Reboot your mind: What is unlearning?

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Marketer Daniel Murray and I discuss on this episode of the podcast the importance of unlearning outdated strategies and tactics, how to do that and how to learn new things at the right time.

It seems unnatural that we now have to focus on unlearning things just like learning new skills and honing the ones we already have. I’ve had articles on the importance of ongoing education, including certifications, conferences and more. Now is the time to think about what we should unlearn.

What is unlearning?

Unlearning is the strategy to basically stop doing something you are doing. It’s getting rid of an outdated workflow. Cutting an inefficient tactic. Sometimes it’s a bad habit too. Let’s unlearn doing this accidental workflow.

Once you’ve identified the task or workflow it’s time to move toward stop doing it. That includes to a degree to unlearn the skill. That doesn’t mean we have to completely forget about it or all pieces of it. But it means that we stop doing a particular thing.

For example, way back when I printed out scripts to edit content. That was the accepted workflow and some even claim it’s easier to see mistakes on paper. Maybe it is or maybe it isn’t.

I even still discussed that topic on this podcast. I actually edited my third book on paper. It was quite a pain to transfer all the edits!

Anyway, it used to be a common tactic but with teams working in a distributed manner and the web being a central place to publish it doesn’t make nearly as much sense to edit on paper as it used to.

Read next: One way to optimize content creation workflows is for writers to create in the CMS

I had to unlearn the need to want to edit on paper to get this unlearning going. Once I got that in my head, I was able to learn how to edit in Word and turn on tracked changes when editing other people’s content. Then later editing moved to Google Docs where multiple people could edit together. Now some teams edit directly in the CMS.

How do we even know what we should be unlearning?

This can indeed be hard to recognize when teams exist in the same format and makeup for a long time. If there are no fresh thoughts ever being brought in it is hard to even know what needs to be updated.

And some people fight change, which could be another barrier to overcome.

Certainly, on the flip side some companies like the stability or loyalty when employees stick around forever. That’s great but can also present a problem when those long-term employee still use the exact workflow that they used when they started 10 years ago. Things change.

There are ways to understand what needs to be updated in any scenario:

• Rotate people around projects and tasks. That can give you a chance to spot ineffectiveness.
• Bring in new roles that bring in employees who have varied experiences that the current team does not have.
• Training and virtual conferences can also be helpful, but keep in mind that you’ll still have to implement ideas.
• Partner with strategic consultants that can help you unlearn the right things.

Of course hiring consultants can be harder than it sounds. Some try to tell you everything needs to be changed and they are the only ones that can help you get there. Unlikely. Others may run into to many barriers with internal politics.

Whatever route you go, make sure you give the change management leader enough freedom and authority to actually make positive changes.

But unlearning is becoming more important, especially now in the era of artificial intelligence, which has opened up new possibilities of content creation, and planning.

Isn’t it hard to unlearn thing we’ve done for a while?

I think so and people seem to have the tendency to fall back into their default. That’s why it can be helpful to find pain points or obvious improvements. If a change is making an employee’s life easier they are much more likely to do it.

When it comes to technology, that’s one area where we constantly have to learn and unlearn things. But keep in mind that technology is not the end-all.

And hardly any technology solution is perfect to begin with so there are still things to work around.

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We certainly want to learn specific tasks and tools and those can range from:

• Email marketing automation
• Social media automation
• CRMs
• Content production tools

Read next: Judgment time: Leaders should be required to go into the weeds before judging them

I’m a proponent of lifelong learning and it also helps being strategic about what we are actually learning.

How to learn the right things for the future

In a world where things are changing and things are changing super fast it’s always good to future proof our own careers. As much as that is even possible.

So what does that even mean to future proof your career?

It means that we pick a skill or profession that can easily or somewhat easily adjust with the changing times.

For example:

• I went to school to study journalism and then worked as a print journalist.
• Then I took the skillset of storytelling to bank training. I learned video production here.
• Then I started my own journalistic start up and learned how to publish on the web and penetrate a market.
• Then went back into a more traditional journalism organization.
• And helped nonprofits tell better stories.
• The next move had me going into healthcare storytelling.
• And Software as a Service.
• I moved back into publishing and implementation
• Did I mention technology?

The skill of sharing brand stories transfers.

The areas I’ve worked in are related and different at the same time.

The skills that carry through are:

• Storytelling
• Communications across channels – writing, audio, video and also internal and external
• Ability to change
• Coach ability (I debate like I’m right and listen like I’m wrong)
• Competitiveness
• Ability to live in a data-driven culture of several maturity levels

Some of the jobs I’ve done and the jobs of the people I’ve worked with didn’t even exist when I went to college or when I went through high school.

Examples:

• App developer
• Content marketer (in today’s sense)
• Who knew what content engagement was in 1999?
• Conversion-centric writers (Did I mention that writing has never been harder?)
• Social media marketer
• Podcaster

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Roles change all the time.  The late Steve Buttry blogged about how the role of editor changed at The Gazette, where I implemented topical websites in the 2010s. Certainly the way content is being created has evolved as well. Today we can:

• voice dictate articles
• do podcasts
• shoot virtual reality video
• work on iPads
• And more

And the way to go with the flow is to figure out what that core strength and interest of yours aligns with the present and the future.

Have a core skill that transfers:

Writing, design, change management are examples. Some of the basics will always matter and will be needed.

Then keep evolving that skill. The writing I do today is very different from the way I wrote in the 2000s. It’s more focused on keyword research, web readability – or skim ability – and other ways to  drive content performance.

Then there are what some may call soft skills that are also important:

• Be collaborative
• Always learn – even when you think you know
• Be nice
• Own without being overly protective
• Communicate well
• Don’t be married to the current state or product
• Or even the next stage

Let’s take printed newspapers. I loved them. I grew up with them. I wrote for them. I loved seeing my byline on the front page.

I had four papers delivered to my home at some point.

Then things changed. Digital journalism started up and I learned that.

It’s not that I don’t consume news today! I consume more than ever before and definitely when compared to the print era.

In the print era, I read news once in the morning.

Now, I read it constantly.

• As I roll out of bed on my phone.
• Through alerts
• On Flipboard, Apple News, Twitter. The list goes on.

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I’m committed to the craft of journalism, storytelling and other relevant content marketing in a channel-agnostic way. Whatever channel works, use that. Life and business evolves and I try to stay relevant by evolving with it.

To achieve those goals, learning and unlearning help us stay relevant.

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