant and effective.
Self-Learning is about Kaizen – continuous improvement. It is about learning to think better, and in new ways. Learning does not end, as they say, when you leave school. Rather, your journey as a self-learner is neverending.
To support self-learning, the course lists some tools you can use (e.g. TED.com, Google Zeitgeist, and podcasts). The instructor also suggests making learning part of your daily routine, always staying in a learning mode.
Creativity is the other key skill in HyperLearning. Creativity is not an innate ability that some people have and others do not. It is a skill that must be practiced. To support this, the course suggests a number of approaches, including:
- Lateral thinking – putting on different hats (perspectives) to look at a problem
- Mind maps – a more visual way to brainstorm
- Design thinking – a process of HyperThinking, prototyping, and iterating toward better solutions
HyperLink
In our connected world, the instructor says, we are all part of various networks. Work, personal, and social networks.
HyperLinking is about
- Making connections between things that do not appear connected on the surface
- Embracing technology, and looking behind the curtain to understand how things work
- Understanding the networks you are part of; leveraging those to make new connections and strengthen existing bonds
HyperAct
The fourth component of HyperThinking is to put your ideas into practice and make things happen, to HyperAct. This does not mean you set a static course and plow forward no matter what happens. You must be willing to pivot, like a Lean startup. You must also be willing to improvise, react to unpredictable events and opportunities, and apply the creativity you have been practicing.
HyperThinking – Course Analysis
The ideas in this course, while not groundbreaking, are solid tenets. It should be possible to draw them together to create an interesting framework. Unfortunately, the course does not achieve this goal. In fact, it does nothing at all with the four components, barely explaining each one in the short set of lectures.
The course also includes two TEDx talks by Philip Weiss. You will likely get a better sense of HyperThinking by watching these talks than you will from the actual course content.
One thing in his TEDx talks really bugs me though. At one point, Weiss takes off his glasses and briefly puts on a pair of silly glasses to describe the concept of HyperShifting, looking through different perspectives. This reminds me of advice from the How to Network course I discussed. Weiss is trying to be memorable, but wearing clown glasses is the wrong way to go about it.
Weiss’s 2012 book HyperThinking: Creating a New Mindset for the Age of Networks, has zero reviews on Amazon as of this post. That’s not a good sign.
Another problem is that I cannot tell who the target audience is for this content. The lectures make it sound like the audience is technologically very unsophisticated. For example, the instructor encourages you to join their social network channels (e.g. Facebook), where you can create your own profile at no cost and without risk of commitment. Is this suggesting that the audience does not have Facebook or other social media accounts already? What audience, watching courses on Udemy, would his suggestion apply to?
Conclusion
Unfortunately, this online course does not adequately cover its own topic. It lacks depth. It also fails to bring the pieces together in a grand synthesis, or offer new insight.
I like the four components of HyperThinking. It would be a good exercise to think about the pieces and brainstorm ways to bring them together into a coherent framework to achieve something new.
Watch the two TEDx talks first. Once you finish those, review my notes in the course guide below to see if there are any points you want to extract from the lectures. Otherwise, despite liking the concepts, I cannot recommend spending the extra 30 minutes or so on the course lectures.
