Skills That Matter: The Number One Thing To Unlearn About Technology

Read Time: 4 minutes

Hi 👋

Welcome to the Build Things That Matter newsletter, where I share tips, insights and practical strategies I discover building things that matter with the hope that they inspire and help you to keep doing so, too.

I left the organization I co-founded, Canada Learning Code, at the end of 2022 after a decade of building it to create 1 million learning experiences, teach hundreds of thousands of learners of all ages, and raise almost $50 million to fund our work.

Long story short, I’m back, or, boomeranged as other founders have affectionately referred to it.

My first day back was almost one year to the day after I left. Fun fact: my last day was when ChatGPT was launched to the public.

It was just minutes after my first virtual meeting back—when a team member’s Otter joined (an AI meeting recording tool)—that I knew things were different this time.

I realized quickly that the way I had built and led the organization up until that point in time wouldn’t be enough in the future because I had one thing wrong.

Let me explain.

Imagine I place a single yellow Lego brick in the middle of your room. I’m a toddler mom, so this example feels particularly relevant. And, I tell you, the number of Lego bricks will double daily.

How many Lego bricks cover your floor at the end of two days?

Two bricks.

What about after 10 days? How much of the floor in your room would be covered by bricks?

Maybe most of the floor one layer deep with over 500 bricks.

What about after 30 days? How much of your room would be covered by Lego bricks?

1,073,741,824 bricks…so many that your entire room, top to bottom, and entire condo, house, and office building too.

It's such a short period of time, the growth is almost unimaginable. That’s the power of compounding. We talk about compounding in the context of money, but a few other social forces operate like this, too…

Ever heard of Moore’s Law?

Moore's Law is a prediction made by Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel, in 1965. It originally stated that the number of transistors on a microchip would double approximately every two years while the cost of production would decrease. So far, he’s been right.

I’ve come to use Moore’s Law, along with Lego bricks, as a metaphor and helpful way of explaining the accelerating speed of technological change and advancements in technology, like AI, impacting leaders and their teams.

Instead of Lego bricks, you can imagine the knowledge and skills that might accumulate with our use of technology over time….

Yet, with the average half-life of skills in many technology roles at approximately 2.5 years, knowledge and skills are getting outdated pretty fast.

With so much knowledge and skills accumulating, how do we know which will matter?

I’ve been obsessed with this question for the last year or so (even longer without being able to put words to them) as I’ve helped people learn technical skills and studied organizations navigating rapid technological change.

Relying solely on what we know and did often reinforces doing things the way they’ve always been done.

That’s why many people and organizations fail to navigate big changes successfully when the circumstances surrounding that knowledge have changed so much—like with AI.

If we’re truly going to realize what technologies like AI can offer us, we need to unlearn some of our thinking and ways of doing.

That brings me back to Canada Learning Code - the organization I’m building again and the number one thing I've had to personally unlearn since I’ve been back:

AI is not a tool.

Yup, I said it.

For those of you who’ve followed me for some time, you know I’ve been on the record countless times (including national TV) talking about technology as a tool—something that's neutral, not very smart and that we can direct however we’d like.

The problem is that AI is different if we want to realize its full potential.

If we approach and talk about AI solely as a tool, we view the interactions as one-directional. We direct, and the technology responds.

This misses the mark because we, as humans, limit the output.

Instead, approaching AI as a partner starts a relationship. And, like any relationship, it’s interactive and dynamic. It requires clear expectations, direction and feedback in all directions.

We can start to ask questions like: How do we want to work together? What are we trying to accomplish together? Are we happy with this relationship? Are we getting as much as we’re giving?

This simple but powerful reframe is helping me find the right places in my work and life to augment and co-create with technology, unlocking its potential to help me do more things I want.

Here are just a few of the ways I’m approaching AI as a partner:

• Using AI as a thinking partner to brainstorm ideas and give feedback on mine (My preferred tool: ChatGPT)

• Using AI products to delegate (while I actively manage them) as many tasks as possible allows me to focus on more of the work I want to be doing (Think: preparing meeting notes or first drafts. I recently enjoyed Allie Miller’s 10x productivity course with lots of actionable tips)

• Creating custom GPTs that I pre-prompt to get good at a specific skill that I can share with my team to use and partner with, too (i.e. how to create really brand-aligned prospecting material using all of my outreach, successful pitches, email scripts and more from the last decade)

• Assigning roles and responsibilities to AI that contribute directly and measurably to goals. Yup, AI should get its own KPIs (i.e. reduce the time responding to customer service requests by 30% using AI-driven automation within the next 12 months)

I'll share more about unlearning in some future newsletters including the knowledge, skills and habits that are worth unlearning - or at least questioning as we build the future.

But to start, the best way to start thinking differently is by acting differently.

How will you partner with AI this week?

I’d love to hear your thoughts about anything I’ve shared or any questions you might have. Reply back and let me know.

That’s all for this week…but one more thing. Building things is hard. And, we need more people to do it. My personal goal is to help 1,000,000 people build the skills and confidence to build things that matter.  If you enjoyed this newsletter, can you do me a favour and forward it to a friend? Thanks in advance!

Let’s keep building together 🫶🚀

#Mel

Follow me on X/Instagram: @melsariffodeen

Forwarded this message? Sign up here.