Your Beta Learning Channel

We’ve heard the feedback. We have taken it to heart. Changed. Evolved. Adapted. Pivoted. Now we can start to put it in action.

Since this is all still new however, where we put that in action might be a little more reserved than what we would ordinarily do. So, we put it in the beta channel. The beta channel is when we are ready to take a skill we are learning and put it into practice, but it isn’t part of the essential portions of our day, career, or life.

Side hustles are big opportunities for skills that are on the beta channel. The thing I love about side hustles is that they serve a need that is inside each of us that our main career or daily life don’t quite “scratch the itch.” Side hustles are the things you do that are extra to engage a part of you that you want to explore or accomplish. Writing this newsletter is a side hustle for me. It isn’t part of my regular job, but it is something that I do to enjoy it. I wake up super early to sit down at the computer with my cup of coffee and bang out a section or two. After an hour or so, I start my regular day.

Writing is on my dev channel. While I might write in every part of my day, I am not an author by trade, and my book writing is not a skill that I use as a primary label when I introduce myself. Could it become my primary gig? Sure—and in a way, I hope it does as a part of my career later in my life, so this is helping hone that dev channel skill for eventually bringing all the way to the outside in my day-to-day life.

The point of all of this, is to highlight that your dev channel are skills that you use every day or almost as much, but they are not the tentpole of your life. They are supporting activities or skills that compliment what you do in your life to help round out your life experiences, areas of fulfillment, and feelings of joy.

In some ways, the skills on your dev channel, help you be more effective of what you are doing in your main channel, or your release channel. Because they round you out as a person, and help you be happier in your life and stimulate different parts of your brain to bring as much of yourself to what you do, and to others, every day.

Up next

It’s time for prime time. It’s time to release your skills to the work to redefine how you work.

Doug Winnie is the Chief Learning Officer at MentorNations a startup focused on fostering digital skills around the globe. Doug previously worked in various digital skills, education and product management roles at Microsoft, LinkedIn, and Adobe. Doug is also a LinkedIn Learning author with multiple courses on digital transformation, product management, and computer science. Doug is also the editor of the LinkedIn newsletter, “Digital Mindset” that publishes weekly on LinkedIn.