Here are the slides from my keynote presentation at the 2019 Global Bushcraft Symposium in Alberta, Canada. The GBS was an international gathering to promote bushcraft, survival, and traditional skills instruction through the open exchange of philosophies, pedagogical methods and dissemination of best practices within the industry. With my keynote address I wanted to bring something of my educational philosophy to the table, along with my experiences of growing my presence, and business, in the field of bushcraft within the digital information age. The aims of my presentation were to encourage those serious about sharing knowledge of bushcraft, survival and traditional skills to be somewhat less protective of what they know, share more freely, increase the quality of online materials on these subjects, as well as help them grow their standing and businesses. You can watch a recording of this presentation at http://paulkirtley.co.uk/2019/global-bushcraft-symposium-2019-keynote

1. Why We Need
Your Voice In The
Wilderness…

2. Once upon a time…

3. ?

5. Abbot: “The word of God
needs to be interpreted by
priests, not spread about
like dung.”
Gutenberg: “I do not wish to
despoil the Word.”
Abbot: “But it will happen.
To hand it about to all and
sundry is languorous, Would
you have ploughmen and
weavers debating the
Gospel in taverns?”
The Justification of Johann Gutenberg
(Blake Morrison 2000)

6. "We should note the force, effect, and
consequences of inventions which are
nowhere more conspicuous than in those
three which were unknown to the
ancients, namely, printing, gunpowder,
and the compass. For these three have
changed the appearance and state of the
world.”
- Elizabeth Eisenstein, The Printing Press as an
Agent of Change (1979)

8. We fear
change.

9. WE
FEAR
CHANGE

15. June 29, 2007

17. December 1, 2010

21. Adventure States
1. Play
2. Adventure
3. Frontier Adventure
4. Misadventure

22. Adventure Experience Paradigm
Martin & Priest, 1986; Priest, 1990, 1999

23. Yerkes-Dodson Law

24. Frontier Adventure
“The person has fear of physical harm, or physical or
psychological stress, and no longer feels complete
master of the situation. He feels, however, that he can,
with considerable effort on his part, and given luck,
overcome the situation without accident. He accepts
that his skills are about to be tested. He is conscious of a
definite degree of uncertainty as to the outcome, and
feels, as it were, poised on a knife edge between success
and failure. If he succeeds, he has experienced what I
would term ‘frontier adventure’.”
- Colin Mortlock, The Adventure Alternative

25. Frontier - Definitions
1. The extreme limit of settled land
beyond which lies wilderness.
2. The extreme limit of
understanding or achievement in
a particular area.

27. THE WORLD
HAS
CHANGED

29. Primary Concerns
BUSINESS EDUCATION

30. ATTENTION

31. • September 1998
• August 1999
• January 2001
• May 2003
• May 2003
• February 2004
• November 2004
• February 2005
• October 2006
• March 2006
• September 2006
• February 2007
• October 2008
• March 2010
• October 2010
• September 2011
• March 2015
• August 2015
Ø Google
Ø Blogger
Ø iTunes
Ø LinkedIn
Ø WordPress
Ø Flickr
Ø Vimeo
Ø YouTube
Ø SlideShare
Ø Twitter
Ø Facebook
Ø Tumblr
Ø SoundCloud
Ø Pinterest
Ø Instagram
Ø Snapchat
Ø Periscope
Ø Medium

32. THE WORLD
HAS
CHANGED

33. “Changes in the information age will be as
dramatic as those in the Middle Ages in
Europe. The printing press has been
implicated in the Reformation, the
Renaissance and the Scientific Revolution, all
of which had profound effects on their eras;
similarly profound changes may already be
underway in the information age.”
- James A. Dewar, Rand Corporation, The
Information Age and the Printing Press: Looking
Backward to See Ahead

35. Disintermediation

36. SOCIAL MEDIA?

37. The platforms are not
the problem

38. “YouTubers”

39. "A little learning is a
dangerous thing”
- Alexander Pope, An Essay On Criticism

40. “Real knowledge is to know
the extent of one's ignorance”
- Confucius

41. "The fool doth think he is
wise, but the wise man
knows himself to be a fool”
- William Shakespeare, As You Like It

42. “Mount Stupid”

44. I don’t know enough…

45. Mindset
INSTRUCTION DOCUMENTATION

46. If I share my stuff for free, what
will I teach on my courses?

47. Mindset
SCARCITY ABUNDANCE

48. What, I now have to do all this
social media stuff too?

49. Mindset
HAVE GET

50. The internet/market/platform is
already saturated. I’m too late…

53. Collaboration

54. People can’t learn [bushcraft skills]
from the internet…

57. This is all too much work… I just
want to go to the woods...

58. Mindset
ENTITLEMENT
WORK

59. NONSENSE TRUTH
Cognitive Dissonance

60. “...roughly during the first century after Gutenberg's
invention, print did as much to perpetuate blatant
errors as it did to spread enlightened truth. Putting
scribal products into print resulted in a cultural
explosion. Never had scholars found so many words,
images, and diagrams at their fingertips. And never
before had things been so confusing with, for instance,
Dante's world view achieving prominent visibility at
the same time that Copernican views were making
their way into print. Nonsense and truth seemed to
move hand in hand with neither made uncomfortable
by the presence of the other.”
- Elizabeth Eisenstein, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change
(1979)