Traralgon Bunko Breakfast Report

On Thursday evening twelve people who work in a range of fields including health, education, and sustainability gathered in Traralgon, Australia to discuss The Adventures of Johnny Bunko and the six lessons for thriving in the world of work.

A conversation menu was provided with the questions Dan Pink suggested as well as this one:

“Globally, the world of work and education is changing – what is changing locally?”

Conversation was wide ranging, and I recorded the following observations about the changing nature of work and education:

There are now more opportunities and increased flexibility in education as well an expectation of ‘life long learning’. The traditional path of school – university – career is only one option among many.

Women are speaking out more and creating opportunities – they are not as likely to be constrained by ‘the plan’ as in the past.

Workplaces are not necessarily keeping up with the changing expectations of employees – larger organisations in particular have expectations that younger employees are still following ‘the plan’.

Local primary and secondary schools are embracing technology, utilising smart boards (interactive whiteboards) in classrooms and contributing to global projects, although uptake varies between schools.

Kerryn and Jenny, who work in medical education noted that Generation Y doctors aren’t very interested in traditional face-to-face professional development – the Gen Y attitude has been ‘I don’t need to attend – if I want to know something, I’ll google it.’
It seems patients are doing the same thing – doctors are now dealing with ‘internet expert’ patients who google their symptoms, make their own diagnosis, then request their doctor prescribe accordingly.

Kerryn and Jenny discuss the book - Johnny Bunko anxiously awaits their verdict. Johnny Bunko? WTF?

We talked about whether you can identify an excellent mistake in advance, rather than just recognise it in retrospect. Frank (formerly in IT/economics/business now in sustainability) thought that you can’t make a pre-meditated excellent mistake – maybe a calculated risk was a better description?
Sarah (co-founder of the Blue Stockings Association) was an advocate for learning by doing – taking every opportunity, knowing you won’t get everything right, knowing that you will make mistakes, and knowing that the experience will be worth it.

Caitlin (co-founder of the Blue Stockings Association) read the whole book in half an hour.

Finally, some suggestions for the seventh lesson:

Look after your health – without your health, it’s hard to achieve anything else.
Take every opportunity – an excellent mistake may be waiting for you!
Seriously, have fun.  This is not a race to the end – an enjoyable, satisfying and fulfilled life is what it’s all about.

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