About two years ago I was invited to speak at one of the more prestigious business and entrepreneurship schools in the country. Because teaching is my passion, I readily accepted the offer and was enthralled to be able to speak with about 100 students in 4 different classes regarding owning a business and the successes and failures I had experienced during my time as an entrepreneur.
Although the event was an extremely positive one in terms of the powerful discussions I was able to have with some of the top young business minds in the country, I was left with a major concern:
Our country’s greatest business schools, and our country’s greatest professors, have been left behind.
What I mean by this statement is the fact that this particular school offered in their curriculum to students no blogging/content marketing lessons, did not touch upon video marketing (ie YouTube), didn’t mention social media, and without question did not make it requisite for business owners to understand basic web 2.0 design principles.
Now some of you may be thinking, “Well duh Marcus, they are not an information technologies school, they’re a business school.”
But if you have such a thought let me assure you that you’re off-base and a paradigm shift is highly warranted.
A New Day
Today’s business owner and entrepreneur must be web savvy. He/she must not just know computers, but they must understand Web 2.0 and everything about social web. Without such knowledge, they will be left behind as soon as they enter the marketplace and get a taste of ‘the real world’.
This is also why colleges with businesses and entrepreneurship programs are failing around the globe. Because they’ve been so slow to integrate the new business success principles of the 21st century a unique shift is happening-
Business school graduates are getting their butts kicked by ‘average Joes and Janes’ simply because Joe and Jane didn’t waste time and money in schools to figure out this incredible marketing shift that has taken place because of web 2.0. Instead of listening to an outdated professor, they’ve been reading blogs like Chris Brogan. Instead buying outdated textbooks, they’ve been gobbling up the words of Seth Godin. And instead of talking about business, they’ve actually been running a business.
If you don’t believe me, just look around online and you’ll see this phenomenon everywhere. The younger generation, heck, many teenagers for that matter, are becoming a major force in the economy without having ever attended one day of college at all.
Where do Colleges Go From Here?
There must be a change. Colleges and business schools need to recognize this need and change their entire curriculums. Also, professors need to spend more time staying on the cutting edge and less time teaching old business and marketing principles that have been deemed irrelevant and outdated in 2010 and beyond. Change within technology and how it relates to business is too dynamic in the 21st century to rest on past successes and principles. As social web has such an incredible rate of development each and every day, schools literally need to revamp the way they do things on a yearly, heck monthly, basis.
Such a change will not be easy, no doubt. But if business and entrepreneurship schools want to continue to produce leaders that will set the tone our world’s economy going forward, the status quo must be completely thrown out the door, and a technical revolution must occur within the confines of our classrooms…….Such is my vision, I only hope it’s not too late.
Marcus Sheridan
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Hey Marcus.
We have a few schools in Sweden teaching business and entrepreneurship.
I would like to tell you about Bergs School of Marketing, it is ranked one of the tops schools in the world, mostly because of its integration of social media in their courses.
I recently took a course in marketing about 20% of the course was about SEO and social media (including blogs).
I think colleges and universities are catching up and catching on, otherwise Bergs wouldn’t have gotten its ranking
Thanks for the post and I think the future is bright!
.-= Daniel M. Wood´s last blog ..We are up and running! =-.
Wow, that’s awesome D’ that Sweden has embraced such a move…..I had no idea. Thanks for sharing my friend!
Marcus!
Bravo! Yes indeed. I totally agree. I am reminded of the phrase: “Lead, follow or get out of the way!”
Many thanks in advance, as I will put this post to good use with my friends from academia!
Ciao, Dave.
Thanks Dave! Yeah, get those friends of yours on the ball!
Wow Marcus, you are so right. I’ve noticed myself that so many business people have indeed been left behind. In fact I always sort of poked fun at my dad because for the longest time he didn’t want to create a website for his business, until I finally convinced him to have one put up. So I took up that task.
I think there is no turning around. Society is already so far into the web that why not make the most of it? That’s why it’s there, for our benefit and to get connected! Great information Marcus!
-Gabe
.-= Gabe´s last blog ..How to Stop Worrying So Much =-.