Fear of social media 😱- The rise of learning in cohorts 🎓- Innovation in the 'Great Stagnation' - World-class coach 🎾
Expert curators share there key insights, every week
Episode #18. Dear reader of The Timestamp, our episode from last week was a hit. Let’s see if the selection from this week is getting as much success!
We will share key insights about Social Media x Learning in communities x Innovation x Sports. Get to know more about the impact of communities either in new social networks or in learning. Curators of The Timestamp have been verified by Clind ; if you feel like growing your audience and become a verified creator in Clind as well, you are more than welcome to apply in the Clind app 🙏
Let’s get started and pls make sure to subscribe to The Timestamp and join 2,500 Sunday readers.
#1 Fear of Social Media 😱
Why some biologists and ecologists think social media is a risk to humanity published on June 26th 2021 in Vox / Recode and curated by Laura Bokobza.
A group of 17 researchers across fields from biology to philosophy have released a paper arguing that studying the effects of social media should be treated as a “crisis discipline.” That means scientists work across disciplines to tackle a big, pressing issue. The researchers ultimately argue that it’s dangerous to know as little as we presently do about the effects of social media on society.
Among the problems pointed by the paper, they argue that our lack of understanding about the collective behavioral effects of new tech is a danger to both democracy and scientific progress. The list of consequences goes from election tampering to war, through disease, violent extremism, famine, and racism.
In this interview of 2 of the involved scientists, they sound the alarm on "a massive problem". Drawing comparisons with other complex systems, they warn about possible sudden collapse and catastrophic failure, due to the finite limit to perturbation any complex system may withstand.
Laura Bokobza is a startup mentor, advisor & board member. You can subscribe to her weekly newsletter called “Le Comment du Pourquoi” 🇫🇷. Laura is also the host of a podcast called “Revues et corrigées”.
#2 Learning Communities (Part I) 🎓
The true power of learning communities (Learncoms) published on June 5th 2021 on the Brighteye Ventures’ blog and curated by David Guerin.
🔹 Education is fundamentally social, and most people want to experiment and learn together. There is a new wave of EdTech companies that leverage community learning ("LearnCom") to tackle two massive issues in the education world: (1) engagement and (2) motivation. 🔹 The community learning approach works for three main reasons: (1) accountability (2) relationships (3) sense of belonging
🏁We are only at the beginning of this new trend and the evolution of learning communities will be about productization: -> from “community as an add on” to “community as a core product + private + niche”. TODAY: "People (1) come for the content and (2) then engage with the community." TOMORROW: "People will (1) come for the community first, (2) be highly vetted, (3) engage with peers & consume content, and (4) will stay engaged (much longer)" The community aspect will outweigh the content.
😓Challenges for LearnComs: (1) Maintaining engagement over time (2) Decentralizing the community (3) Positioning (4) Monetising the learning XP in an efficient way (5) Managing learning environments both online and offline (6) Getting the right balance between the utility of the network and status (i.e. exclusivity).
David Guérin, Principal at Brighteye Ventures. David helps entrepreneurs build EdTech companies via his EdTech focused VC. He is also an On Deck Writer Fellow (ODW2). Check David’s blog at https://davidguerin.net and get to read his latest piece about “VCs falling in love with a startup”.
#3 Learning Communities (Part II) 🎓
In online ed, content is no longer king-cohorts are published on June 15th 2021 on Future the a16z’s blog and curated by David Guerin.
🔹 Today, we are in a post-content age -> Original educational content was scarce vs. today it is abundant & cheap (YouTube, Newsletters, blogs, etc) as creators are giving away valuable content, sometimes for free! 🔹 Interestingly, learners are worse off for all this abundant & cheap content -> less engagement, lower completion rate, etc. 🔹 This gap is allowing cohort-based courses (CBCs) to gain traction, as they are more engaging (community, active learning, live, scarce, etc.).
🔹 Consumers pay for what's scarce: in today's content-rich world, community is scarce. 🔹 CBCs: (1) encourage active/hands-on learning (2) mix different topics/activities (3) are bi-directional (conversation) by nature (creating more accountability) -> this approach has shown to be effective (Harvard study 2019).
🔹 Lifelong learning education must be compelling and carrot-driven -> social features of CBCs clearly help with that. 🔹 CBCs is a new model for creator monetization: the reality is that monetizing expertise is hard. CBCs provide a compelling way to monetize audiences directly, without requiring volume. It usually becomes the biggest stream of revenue for many creators!
David Guérin, Principal at Brighteye Ventures. David helps entrepreneurs build EdTech companies via his EdTech focused VC. He is also an On Deck Writer Fellow (ODW2). Check David’s blog at https://davidguerin.net and get to read his latest piece about “VCs falling in love with a startup”.
#4 The Great Stagnation of innovation ?
Chris Anderson of TED interviews me published on June 3rd 2021 in Marginal Revolution and curated by Patrick Kervern.
Despite Internet, we have not produced massive innovation in the last 50 years argues Tyler Cowen, a famous economist on Ted in a podcast conversation with Chris Anderson about our recent coming out of the “Great Stagnation”.
My grandmother saw more innovation than I did. In the 1920ies, innovation was adding value in the range of 2 to 3% a year now we are down to 1% a year. The rate of innovation slowed down in 1973 found Tyler Cowen.
Tyler Cowens feels that we are now emerging out of the “great stagnation”. mRNA vaccines have allowed a productivity boost in Cancer, Hiv, Malaria. Thanks to Cloud Computing, rapid computation and increased collective collaboration, the next 20 years of Biomedicine are going to be phenomenal.
Green Energy being nearly Economical make dreams like electric planes a possibility. When you get to near-zero cost for energy you enable astonishing projects like LowCost Desalination all over the earth deserts for example. There is more talent in the world than at any time in history. Side with the Doers.
Patrick Kervern, Founder at UMANZ. Sense-Maker & Curiosity expert.
#5 Coaching Tennis Champions 🎾
Fabriquer des champions published on June 13th 2021 on the podcast Generation Do It Yourself 🇫🇷 by Matthieu Stefani. Original version in French with key takeaways in English here 👇
Was a top tennis player as a kid but Patrick’s parents did not want him to pursue a career as a pro player vs studying. This created a frustration that Patrick overcame after 10years of therapy.
Proposed a deal with a worldwide recognized coach in tennis with a track record of working top ATP champs > 50 days of paid coaching in his academy in France and a right to use his name. The deal lasted 6 years before breaking up and the academy got named after his founder: Patrick Miratoglou who was to become Serena Williams head coach.
About personal branding: During a speaking engagement, an attendant with expertise in marketing asked Patrick: “do you have a problem with your name?” “Because you have been speaking for more than 1 hour within pronouncing your name. Since your name is your brand, either you should use it or change it”.
About Serena Williams, she has been raised with her sister Venus to become a tennis champion. Initially, her parents put Venus forward to succeed which created a sense of frustration for Serena. The Williams parents intentionally had kids to create tennis champions; their goal was to make it a fortune with this sport in order to get out of the Compton ghetto in LA.
Serena came to Patrick Miratoglou asking advice after losing in round 1 at Roland Garros. She had won 13 titles in 17 years and was turning 30. Patrick accepted to coach Serena who won immediately Wimbledon and back-to-back tournaments including the Masters to become again number one. Serena won 10 new titles in 5 years and remained number 1 for 3.5 years after starting with Patrick.
“Champions are very different from the usual people. They hate losing more than they like winning.”
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