Speaking at Learning Choices Network Gathering

In a break from the last few speaking engagements I’ve listed this week, which have all been about web technologies and best practices, I get to list an event that isn’t about the web at all. Sorta.

Learning Choices Network (LCN) is a local (to Buffalo) organization focusing on alternative education such as self-directed learning and life-long learning. To let the organization speak for itself, this is from its Facebook page:

LCN exists to create, facilitate, and promote alternative opportunities for authentic learning in the local community while connecting educators, community advocates, parents, and business people who are seeking workable solutions for educational choice.

As someone who has built a career around the web, but for whom the web had barely sprung into existence when I started, being self-taught was the only option I had. For a sense of timing, Mosaic was released while I was in college (with Netscape Navigator soon to follow), so there weren’t classes to take, let along many with experience to help me get started. As I developed skills and started to rely on mailing lists to refine them, I co-founded evolt.org and started writing, trying to become the kind of teaching and training resource I never had. I have been following that approach ever since (I believe evidenced by this very blog).

I’ve followed the same learn-as-you-go model for when I co-founded my business, Algonquin Studios, 17 years ago as well as other companies we’ve spun off since then. Just as I formed evolt.org to help provide a resource like I didn’t have when I started, we’ve been spinning up VCAMP, our own local incubator/accelerator to help provide a platform for other business that we didn’t have when we started.

At the LCN event I will speak about how I started down my self-directed learning path, identified (and sometimes discarded) mentors, and somehow managed to be a (so far) successful entrepreneur when both the technology and economy have flolloped up and down like a mattress from Sqornshellous Zeta (sorry, it really is the best word to use). If you’re lucky, I’ll even (probably incorrectly) speculate on the future of education and learning, something for which I am woefully unqualified.

The event will be held from November 8 through November 10, 2014. Tickets are available online. The event will be held at Buffalo History Museum, map embedded below: