Change Your Space, Change Your Culture: How Engaging Workspaces Lead to Transformation and Growth

Chapter 6Changing Design from PUSH to PULL

People only see what they are prepared to see.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

My 15-year-old son, Tyler, begins his school day by pulling up his class assignments on the Keystone curriculum website. Today he has to create a “virtual poster” on a biology topic. Tyler isn't quite sure what a virtual poster is, so he comes downstairs to ask me. Like most of Tyler's school questions, I have no clue what he's talking about. This quickly moves to, “Son, let's look it up.”

We Google the words “virtual poster school.” In 0.36 seconds the search delivers over 36 million hits. The first few say:

• Virtual Poster Session Archive | Earthzine
• Virtual Graduate Student Poster Session
• Virtual Posters with Glogster—YouTube
• Images of virtual poster school

We also found samples on a website called Slideshare.

Tyler and I learned that a virtual poster is basically a multimedia slide deck that fully explains a topic without presenting the information live. Tyler had what he needed to complete the assignment.

The authors of The Power of Pull (Basic Books, 2010), John Hagel, John Seely Brown, and Lang Davison, define PULL as “the ability to draw out people and resources as needed to address opportunities and challenges. Tyler had what he needed to complete the assignment. Pull gives us unprecedented access to what we need, when we need it, even when we're not sure what “it” is.¹ Many high schools still use a PUSH model. PUSH batches students into age groups traveling ...