fred wilson – DAN REICH

The University of Nothing – The Bylaws

I’ve said several times on this blog that the education system is broken and is in desperate need of change. I now think we are finally starting to see the emergence of a new era in education reform. One led by the private sector.

The issue I still struggle with is how to balance the intersection, or lack thereof, between cutting edge methods of education with societal expectations of having to graduate from an accredited university.

Specifically, what is the difference between a Harvard business professor teaching a Harvard class, in Harvard, vs. someone like a Fred Wilson teaching a business class in his firm’s office? What is the difference between a computer science professor teaching JavaScript in a university building vs. a computer science entrepreneur teaching JavaScript in some office space in NYC?

To me, the answer simply boils down to a piece of paper. A degree. Being able to say you graduated from a prestigious program or accredited university which is still very highly regarded within our society. My friend calls this a “luxury good.”

Furthermore, what does it really mean to have “accreditation in the United States?” According to the US Department of Education:

The goal of accreditation is to ensure that education provided by institutions of higher education meets acceptable levels of quality.

Well I think its clear that the “levels of quality” are definitely not acceptable. Just go watch the movie Waiting for Superman.

And how exactly does a University even achieve this “accreditation?”

Accrediting agencies, which are private educational associations of regional or national scope, develop evaluation criteria and conduct peer evaluations to assess whether or not those criteria are met. Institutions and/or programs that request an agency’s evaluation and that meet an agency’s criteria are then “accredited” by that agency.

So I’ve always wondered, “what if there was a way to leverage the best technologies and platforms for education while still maintaining an element of prestige or recognition outside of the broken, very expensive university systems?”

And now I think I know the solution: New Accreditation Agencies and Guidelines.

Here is how it would work:

There would be new, self governed accreditation agencies, with new guidelines, that are not subject to government oversight.
These agencies would be comprised of successful, influential individuals who have rich domain expertise (e.g. venture capital, finance, online ad tech, biology, etc).
The agency itself would be its own university or academic institution.
These agency individuals would oversee: a) the appointment of other “teachers” b) the fundraising initiatives of the “investment pool” (described later) c) public outreach and communications about the agency itself via personal blogs, op-eds on third party publications, etc.
These agency individuals would teach: a) design curriculums, b) teach and broadcast classes using the latest education platforms (e.g. SkillShare, YouTube), c) make introductions as needed on behalf of their students
These individuals would invest: using the “investment pool,” these individuals would allocate money to students that have demonstrated the ability to succeed as a jobs creator, otherwise known as entrepreneurs via their class projects (described later).
The investment pool would be comprised of capital raised from non-profits, endowments, donations and there would be no contingencies tied to the money.
At the end of the curriculum, the students would be given a degree that is widely recognized by the participating members of the agency (e.g. the influential VCs, financiers, executives, etc). Instead of graduating in hopes of getting a job, these students would be graduating with an extensive network of active working people with a possibility of getting money from the “investment pool” to fund a business.
Student tuition is not required.
Tests are not used to assess students. Projects, prototypes, and inventions are.

Although fairly abstract and not fully vetted, I think the final result would be getting a bunch of smart people together, with money to help fund those smart people’s ideas, while providing the students with an umbrella of recognition, and a network of business contacts that could rival an accredited or prestigious university. All the while the students would be learning in the most efficient ways possible.

The best part is, the only people that would care to be involved in such a program would be those looking to build real businesses which in turn will drive innovation, new jobs, and real growth.

Will.i.am is the Man – Creating a New Era of Music Media Platforms

BEP Intel VIP party — Picture from the event

I always knew there was something super advanced and different about the Black Eyed Peas. My first sign was when I saw them perform at Intel’s private launch party for their Core 2 Duo processor at the 2006 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas (thanks to Marc Harrison – pictures below). It was the first time I ever experienced a collision of mainstream music, technology, celebrities, and media all in one room, at one major event.

