• Newsletter Sign Up

• Business Links

  • AHRI
  • David Allen
  • Fistful of Talent
  • HR Magazine
  • HR Thoughts
  • Incentive Intelligence
  • Life Hacker
  • Personal MBA
  • Productivity 501
  • The Coaching Institute

• Friends n Mentors

  • Miles Burke
  • Steve Pavlina

• Categories

  • Achievement (1)
  • Blogging (6)
  • Business (21)
  • CRM (10)
  • Development (19)
  • Education (2)
  • Goals (3)
  • Hacks (2)
  • HR (1)
  • Leadership (3)
  • Management (14)
  • Not for Profit (1)
  • Productivity (2)
  • Sales (3)
  • Start Up (1)
  • Success (21)
  • TGIF (1)
  • Uncategorized (1)
  • Vision (1)

• Tags

  3 12 elements alignment Business financial crisis goal Management manager managers managing momentum Productivity staff retention Success team member Vision
• 

Maybe - but just not now.

With the constant debate about the Western Australian education system continuing one thing most people agree on is that there needs to be a significant change.

The then Minister for Education, Liliana Ravlich, made an unwise comment of children learning through Google. In one sense it was a plainly stupid comment in that it:

1. promoted Google as an educational alternative - which it clearly isn’t (yet? Google guys, are you listening?)
2. slammed the current level of competency from our hard working and underpaid teaching community - who needs teachers when you have Google?
3. demonstrated a lack of thinking on the part of a key minister in charge of a large portion of our next generation’s education

So in the current state of affairs the comment was completely off the mark. And I don’t think you can paint Ms Ravlich as a revolutionary before her time.

However, head on over to a site that is gaining a fair degree of support in terms of tertiary education: www.personalMBA.com

Josh Kaufman is gaining a LOT of support for his alternative to the usual expensive Uni based MBA.

From the site …

“The Personal MBA (PMBA) is a systematic program of business self-education designed by Josh Kaufman to help people master advanced business concepts without enrolling in a traditional MBA program. Instead of spending time in a classroom, PMBA members believe it’s possible to get a great education by reading good business books, applying what you learn to your daily work, and discussing advanced business topics with others.

The Personal MBA consists of three main components: (1) a recommended reading list of best-in-class business books; (2) participation in the PMBA community forums; (3) optional personalized coaching to help keep you motivated and moving forward toward your business and personal goals.”

You can download Josh’s manifesto here … Personal MBA Manifesto

And so, do we see educational evolution happening right in front of us?

Is this the new world that Liliana tripped over?

I think it was Ashley Montague (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashley_Montagu) who said that “the mark of an educated person was one who had overcome the limitations of the educational system.”

If you look at business success stories you find, educated formally or not, people who apply basic business skills well. It doesn’t matter what their certification says.

I am not suggesting we don’t educate ourselves, actually, the opposite - life is an education. However, the schooling system may need to see itself differently (as an education community?) in order to embrace alternative sources of education.

What I am suggesting is that, in the near future, will the Web organise itself well enough to provide a real alternative to classroom learning?

In his excellent book “Built to Last” Jim Collins found that successful companies adopt of a philosophy of the “AND” rather than the “OR”. Can the two, or more, education philosophies co-exist and be accepted?

Are we seeing the first vestiges of true online education via the Personal MBA?

Liliana, take a bow, if you really knew what you were saying!

Comments