Free Knowledge Sharing
Today our guest is Arman from Montreal, Canada. He is a guy who really loves Photography and everything around it. He also started a very interesting project called "Free Knowledge Sharing". We have conducted an interview with him.
How do you normally satisfy your own curiosity on a skill-based subject?
I think it will be better if I answer with an example. In 2014 I was introduced to Photography by a good friend during a family dinner. He came with a camera and took a couple of shots of my daughter and later send us very beautiful pictures. I was curious and intrigued, I wanted to learn and take nice pictures myself. That is how I started an amazing journey: I have mastered Photography and Photoshop in two years and still have tons of stuff to learn. Did I pay for it? not a penny. Websites, forums, youtube, free lessons, interaction with other photographers. Another example: I built my own websites, I became a social network guru with thousands of followers. Did I pay for it? No. Not for learning. Maybe a few dollars for ads.
What inspired you to start this project about 'Free Knowledge Sharing'?
To be honest the idea came by itself. Me and my wife, we were working on Photography and Photoshop lessons, which will also become available on Udemy very soon for free of course. And during the work I realized that this can be bigger than one subject, more than one person can be involved.
The idea is simple, I introduce free lessons to attract our audience to website or social platforms and ultimately gain clients for my Photography work. Sounds like win-win, right? I give value by teaching for free, I gain by attracting clients 'Free Knowledge Sharing' is a platform everyone can use. You want to learn - you go there. You want publicity - you go there too. You give value by teaching for free and in return, you get the attention and potential customers.
How do you plan to sustain this project without any form of commercialising it?
There are multiple sources of funding we consider.
1. You are a great expert in many fields: communication, journalism, social network, sells, and so on. You are a potential resource 'Free Knowledge Sharing' platform. You can teach and for satisfying your desire of being a tutor/ mentor, you also be a sponsor and use our network and connections for advertising your services.
2. We work on involving students and gaining government support.
3. We plan to generate revenues from ads running on our Websites and Youtube channels.
What is your belief and personal experiences about the philosophical aspects and discovery of the value given by teaching?
Today I work as a professional business analyst with more than 15 years of experience in banking. One of my accountabilities in my work is to teach newbies, prepare them to become professional analysts. I can certainly tell you that the part of my work as a teacher is the most enjoyable. The satisfaction one gets after seeing one’s student becomes an expert and who uses the knowledge to earn his/her leaving, to feed his/her family, is like reaching the top of Everest. It is exactly the same feeling when you teach your children and later see their success. It is so simple and great!
The knowledge contains a value when you pass to someone you give that value. The recipient one way or the other uses it to create a value, during his/her work or passing a value to the others. If you scale it bigger: in 100 years or many generations, the value you give spreads out exponentially with your minor effort within a big scale. Today many people and companies use the technological boom, availability of information sharing as an advantage for capital gain.
Are you working on any research about 'passing of knowledge'?
This endeavor is a research by itself. I was born in Armenia, former USSR. I attended soviet school , later graduated from the University of Economy. 15 years of free education. After I served in the army right after Karabakh war in the region for 2 years. I wasn’t a good student in the first place, and after two years in the army, I completely forgot everything I have learned at school. I had a friend who taught me jewelry skills( for free) and I started to make money thanks to those skills. I was hired by a small bank in probation in lending department. I was taught credit business not just for free, but paid money for it.
I have learned and became a business analyst. Now I make money thanks to those skills. I have learned Photography and Photoshop from different people on the Internet for free, now I make money thanks to those skills. The list goes on and on.
I never paid for learning, sometimes I even get money during the learning. The only time I paid was once for Six Sigma certificate, but not for knowledge.
My point is “passing knowledge” is natural, it is in our veins . Do you want to learn? All you need is ambition and curiosity.
What do you plan and want to achieve?
Let me start from what I am trying to achieve then present the plan.
The goal, again, is very simple. To create a platform, or better say, framework where everyone can share his/her knowledge, everyone can learn for FREE. And for that, we are going to use all possible channels: websites, social network, Youtube channel, mobile apps, workshops, one-on-one sessions, live streams.
How to get there, not an easy task and very challenging. This campaign is in its embryonic stage. We push it as much as we can with all our effort and abilities. Today we have www.freeknowledge.org website where you can find our values, our story, and links to ongoing projects. We have Youtube channel Free Knowledge Sharing. For each individual project we will help to build websites, playlists in our Youtube channel, app, pages on social network, Udemy courses and so on.
Here is an example of what you can achieve with us:
Website: http://photographylessons-aivo.com/
Youtube playlist: PHOTOGRAPHY & PHOTOSHOP LESSONS
