Post Corona
This book is about opportunities the pandemic created.
One of the reasons work from home denier boss give is out of office works will never get the following scenario. Serendipitous bumping into coworkers at a water cooler, striking a casual conversation sparking new ideas/solutions. The start-up Sidekick offers an always-on tablet aimed at small teams that want constant and spontaneous communication among coworkers, simulating sitting together all day long. This may help with the issue of spontaneity.
New perks
Companies in big cities could spend $2,000 a month for office snacks. Now that we’re not buying those, employees are given monthly grocery debit cards. They can buy their own snacks. Many people don’t have home setups comfortable enough to spend eight to ten hours a day in. Do you do an audit of home office needs and buy a few people good chairs? Do those who already have chairs get a speaker? Do you buy everyone a good mic or just give them gift cards for office supply stores? The options will depend on the size of your team and your budget. The important thing is to show awareness and support.
Higher education
The disruptability index for higher education is off the charts. In the past 40 years, college tuition has increased 1,400%
Online teaching
Without the power of physical presence, you have to be much more animated, waving your arms and raising your voice, changing your tone and pace. You have to be in the students’ faces, requiring they keep their cameras on. Constantly call on them and seize the opportunity to get better guest speakers, as it’s a much easier lift (Zoom vs. commute). Breaking up the monotony of a talking head is essential—learn how to use the screen-sharing function and prepare charts and illustrations that express information in new ways and keep students engaged.
Online discussion
Online programs offer opportunities beyond the lecture itself. Asynchronous communications using message boards and group documents provide students (and instructors) schedule flexibility that in-person teaching lacks. In-person discussions are a minefield of inequality (research routinely shows that men dominate classroom discussions and that instructors are complicit in the problem). Moving the discussion online is not a panacea (high-speed internet, a laptop, and a quiet place to work are not givens), but it does open up the possibility of engaging students in ways that may be more effective than traditional classroom discussion
New business model
The business model is to flip the model and charge firms to recruit (shifting costs from students to firms), bypassing the cartel that is university accreditation. Apple training, certification, testing, and reporting would lead to bidding wars among their graduates—the secret sauce for any university. Google announcing, in August 2020, that the company will offer courses awarding career certificates that it and other participating employers will consider equivalent to a four-year degree in that area.
Lifetime learning
A recurring revenue model, presents an enormous opportunity for universities to take a page from the private sector (Amazon Prime, Netflix) and evolve to a superior business model. Tech creates scale, and scale increases both access (social good) and revenue (necessary fuel).