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The fading ranks of middle management have lost their edge, thanks to revolutions in both technology and globalization. Indeed, the latest wave of technology advances—cloud computing, advanced mobile applications and devices, and rapidly expanding social networks to name a few—have greatly eased access to knowledge work. Nowhere is this change seen more dramatically than with the rapidly ascending workforce in high-growth markets outside the United States. Business writer Seth Godin remarks ominously, “If you're the average person out there doing average work, there's going to be someone else out there doing the exact same thing as you, but cheaper.” The game has shifted to a far more competitive, globally-connected field of play, requiring individuals to differentiate themselves in authentic, compelling ways like never before. Godin concludes, “If you're different somehow and have made yourself unique, people will find you and pay you more.”

How We Will Learn: Technology-Enabled Informal LearningWhen we talk about fostering agility, curiosity and continuous learning, we’re fortunate because today we have a host of Web-based technologies (including social, mobile, video, games, and personalized portals) that can serve as perfect tools to support the self-directed learner.By utilizing technology-enabled informal learning resources, collaborative learners can easily share and exchange knowledge, and self-directed learners can continuously teach themselves. These tools allow us to gain and share knowledge when, where and how we want it.Technology-enabled informal learning (that is, technology-based learning that takes place outside a formal classroom environment) also makes sense for organizations because we know that people learn in a variety of ways, and they usually like to learn on their own terms. This insight is derived from Howard Gardner, the influential educational thinker, who has argued that all of us have multiple intelligences. Adjusting and adapting to this cognitive norm, Gardner explains, will generally result in greater skill development and sharper problem solving.

According to ASTD’s Learning Executive’s Confidence Index for the fourth quarter of 2011, almost 55% of learning executives expect an increase in the use of informal learning and Web 2.0 tools in their organizations over the next 6 months.

It is sensemaking that is needed, a way of pulling together disparate data sources to provide meaningful output.

Business intelligence/analytics tools need to cut through the data and understand the core meanings and implications.

To engage with literature — and, by extension, with the world — in meaningful ways, argues Bayard, we need to understand the relationships between works and their position relative to each other within the collective library:

Any aspect of your daily life – most importantly your projects, business, or career – can be helped by critical thinking. You just need to practice it constantly. What’s Critical Thinking? Your brain thinks diversely. It can be affected by various factors too, plus the problem of relationships, for example, exactly what the heart says usually overwhelms exactly what the mind suggests.

In business, problem solving skills often war with instinct. Critical thinking can be a method that seeks to deal with facts derived by experience, rationalization, examination and other methods.

Understand the Distinction between Fact and Fiction

The real issue is that we don’t understand how human intelligence and “consciousness” work.

We don’t know the principles behind it; we can superficially imitate it but we cannot build something like it, or better – for now.What we need is a “cognitive computing” model (a theory) before we can build machines around it.