Yesterday I read an article in the Rolling Stones by Chris Norris titled “40 Reasons To Be Excited About Music” and sure enough, coming in at No.1 was “The Black Eyed Peas – Will.I.Am and the Science of Global Pop Domination.”

The entire article is certainly worth a read for anyone that’s in to music, but the piece that really hit me was this…

“To Will.i.am, songs aren’t discrete works of art but multi-use applications – hit singles, ad jingles, film trailers – all serving a purpose larger than music consumption. Creatively, he draws no distinction between writing rhymes and business plans, rocking arenas and PowerPoint, producing albums and media platforms, all these falling under a cleareyed mission to unite the largest possible audience over the broadest range imaginable. It’s a mission he communicates with a combination of Pentecostal zeal and Silicon Valley jargon, suggesting a hybrid of Stevie Wonder and Steve Jobs.”

It’s the idea that media and music are really one in the same. That business and music are thought about the same way and are less complimentary but more interconnected.

Over the past year, the lines between technology, software, media, music, marketing and news has become increasingly blurry.

Here are just some examples:

Meredith Media, a company that used to be a traditional publishing company is now acting as a fully integrating marketing agency.
Global advertising holding companies like Havas, OMD, and Publicis are now looking to build their own technology units in house in an attempt to replace the need for Ad Networks and control the entire online advertising stack.
Software is Media, says Fred Wilson in a recent post – “Media are the tools that are used to communicate. And software that runs on the web is part of the media landscape.”
NBC recently launched a new program called “Behavior Placement” which is “designed to sway viewers to adopt actions they see modeled in their favorite shows.”

And even today there’s news about how Hearst, another traditional publishing company, is looking to buy the digital advertising firm iCrossing for $375M.

As are lives continue to digitize, the companies and artists that continue to take a longer, interconnected view on culture, technology and media, will be the ones that succeed. Will.i.am and the BEP are definitely on “that next shit now.”

Intel – Black Eyed Peas

The internet is growing up. Please welcome NYTimes to Social Media and the Social Internet

Consider this (courtesy of Wikipedia):

September 18, 1851 – The New York Times was founded (although originally named New-York Daily Times).Newspaper.
1995 – The Times has a strong web presence and is ranked one of the top sites. The content is generated by the Times staff.
March, 2005 – The New York Times Website has 555 Million page views. Content is still generated by Times staff.
2008 – The domain nytimes.com attracts at least 146 million visitors annually according to a Compete.com study. The Times website ranks 59th by number of unique visitors, with over 14 million unique visitors in August 2008.
June, 2008 – New York Times launches a Beta version of TimesPeople allowing users to connect, share, comment, and review items and content within the NYT site. A social network within the content driven site.

From TimesPeople:

“TimesPeople is a new way to discover what other readers find interesting on NYTimes.com — and to make recommendations of your own. With TimesPeople, you can share articles, videos, slideshows, blog posts, reader comments, and ratings and reviews of movies, restaurants and hotels.”

When we say “social media”, we should really be saying the “social internet”. The internet as a whole is beginning to harness the power of profiles, user generated content, and the social graph. Websites that have traditionally been known for publishing content, are now realizing the importance of social interactions and engagement.

The consumers are the content creators. The creators are the consumers. And now, organizations that have built hugely successful businesses with content creation as its core competency, are adapting to the ever increasing demand for social interactions and collective, community based content creation/sharing.

In The Power of Profiles post by Fred Wilson:

While I am sure the people who work at the New York Times think of themselves as a content company first and foremost, what goes on at the New York TImes website is as much about software as it is about content. And slowly but surely the Times online is becoming social software. That’s a big deal.

The internet is growing up. We are all adopting and evolving with the changing times. Please welcome The New York Times to Social Media and the Social Internet.

NOTE: This article can also be found @ LotameLearnings

Are You In College And Thinking About Your Career?

Fred Wilson recently wrote a post about one of his portfolio companies and its search for interns in the NYC area.

