To be proficient or not to be proficient?

Tonight Dr. Dennen shared some insight on how she became so adept at social media and networking. Although that's not what she would say. First, she signed up to follow some interesting people and topics. She also subscribed to some professional journals and visited blogs of interest. Some tools were dedicated to personal communiques while others were more professionally focused. Soon she was learning tidbits from all kinds of sources and the separating lines became somewhat blurred. Finally, it took time. Growing a successful personal learning network cannot be artificially induced. It is a gradual process. That became evident when I tried to inject myself into the gardening community of practice I was observing. You have to be genuinely interested in a topic and committed to following along regardless of all the twists and turns. And you have to be willing to give it time.