Learning from the MBA program. In November, I posted about an alternative MBA program that I was going to launch. Unaccredited, residential, free and six months long. A new way to learn about a new way of doing business. We’re almost done, and it has exceeded every expectation I had for it, and I think there are some broader lessons worth sharing. Launch and selection:More than 48,000 people visited the page that described the program and 350 really cool, talented people applied. I picked 27 finalists and all of them flew out to New York to meet each other. This was the most fun I’ve ever had at a cocktail party (it helped that it was at eight o’clock in the morning). The conversations that day were stunning. After they left, I tallied up the results. On January 20th, the most selective (one in 40 got in) MBA program in the world got started.
It's interesting to realize that the way I did the application process certainly changed the list of who applied. Susan Lewis and Jon Dale are launching Sales Club. Doing it. Learning from Extremes_WhitePaper. Transforming Learning…No, Really. From the “Must Read 2010 Department” comes this most excellent report I just came across (released a few months ago) from Charles Leadbetter and Annika Wong writing for Cisco about “Learning from the Extremes” (.pdf warning.) It’s an instructive look (at least to me) at what options we face when it comes to the new story we are building about learning. In a nutshell, the authors suggest four strategies: Improve the schools we already have, supplement the learning our kids already do, reinvent schools to make education more relevant, or transform “learning by making it available in radically new ways.”
Here’s a graphic that sums it up pretty neatly. While the first three efforts can have a positive effect, the authors make the compelling case that the bottom right is where the most of our efforts should be spent. Obviously, I’m suggesting you read the whole thing (about 40 pages), but here’s the gist of the argument: Definitely worth the read. As always, would love to hear your thoughts.
TED Blog.