We learn the rules so we can forget them

I wasn't sure what I was going to write this post about, but then it came to me.
"The reason we learn these rules is so we can forget them", I was told by a wise German yesterday.

I was attending a seminar by Wing Tsun grandmaster Sifu Gomo Keith Kernspecht in Dartford. The grandmaster said that we learn the forms (techniques) of Wing Tsun to teach us how to defend ourselves, but that the ultimate aim is for them to come naturally - or forget them.

The same is true about a lot of things in our lives. I am touch typing this - I have forgotten where the keys are, I just press them and make words. I have forgotten how to spell the words, they come naturally. And if I don't know a word, I look it up or learn its form. But once learnt it is forgotten.

So less of the mystic nonsense - what am I getting at? Well I work in journalism and websites. I am fairly well known for being innovative. I am also known as being a bit of a non-conformist.

I often get into conversations at work or with my peers that involve phrases like "well the system won't let us" or "we've traditionally never done it like that" - which drive me up the wall!

There are techniques and ways of doing things in journalism - short hand, the inverse triangle story system, who, when, where, what, why, and how etc. The same is true of the web SEO, optimisation of images, use of color (sic) and many more.

My points are these. If we are to truly progress towards Web 3 and true social systems of web-based information, as well as make money from the web for our bosses, we need to forget the lessons and techniques that got us here and keep on innovating.

We need to forget old models (Messrs James and Rupert Murdoch - it will never work) so we can find new models that are based upon, but not reliant upon our fixed learning.

Bloggers - of which I am one - need to remember that they are only doing the same thing that news forums were doing 20 years ago, but with better technology. I'm using Blogger that has a word processor comparable to Word of 10 years ago - and the future will just bring more.

But we mustn't get caught up in the hubris. Twitter will not always be the in web thing - something else will come along. As blogging will be replaced by something else and subs barriers and pay walls and old-school web payment models will be replaced by something else.

As grandmaster Kernspecht said: "20 years ago I would have told you to do this and there are so-called experts who still talk about it as if it is the only way of doing things. I have moved on and they are fools if they do not".