Michele Martin parses the differences between an organizational "culture of training" ("something that's done TO staff") and a "culture of learning ("something that's done WITH staff"), a follow-up to an earlier musing about the short-term cost an organization bears for investing in learning in which I spoke rather out of school (so to speak) by appearing in the comments section. Michele's content-rich, dialogue-inviting space is really one of the more enjoyable nptech hangouts around, and I like the way she's positioned some of the questions. Though I can't pretend to any particular expertise on the subject of learning as such, the issue speaks to me inasmuch as every important step in my life has come about from exceeding my brief -- and it's ironic to be scribbling this as I shuttle back and forth between a conceptual presentation on some of the more arcane and potentially powerful features in Salsa, our new toolset. It's like learning the platform all over again, and a striking juxtaposition since learning DIA -- and anything at all about online communication -- was itself a venture afield from my former day job of fundraising. At the time we pushed that boat into the water with a few dozen people on the e-mail list, there was no conceivable short-term justification from the organization's standpoint for the time involved, though from my own personal standpoint and that of the organization's long-term interests, it was more defensible. I don't have the slightest answer to Michele's probing, I'm afraid. But I think it's worth the read and the mulling.