Learn in Public

Share your journey.

Create new personal and professional opportunities by sharing the authentic journey of your skill development online.

Create Your Own Career

There are no longer any barriers keeping you from creating your own career, other than your own fears.

For many professions, a degree no longer matters. What matters is demonstrating your skill and your dedication to the craft you’ve chosen to pursue.

When you learn in public, you do that. You share your skill development and your works in progress online, even before you think you’re ready.

Learn in Public: take steps that move you toward your mountain.

To overcome the fears that come along with that act of vulnerability, this course will help you develop a strategy for sharing your skill development online as you move toward the work and the life that excites you.

Course Breakdown

Part 1: The Lay Of The Land

The current state of the internet and the opportunities that abound.

1.1 The Lay Of The Land
1.2 Learning In Public: An Overview
1.3 Learning In Private vs Learning In Public
1.4 The Prerequisites For Learning In Public
1.5 Your Comfort, Growth, & Danger Zones
1.6 The State Of The Internet
1.7 Are You In?

Part 2: Learning...

You'll develop a personalized learning plan tailored to your style and goals.

2.1 Learning...
2.2 The Importance Of Milestones
2.3 Core Content & Core Skills
2.4 Gather Your Resources
2.5 The Learning Cycle
2.6 Mindset Matters
2.7 Set Aside Time
2.8 Leverage Your Perfectionism

Part 3: ...In Public

You'll decide where and how to share your learning online and connect with others.

3.1 ...in Public
3.2 Your Overarching Theme
3.3 What Learning In Public Looks Likes
3.4 Creating Your Website
3.5 Your Primary Pages
3.6 Let's Get Social
3.7 Choosing What Platforms To Be On
3.8 The Power Of The Email Newsletter

Part 4: Execute & Iterate

Put your learn-in-public plan into action and improve it as you gain experience.

4.1 Execute & Iterate
4.2 Case Study: Maria Popova of Brain Pickings
4.3 More Case Studies Coming Soon!
4.4 Epilogue

Lesson Format

Each of the 26 lessons within this course are presented in a text + illustration format, which helps to support the key ideas, as shown in the lesson excerpt below:

Before we go any farther, let’s define this term learn in public.

Learning in public: The documentation and sharing of your skill development online for the purpose of creating your own career opportunities.

Chances are good that to one degree or another you’re already documenting your life with status updates on Facebook, photos of what you’re up to on Instagram, and witty thoughts on Twitter.

To learn in public is to become a bit more intentional and a bit more vulnerable with what you share and how you share it.

It’s adding a bit of purpose to the process, making it clear that you’re developing new skills and that you’d like to share what you learn along the way, not only to help other learners but also to increase your opportunities for using your new skills in the future.

Learning in public can take many forms, from a written blog to a video series to a podcast show.

Learning in public can take many different forms. Here are a few of the most common:

A written blog – the quickest way to get up and running to start sharing what you’re learning.
A video series – the most personal way to document and share your skill development.
A podcast show – interview others and/or share your own experiences in an audio-only format.

The existence of multiple platforms with multiple media might seem daunting at first, but what it really means is that you can focus on those that resonate the most with you.

Why learn in public? To deepen your understanding of your work, to create a reviewable archive of it, to connect with others along the way, and to set yourself up for new income-generating opportunities.

In the typical educational experience your work and your skill development is shared only with your teacher and, at times, your classmates.

With a bit of extra effort, you can increase the audience and the impact of your work by documenting and sharing your learning experiences online.

So don’t get me wrong – it will take extra time and effort to learn in public, but I think there’s a good chance that those investments will pay off.

Taking and sharing these sketchnotes of Seth Godin being interviewed by Krista Tippett for the program On Being lead to an experimental paid gig sketchnoting each episode:

Prompt

In what ways are you already documenting your life online?

***

To share your response to that prompt or ask a question about this lesson, head over to the Share Your Work section of this course.

Live Visual Thinking Workshops

Connect with Doug and other visual thinkers from around the globe in these regular live events.

Monthly Q & A

Bring questions related to the course you're working through or share your latest sketchnoting project for feedback. Open to all skill and experience levels. Join us for some rich discussions about the world of visual thinking!

Upcoming Q & A:

February 6th at 9:00am Pacific Time

Quarterly Book Club

Each quarter I share two books that I'll be reading and I encourage you to pick one (or both!) to read and sketchnote along with me. We meet once a month to discuss the ideas within the books and how you're going about making them visual.

Upcoming Book Club Event:

January 23rd at 9:00am Pacific Time

Learn from Anywhere

Learn in Public: laptop, desktop, tablet, and smartphone screenshots of the online learning environment.

Built on top of the Mighty Networks platform, you'll be able to access all of our resources from any browser or by using the native iOS or Android app.

Of all of the Verbal to Visual courses, this one had made the most impact on me! I came to this having a good understanding of making visuals, but without any direction. The direction and action came with this course. It truly transformed my thinking and plan of action. I now have a website and a Facebook group, am working on a membership. I am so grateful for the inspiration and action steps. Fab work Doug. I’m not so scared now about learning in public.

Arnna G.

Become a Visual Thinker

Develop the instinct. Hone the craft.

Join Sketch Instinct