Post by @julieyeats
If you’re anything like me, you spend a little bit of each day (or a lot of each day!) poking around online, catching up on news or searching for funny videos. While online, I always try to spend at least a few minutes reading articles about my industry and other things that interest me. Maybe it’s because my mom is a teacher (and I spent the better part of my childhood in the classroom), or maybe it’s because I am just a nerd at heart. Either way, I love to learn.
The Internet and social media have fundamentally changed the way we collaborate and absorb new information. We now have access to endless information with the simple push of a button. With that however, can come information overload. I used to bookmark my favorite articles and tried to keep my folders as organized as possible for future reference, but it became overwhelming and easily slipped into disarray. It wasn’t easy to refer back to articles and they were tough to share. Some articles got saved in my email, some I bookmarked in Chrome, some in Safari. Some got saved to Instapaper, Evernote, or Pocket. For lack of a better system, I had resigned myself to perpetual information chaos, until I made a great discovery: Learnist.
Learnist is like Pinterest, but instead of showing off your latest crafting projects or extensive recipe collection, you can showcase what you know and what you like learning about. It essentially acts as a visual repository of all your favorite articles, videos, ebooks, maps, surveys, blogs, podcasts, and images. Users create boards based on their interests and curate content around a chosen theme. Their website describes the idea as “a collaborative, multimedia and interactive e-book from the future.” Board topics range from “What is Creativity?” to “Travel Writing” to “Modern East Asian Politics.” There is literally something for everyone, no matter what your interests.
Your customized learning experience begins from the moment you sign in and create a profile, as the site prompts you to select your categories of interest and then select even more specific tags. For example, if you follow the “technology” category, you can further specify tags associated with technology, like “programming”, “web design” or “software.”
Your newsfeed will then populate with boards centered on topics you want to learn about. You can follow users who feature interesting content, follow only specific boards, or “like” individual articles. Each board is equipped with a comments section to encourage collaboration and each board (as well as individual article) has social buttons to allow for easy sharing across Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google +, LinkedIn, etc.
Creating your own boards is a yet another way to use social media to build your personal brand, while at the same time showing what are you are knowledgeable and passionate about. For example, I happen to live in and love Downtown Las Vegas, so I created a board for others to learn about all the innovative and unique things happening here. If you see an article on the site that would fit perfectly on one of your boards, simply click the “re-add” button. You can also add content to your boards by adding a link, or uploading an image or file directly from your computer.
One of the most convenient features of the site is the web browser bookmarklet. It pulls in images and text directly from the site, which you can change or customize as you see fit. Once installed, you can easily curate content and post it to your boards as you surf the web. In addition, the site has a “mark done” button to the top right of every article, that way you can track your progress as you read your way through a board, and also avoid reading the same article twice. Also be sure and check out their iPhone and iPad app, if you like learning on the go!
Businesses can take advantage of this new platform as well. It’s a great place to showcase YouTube videos, press articles, featured products, and more. San Francisco-based jewelry company, Stella and Dot, is an example of a company using Learnist to build their brand and tell their story. From their first post, a YouTube video entitled “The Story of Stella and Dot,” they use their board to humanize their brand. Their board also features press clippings, and information about the company’s charitable efforts with the non-profit organization Autism Speaks.
The only caveat here is watch out for how much time you spend! It’s easy for innately curious people like me to get sucked in and allow hours to pass without realizing it. But after all, the time is spent learning. Life-long learning is a passion and core value for all of us here at Digital Royalty. So go on, indulge your inner nerd and show the world what you know.
