Remember, you decide what works for you ... but this is submitted for your consideration.
Friday, November 2, 2012
Thursday, May 3, 2012
How the Explosion in Online Education can Revolutionize Your Business
Harvard, MIT, Stanford, and Berkeley are doing it.
Companies, both big and small, are doing it.
Solopreneurs are doing it.
And bloggers have been doing it … they just haven't been making any money at it.
It's a trend that Copyblogger saw coming … in fact, Brian built a course to teach it way back in 2007. (And he built a number of successful businesses on the same principles before that.)
"It" is online education — and it's gone from being an interesting sideline to a major social and economic trend.
This trend's going to be around a little longer than planking or Pinterest. Because there are some very solid factors underlying the shift to online education … and they're only getting stronger.
Online education is at a tipping point. And that's awesome news if you're a Copyblogger reader. Let's talk about why.
Online education is now a juggernaut; more than 6.1 million current college students took a Web-based course in fall 2010. Nearly a third of students have taken one during their college careers. ~ Boston Globe
Traditional education is in trouble
Smart writers like Michael Ellsberg and Josh Kaufman have been pointing to a shift in how universities are serving students.
The traditional model of "get a degree and land a sweet job" just isn't working any more, at least in most professions. I'm still a big fan of universities — but we have to face the fact that they're quickly becoming a pricy luxury.
Students are looking for other ways to learn what they need to learn — without the six-figure price tag.
"Normal" people live online now
Is your mom on Facebook? Mine is. And the weirdest thing about it is … it's nice. It lets me keep up with what she's doing, and share the exploits of my charming hooligan six-year-old.
I first got online in 1989. But the internet doesn't belong to weirdo early adopters like me any more. The internet, assisted by the smart phone, is woven into our lives like it never has been.
That means that normal people — not just web junkies like you and me — are willing to consider online activities that never would have occurred to them before.
It means they look at online education and think, "Hm, I would do that."
The world is changing faster than traditional education can evolve
Almost every aspect of our lives is changing. Business, socializing, church, family life.
All that change is coming faster than we can handle. We all need help with some aspect of the change that's swirling around us.
Which means if you can master some element of the changing world, and stay on top of it, you can help customers do the same.
Great businesses are built by solving tough problems. And mastering change is one of the toughest problems we all face … every day, and in every aspect of our lives.
Traditional education has a tough time with this. If you want to study ancient Greek, you should be set. (And more power to you, because I think that is cool.)
But if you want to study technology, nutrition and fitness, marketing, communications, or any of the other myriad ways people make a living, you need the latest information.
Online learners are … well, learning
None of this would matter if online education didn't work as well as face-to-face learning.
But it appears to actually work better.
In a 2009 report based on 50 independent studies, the U.S. Department of Education found that students who studied in online learning environments performed modestly better than peers who were receiving face-to-face instruction. ~ Mashable
Online learning allows students to go at the pace that's right for them. When online education is well designed, it gives plenty of opportunity to not only absorb the theories in the material, but to discuss it meaningfully and put it into practice.
Students can replay "lectures" if they need to. They can interact with other students online in ways that far surpass traditional classroom discussion.
Even something as simple as being able to "attend class" when you're at your most refreshed can make a huge difference. (I am pretty convinced that I learned exactly nothing from the few 8:00 a.m. college classes I attended.)
So is there still room for the small entrepreneur?
The rise of the "big guns" in online education is actually awesome news for the small (or micro) business wanting to get into an education-based model.
The big players are showing more and more people every day that online education is real education.
That we don't have to shuffle into a physical room with an instructor physically present to learn.
That we can take the very best education and make it widely available, instead of limiting it to a few hundred people at a time.
That we can learn at our own pace, on our own time, when and where it's convenient for us.
Harvard and Berkeley will continue to do a brilliant job teaching law and microbiology.
But you may very well be able to do an even more brilliant job teaching small business tax planning or vegan sports nutrition.
Or pet-sitting. Or crochet. Or how to get a novel published.
Where to go if you need some help with that
You might remember that I mentioned that Brian Clark taught a course around this very idea, back in 2007.
That's Teaching Sells — a comprehensive course in how to build an online education business. It takes your passion for creating smart, interesting, useful content, and wraps it into a business model. (Actually, there are 10 business models in the course, but who's counting?)
You can learn a little more about what Teaching Sells is (and isn't) here: What is Teaching Sells?
And if you'd like to learn a lot more (as well as get tons of free advice about how you can start taking advantage of the online education trend), sign up for the Teaching Sells email list.
We'll send you articles, special reports, an invitation to a live webinar … and of course, we'll let you know more about how to join us inside Teaching Sells, if that feels like a good fit for you.
Catch you there …
About the Author: Sonia Simone is co-founder and CMO of Copyblogger Media, and a co-creator of Teaching Sells. Get more from Sonia on twitter @soniasimone
TweetShare
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Muriel Fox
"Women and men have to fight together to change society - and both will benefit... Partnership, not dependence, is the real romance in marriage."
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Laurie Anderson
"When love is gone, there's always justice.
And when justice is gone, there's always force.
And when force is gone, there's always Mom.
Hi, Mom!"
And when justice is gone, there's always force.
