Kevin Kelly over at Cool Tools points to a free PDF version of a pay for text that guides people through an equivalent curriculum to a Masters in Business Admin. In describing the benefits of this guided self learning he points out that an MBA could set you back 10’s even 100’s of thousands of dollars, while purchasing the printed texts might only set you back $500. What the text doesn’t give you, as Kevin acknowledges, is a network of friends or business contacts at the end of your course. Ah! Enter a networked learning model to support this text perhaps. A way for people who are using this text to make contact and communicate about their efforts. Clearly the information doesn’t change all that much, but the packaging (and the fees) change considerably. Is this the niche that traditional education ought to be looking at more closely? I think so. A beautifully packaged and engaging text, that prints on demand through a service like Lulu, and so can be always up to date with the latest information. Supported by an online learning community with value added services on offer. Such as formal recognition of learning if it is needed.
Would it work for many other subjects? I think it might. Right now I’m building a deck. I’d like to know how to do it right, but I don’t intend to enrol in a course to learn how to build it either. So I search the net and talk to friends and industry people. I get little bits of info, but not the hole shebang you know.. Not surprisingly, Internet info specific to NZ requirements is hard to find in the popular servers.. seems you gotta be in the know before you can get to know. Show me a handy, all-I-need-to-know text, supported with online video, all relevant to NZ requirements and materials and available accross any number of popular servers (like they’re starting to do with promotion widgets and distributed promo for movies these days) I couldn’t help but find it! Once found, I would still pay about $100 for the package in my hand too – to save me having to download, print, bind, package it etc.
Now, it just so happens that I have rather enjoyed the landscaping, planning, building and talking with council process. I think I’d like to know more about all this and maybe consider helping a friend or two, or even going into business… what was that web address for that book again? Oh! there it is on the cover… hey! They offer a recognition of prior learning for the formal qualifications they also offer! And short evening classes for anything I might be a bit weak on! That sounds much better than a 3 year full time study plan. I just want to dabble in it for now and maybe build up to something…
Update: Will Richardson went further with Personal MBA (see first comment) to find their website: http://personalmba.com/
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January 3, 2008 at 3:29 pm
Weblogg-ed » Out of the Box Thinking About Education and Teaching
[…] Leigh Blackall points to “The Personal MBA“, a “pdf version of a pay for text that guides people through […]
January 4, 2008 at 7:53 pm
leighblackall
Leigh – I tried to post the following comment on your blog. It didn’t show up. If there is a lag, or if you moderate comments, fine. Sorry to trouble you this way. But if it should have appeared immediately, then I’m not sure what happened but thought you’d want to see the comment anyway.
Lanny
– – – – – – – – – – –
Leigh –
Here’s a little skepticism about the general approach, at least for the MBA content. I looked through the 2005 list which is available in the manifesto pdf document linked from here
http://www.changethis.com/17.PersonalMBA
Since I teach economics, I looked specifically at what was recommended for that. Apart from the magazine, The Economist, the suggestion was Economics in One Lesson, by Henry Hazlitt, with publication date in 1981.
http://800ceoread.com/products/?ISBN=0517548232
I verified it is available at amazon.com
Then I looked at the 2007 updated list here.
http://personalmba.com/recommended-business-books/business-reference/
Hazlitt’s book is not listed. Indeed there are no economics books on the updated list. What gives? Why did it make sense to include that category in 2005 but not in 2007? An oversight? They no longer could get the rights to include the book in their bundle? Economics is no longer relevant? What?
More generally, how does a potential reader know this is a good list. What checks are there on that? They do provide criteria for how the books were selected. That’s a start. But how does one know whether those criteria have been well applied? Further, once given such a list, is there perhaps an appropriate sequence in which to read these things? Perhaps there are interdependencies between the books that should be brought out. Will the reader get that? How?
I think the building the deck thing is different for two reasons. First, the knowledge you are looking for is quite applied and down to earth. Much of the MBA content is conceptual and abstract. Second, you are your own master. You are quite able to judge whether you’ve learned what you need to know from the deck you build. With the MBA content there is a need to convince an employer or potential employer, a co-worker, a client, etc. about what you know. And that’s just to get the opportunity to work on something.
BTW, I got Hazlitt’s book out of the Library here and started to read the first few chapters. I will read the rest in the next few days. But i can see from it that it hammers on some basic ideas – principally opportunity cost. This is a necessary component, but there are other things I would teach that the book seems to ignore – nothing on uncertainty, for example.
I would be much happier with this type of approach if
(a) the producing of the list were entirely independent of the selling the books,
(b) there were extensive bibliographies rather than just a handful of books in each category so that people who are curious about the subject can read till their heart’s content, and
(c) there were articles from periodicals as well as entire books listed.
It still wouldn’t help on the convincing others of what you know, but it would be much better in other ways.
________________________________
Lanny Arvan
CIO and Associate Dean for eLearning
College of Business
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
219 Wohlers Hall
1206 South Sixth Street
Champaign, IL 61820