Regarding teaching, learning, and social networks: you either improve or worsen
“Improve or worsen, there’s no middle ground”; I heard this expression once from Cuco Ziganda during a press conference when he was the coach of Osasuna. The truth is, he didn’t farewell during his time at the Navarra club, but it’s true that I kept that sentence with me forever.
I often apply it, especially in a family context, when I’m with my loved ones, to make it clear that regardless of the path you choose in life, it requires a high level of dedication and involvement because the competition out there is intense, and as much as possible, you need to stay ahead. As Jaime Rodríguez de Santiago mentioned in one of his episodes of Kaizen: “Do you have twenty years of experience? Or have you repeated the same year twenty times?” At the end of the road, the deviation, the trend, will be evident; you will have either improved or worsened. And you can apply it to any aspect of your life: family, professional, physical, mental, and so on.
In this post, I’m going to apply this concept to two scenarios: Teaching, learning, and social media.
Teaching and learning:
I fondly remember the call from Professor César Nombela (may he rest in peace) and his team to be part of the faculty panel at the Pharma & BioTech School they were creating in collaboration with an educational institution. By the way, it’s worth noting the tribute by the Community of Madrid that will name the talent attraction grants for young researchers after César Nombela.
As I was saying, from the very beginning, I felt a bit embarrassed since I tend to think I never have enough knowledge, that I always need to improve, that I need to keep myself updated more, and it feels like I need to keep learning more than teaching, which is what they were asking of me. But I accepted the challenge, not for the content itself but for the idea of trying to teach students to think differently, with a critical mindset, about any technical aspect we could address. And so I did, I prepared the content as best as I could and focused on that intention, the transformative power that this teaching opportunity was giving me.
The experience was brief, over a few months in 2022, I developed a couple of modules for a bibliographical version in book format and later recorded a couple of video capsules discussing the content of each module, but emphasizing the provocation of critical thinking in students.
Well, after at least a couple of editions using these teaching materials, I can say it went well when several of the students contact you looking for answers to questions that we’ve all had in our beginnings.
Many of them express their surprise at how someone would want to help them without asking for anything in return and without any conflict of interest. As Luis Bassat mentioned in that 100th episode of Kapital as a guest of Joan Tubau, “if we all knew that we have to give without expecting anything in return, knowing that, in a very high percentage of cases during our lives, we will encounter ingratitude,” society would probably be a bit better than it is today.
Social media:
The truth is, I consider myself an advanced user of all kinds of social media, but perhaps more related with my investments in the world of sports.
At personal level, I only have active accounts on LinkedIn and Twitter, and from this month, I’m going to focus exclusively on the latter.
My opinion of LinkedIn can be summarized with the image you can see below, so, even though I’ve been significantly reducing its use in recent months, it’s definitely on standby for me. This social network hasn’t given me anything, whether I needed it or not. In fact, this post is the first which I won’t be sharing on LinkedIn.
Regarding Twitter, at least in my experience, if you have a clear strategy for managing and selecting your timeline, who you follow, and creating lists (whether private or public), I can guarantee that, for now, and unless Elon Musk changes that, it’s my primary social network. It optimizes my time to learn from diverse profiles at the national and international levels, whether they are from my professional field or cross-cutting, with both younger and more experienced individuals. Honestly, for now, Twitter makes me better.
The day it’s not like that anymore, and if there’s no alternative, I’ll transform this blog into a newsletter to try to build a community while I read and listen to the content I’ve been regularly sharing in the content capsules of each post.
These are the decisions I’m making regarding these two matters to try to improve and not worsen.
EDUCATIONAL PILLS:
Medical Affair International Master. Program which is part of Educational offer by Biotech and Pharma School. In memoriam Professor Cesar Nombela. Certified by Avila Catolic University. Information
Advanced Management Program. IE Business School. Educational executive programs. Information
READING PILLS:
Data Privacy and Health: How Do We Achieve the Right Balance? Abstract by C. Daniel Mullins Michael F. Drummond. ISPOR
Medtronic sued for allegedly sharing ‘treasure trove’ of diabetes patient data with Google. Med Tech Dive.
Inside Apple’s Plan to Change the Way We Watch Sports by Sam Schube. GQ Sports.
STARTUP PILLS:
Investment opportunities: Capital Cell
(ES) International Funding Opportunities Bulletin. Carlos III Health Institute.
HERA Invest offers one hundred million euros to companies for medical countermeasure research and related technologies in the European Union. AEMPS.
PODCAST PILLS:
(ES) “The Scientific Revolution”: La Contra Historia with Díaz Villanueva.
EVENT PILLS:
(ES) IX Congreso Internacional Dependencia y Calidad de Vida. Fundación Edad & vida. 6 y 7 de Noviembre 2023. Más información.
ISPOR EU 2023 | November 12–15, Copenhagen, Denmark