And when force is gone, there's always Mom.
Hi, Mom!"
Eleanor Roosevelt
"One thing life has taught me: if you are interested, you never have to look for new interests. They come to you. When you are genuinely interested in one thing, it will always lead to something else."
Thursday, February 23, 2012
So what will happen to the jobs of people who work at places that are in town to get better mailing rates? Those jobs will move out of town as soon as the rates go away! (one year from mail processing plant closing)
Postal Service closing local distribution center
aboessenkool@bakersfield.com (Antonie Boessenkool Californian Staff Writer) The Bakersfield Californian
Thu, 23 Feb 2012 12:02:49 PST
The U.S. Postal Service announced Thursday that it is closing the Bakersfield Processing & Distribution Center and moving those mail processing operations to Santa Clarita.
aboessenkool@bakersfield.com (Antonie Boessenkool Californian Staff Writer) The Bakersfield Californian
Thu, 23 Feb 2012 12:02:49 PST
The U.S. Postal Service announced Thursday that it is closing the Bakersfield Processing & Distribution Center and moving those mail processing operations to Santa Clarita.
About 300 people work at the Bakersfield facility on Pegasus Drive near Meadows Field Airport, and 136 positions would be cut with the closure, said James Wigdel, a spokesman for the Postal Service in San Francisco.
Wigdel said he didn't know how many of those 136 positions at the Pegasus facility are currently filled.
All of the employees who will be affected by the closure would be offered positions elsewhere in the system, though not necessarily in their current line of work, he said.
"We would do our best to place our employees in positions they're qualified in doing," he said, though some employees may choose to change positions, and retraining would happen in those cases.
Mail from the Bakersfield facility -- which processes 12 million pieces of mail a week -- will be processed through the service's Santa Clarita facility, about 80 miles away. That would apply, for example, to a letter sent from one person in Bakersfield to another person in Bakersfield.
Wigdel said the closure won't happen before May 15 of this year, a date agreed on by the U.S. Postal Service and Congress to give Congress members time to work out an alternative plan to save the Postal Service money.
The service has said it needs to cut costs by $20 billion by 2015 in the face of a 25 percent drop in first-class mail since 2006 and other financial pressures.
Bakersfield's is among about 250 facilities of the 487 nationwide that the service is considering closing or has closed.
A press release about the Bakersfield facility didn't specify a date for the closure, and Wigdel said it's too early to say exactly when the process would start, but he said the service is hopeful it would begin in the next year. The closure process would take several months, he said.
In late December, the Postal Service held a community meeting in Bakersfield that about 75 people attended, many of them pleading with Postal Service representatives not to close the facility.
Wigdel acknowledged the outcry, but added, "We're facing a new reality with the Postal Service. It's about saving money ... and also rightsizing the system. ... So we're adjusting for that to keep the Postal Service sustainable for the long term."
The closure is contingent on the Postal Service approving a change in delivery standards. Whereas the expectation has been that first-class mail will be delivered overnight, that would change to a two- to three-day standard.
I just read a very interesting article at Bakersfield 661411 that I thought you might find interesting. It's called 'Postal Service closing local distribution center': http://bit.ly/xJAhgB.
The article was recommended via my Blackberry® Bakersfield 661411 application. Download the app from http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/44358?lang=en today.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Monday, February 13, 2012
Friday, January 20, 2012
George Bernard Shaw
"A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing."
Dr. Ana M Guzman
"I decided not to let my past rule my future so I decided to change my present in order to open up my future."
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
1900s Future Gazing
In an issue of Ladies Home Journal published in 1900, an author made predictions of what the world would be like in the year 2000. Surprisingly, many of them were spot-on.
Open fires and chimneys will be replaced by home heating and air conditioning systems, with hot or cold air at the turn of a "spigot" (faucet or tap.)
Stores will buy food ingredients in bulk and prepare ready-cooked meals at cheap prices which people can reheat at home. Customers will also be able to get meals delivered by automobile. (That said, Watkins also suggested food could be delivered to homes via pneumatic tubes, and that customers would send back the crockery and cutlery when they finished eating.)
Color photos will be sent around the world, with images shot in China appearing in US newspapers within an hour.
Read more at Geeks Are Sexy, where the predictions are sorted by whether they came true or were way off the mark.
http://www.neatorama.com/2012/01/11/1900s-future-gazing/
Open fires and chimneys will be replaced by home heating and air conditioning systems, with hot or cold air at the turn of a "spigot" (faucet or tap.)
Stores will buy food ingredients in bulk and prepare ready-cooked meals at cheap prices which people can reheat at home. Customers will also be able to get meals delivered by automobile. (That said, Watkins also suggested food could be delivered to homes via pneumatic tubes, and that customers would send back the crockery and cutlery when they finished eating.)
Color photos will be sent around the world, with images shot in China appearing in US newspapers within an hour.
Read more at Geeks Are Sexy, where the predictions are sorted by whether they came true or were way off the mark.
http://www.neatorama.com/2012/01/11/1900s-future-gazing/
Friday, January 6, 2012
US rape definition to include men
The FBI revises its definition of rape for the first time in 83 years, to recognize male victims and drop the need for victims to resist physically.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/world-us-canada-16452014
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)