The Digital Economist
Hi, I'm Sam Birmingham. I love startups, innovation and challenging the status quo.
For the vast majority of my years, economies have grown, companies have profited and people have got richer on the back of a once-in-a-lifetime demographic shift and debt-fuelled boom. Those days are through.
Economies must evolve beyond rampant consumerism and confront the demographic headwind that had been a tailwind until the Baby Boomers began retiring. Companies must become nimble, innovate and invent new products to address customers' ever-changing needs in this digitally-disrupted world. And as people, we must focus on solving problems and learn to do more with less.
These are the challenges that excite me. They are what I want to get out of bed each morning and be a part of. This is where I share my thoughts.
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Respected academic and innovation expert, Clayton Christensen, makes some brilliant observations about digital disruption and education in this interview with Mark Suster.
From Suster’s notes:
He talked about how for centuries education had “no technological core” (meaning it was bound by physical locations) and thus disruption was very difficult. Obviously that barrier has been brought down with low-cost ability to capture, stream and distribute content over the Internet.
Today’s higher education is responding by making more courses online and available to people outside of physical boundaries.
But while universities are developing online content they are not fundamentally disrupting learning because the method of delivery is not a new business model. “Online education is truly going to kill us.” He talked about the need to have content delivered closer to those in the work force who could immediately apply what they’re taught and then immediately be back in the classroom to discuss the implementation.
Still on online learning, this time in Christensen’s own words (at 3:08):
The technology itself is not intrinsically sustaining or disruptive. It’s how it gets deployed that makes the difference.
Right now the Harvard Business School is investing millions of dollars in online learning, but it’s being developed to use in our existing business model… But there is a different business model that is disrupting us, and that’s on-the-job education… It’s a very different business model, and that’s what going to kill us (traditional universities).
And on another of universities’ great failings, the gap between graduates’ perceived skills and employers’ actual needs (at 6:05):
The employers want people who have the skills to do a job. The universities don’t understand that job, and the students are here to learn what we think they should know.
We invest and we subsidise their education in fields for which there are no jobs. I really do think that the more we could link the employers with the people online who provide the skills, it really will cause the world to flip.
The scary thing is that in 15 years from now, maybe half the universities will be in bankruptcy.
Ouch!