Month: December 2025

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Use Generative Learning To Boost Generative AI

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We’re now familiar with gen AI but what is generative learning?

Generative learning theory suggests that people learn and remember more when they make relationships between what’s new to them and what they already know.

It’s a constructivist theory and says learning is about the work of actively constructing knowledge.

Gen AI tries to shortcut this.

I tried to make a thing yesterday. A tripod mount for an attachment. I drew a picture on paper, designed it in OpenScad, created a printable file in Slic3r and printed it on my 3d printer.

It’s a godawful design. I got it wrong twice. It only works becuse I didn’t realise that the tripod mount was helping the design stay rigid.

Any engineer that’s got shop experience would know a hundred different ways to make something better. But I don’t. I’ve given up on constructing that knowledge of making physical things. I’m at a competence level not far behind someone in high school.

We usually improve with age. Unless we stop trying.

Now imagine doing that with your mind. Stop trying to actively construct knowledge. Stop learning and remembering information. Stop trying to connect what’s new with what you already know.

In business, don’t bother talking to people. There’s no need to understand how the operation actually works. Want a strategy? Pick from a selection of ready made ones, all plausible and beautifully formatted.

If we stop and think for a minute, assuming we still can, what do we think that’s going to do to our ability to think?

Can we create the businesses and services and politics of the future if we let our ability to gain knowledge stagnate?

I’m not against using tools. They augment us. What we’ve got to do is remember that gaining knowledge requires active work – which is often hard work. You need knowledge so you can use tools better.

My prediction – the people who succeed will the ones who successfully couple generative learning with generative ai.

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Writing A Thesis

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Tuesday, 6.45am

Sheffield, U.K.

I wrote my thesis on the benefits of war and very near got thrown out of college. But I can show you where the greatest advancement of mankind comes under stress and strain, not comfort. – Don Young

I need to get on and write the text of my thesis.

And, of course, rather than just getting on and doing the work, I’ve got to create a process that makes it easier first.

My thesis is going to be an extended version of a paper that I’ve worked on with colleagues for the last few years.

I jumped in and started writing – and quickly realised that I didn’t have enough material and hadn’t organised my thoughts – I needed to do some pre-work before I could get down to drafting.

One of the hardest things about doing research these days is just how much information is available.

It takes time to find and filter information and select the papers you think are relevant. Some are classics but the point is to be selective.

For example, I limited my search to papers published in the last three years on business. While there are probably great papers in history and psychology that might be relevant, that’s not the field I’m writing in.

Then there’s reading and note-taking.

Now, the topic of my thesis is actually about note-taking – something that is really quite under-researched given how foundational it is to learning.

I’ve been wrestling with the format in which to take notes.

I wanted three things from my notes.

1. Chronology

I like to know when I worked on something. Time and history are inextricably wound together. I years to come I would like to see what happened when.

2. Chunking by topic

I like the idea of index cards – with an idea to a card. It’s possible to move these around and put related cards next to each other.

This is hard to do in text. And I’m not the kind of person that buys SaaS or likes dedicated software.

So, I used a text editor and scripts to set up a process.

When I take a note, it adds date and time information so I can refer to it later, if I want to.

I have a way of formatting my text files so I can identify card-like sections. So for example, a section of text starting with .cd and ending with .. contains card information.

From that, it’s relatively trivial to write scripts that read all the text files in a folder and organise the cards by their topics.

What this lets me do is take notes on a paper, so I have a collection of notes related to a particular text, but then also see the notes organised by topic so I can pick out all the points that are related to a given idea.

3. Portability

I keep switching between text and odt – the LibreOffice format.

I spend most of my time in the console, so text is much much easier. And if you’re on different machines you can just ssh in or copy a text file across later. It’s much easier to slice and dice text files that odt. So, all my raw material is collected in text files.

I use odt when I need to write something that’s shared with others. If they also need to read and edit I need a Word-like way to share information.

But if it’s just me writing I like to format using groff. So then I get a ms style output and it is easy to format and publish.

The point is to publish

I think it’s easy to get sucked into tools and methods, but I have to remember that the point of all this is to get the thesis done.

But it’s also about developing a process that I can use for the next few decades. I see reading and writing as something I will continue to do for as long as I can.

So it’s worth spending a little time making sure I have a way that works for me.

Cheers,

Karthik Suresh

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Go Deep AND Wide – The Essential Strategy For Succeeding In Business

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Monday, 8.40am

Sheffield, U.K.

Everyone has an invisible sign hanging from their neck saying, ‘Make me feel important.’ Never forget this message when working with people. – Mary Kay Ash

I’ve spent the last 20 years learning about business.

And there are two things I would advise myself to do ten years ago.

1. Build deep knowledge

Surface level knowledge is not enough.

Deep knowledge comes from working on an area of interest. Building craft skills, technical knowledge and muscle and brain memory.

We’re all good at different things.

I know people who would rather clean their cars than spend time with a book, while I’m the opposite – I do not like manual work but I’ll spend hours with words or numbers.

It’s the thing you do differently, almost obsessively, that you get good at.

And it’s that deep knowledge that lets you create new products and services.

2. Build wide relationships

We spend our careers looking down at our work but we need to also spend time looking around and seeing who else is out there.

Build your network early.

It takes time – and the one thing I wished I had done more is reach out and connect earlier in my career.

The more people out there that will take your call, the better your chances of reaching customers for your business.

Deep and Wide – That’s the secret

A good business creates value for a customer.

You create value through deep knowledge. And you create customers by drawing on wide connetions.

Get these two things right and it’s hard to fail.

Cheers,

Karthik Suresh