In the Post…

Greg Yardley, founder/CEO of our portfolio company Pinch Media tells the following story about graduating from college and facing the career question:

When I finished school, I had a MA in Russian history and absolutely no idea what to do with myself – I started working as a customer support rep at an Internet startup because they were the first ones to offer me a job. (If the startup was a week later with the job offer, I’d probably be a 911 emergency operator today. Sometimes life can lead you to unexpected places.) I was surprised to stumble across a field that I loved – soon I became a product manager, and now I’m the co-founder of a company. You never know – maybe there’s a career here for you that you’ve never considered.

Greg’s words could not be more appropriate to the current state of my career/life. Having recently graduated from college, I was faced with a choice:

Enter the working world (with a conservative approach) – Get a job with will respected, high profiled employer. Good resume builder.
Enter the working world (with a less conservative approach) – Join a startup, work on my own startup or company.
Go back for more school – Law School, Masters, 5th, 6th year, etc.
Travel and relax for a year or so

My original intent was to go back to school, however a unique opportunity presented itself, and now I am in the working world taking a less conservative approach then most of my peers.

As Greg said, “Sometimes life can lead you to unexpected places. I was surprised to stumble across a field that I loved.”

This could not be more true.

Are You In College And Thinking About Your Career? Which decision would you make and why?

Educating youth with subject matter that matters

A while back I wrote about the relevance (or lack their of) of the systematic approaches taken by the public school systems and large universities. I would argue that practical and relevant hands-on approaches need to be implemented to better educate the youth in such a competitive global economy. In many instances, parents recognize the need for specific types of education. In fact, one of my relatives has a tutor come to his house once a week to teach his son conversational Japanese, as his business realizes economic growth with Japanese based companies. Fred Wilson also recognizes the importance of practical education and so, in his post today he writes:

“But this year we went one step further. We got our son Josh a young teacher who came over in the evening once a week and taught him how to write code and make a rudimentary computer game. We didn’t know of anywhere in the city to send Josh for this kind of class, so we contacted a local company, Blue Tomato, that provides supplemental tutoring and test preparation.”

Imagine a classroom that prepares students for TODAY’s world, for TODAY’s challenges.

I was fortunate enough to have a high school teacher that also recognized the extreme importance of technology in the classroom (I thank him for his role in influencing me to pursue Electrical Engineering). His name is David Peins and his company is Robodyssey. In his high school Robotics class, we were taught math, physics, electronics, and computer programming all while building robots (my robot can be seen below), and this all happened between the 9th and 12th grade. I learned about semiconductor devices, NPN, PNP transistors, tutebot circuits, and more, 3 years before they were even introduced to me in my Semiconductor Devices classes, (my junior year of college).

If America is going to keep up with the ever changing, fast paced global economy, we need these types of teaching mediums. One that provide relevance to today’s technological and societal challenges, while extracting the most value out of a classroom setting.

“I believe in engaged education and I believe in pushing the envelope and trying new things. Things like this.

Our kids are growing up in a different world than we did. We have to teach them using these new tools. Not just the ones that were used on us.“

Fred W. could not be more right.

My Robot (and Chris Murphy) from HIGH SCHOOL: (The robot was a self-navigating, automated fire fighting robot. It autonomously navigated a maze using ultrasound and infrared sensors, found a lit candle in one of the rooms, and blew out the candle)

Fred Wilson – “And Who Do The Other 17% Think Will Win?”

The anticipation of who will be the democratic nominee is growing. Fred Wilson posed a great question today in his post titled “And Who Do The Other 17% Think Will Win?”

“My other thought when looking at this chart was “if these were two stocks, what would people be doing with them?”

– Fred Wilson

Behind any investment, their must be substance. Which candidate is proposing ideas that are subtenant, tangible, and practical. We all remember what happened in the dot com bubble when people started pouring money into those revolutionary internet ideas. And who made it out on top?

Substance behind the idea.

Better image here