Disruptive Education: Real World vs Universities
The average person will change careers seven times and have more than ten jobs by the age of just 42 according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
While Gen X and Y are more adept at chopping and changing between employers than their predecessors were, going forward this will likely be born at out necessity and the numbers are sure to rise.
Why?
With 65% of the Australian economy facing significant disruption, it’s predominantly a case of out with the old and in with the new.
And it’s paving the way for disruptive education models.
Whether it’s the unfortunately named MOOCs (massive open online courses) such as Coursera and Udacity, practical educators like Galvanize who recentlypartnered with Google, or short-term certifications being offered by independent organisations, the education landscape as we know it is changing fast to accomodate for the equally fast changing employment landscape.
A number of factors are driving disruption.
Technology
Technology is paving the way for new jobs. The emergence of big data, cloud computing, mobile and social media for example have created an abundance of new jobs that now find a home across organisations of all shapes and sizes.
In the last ten years alone we’ve seen a proliferation of new jobs that didn’t exist previously become commonplace. For example, social media manager, iOS developer, digital marketer, data scientist, 3D designer, user experience designer…the list goes on. And the future will bring with it a whole new spectrum of jobs (drone operator anyone?!).
A quick look at how vacancies for traditional occupations stack up against modern occupations in Australia reveals the following:
The disruption to the employment landscape is also reflected by the fast dwindling time a Fortune 500 company is expected to spend on the index, which has dropped from 60 years in the 1950s to just 15 years today, according to research conducted by innovation consultancy Innosight.
This is symptomatic of the rapid change in technology that large companies and large educational institutions alike, such as universities, are too often slow to respond to.
Universities, like most large organisations, are bound by process, procedure and value systems that don’t lend themselves to moving quickly in response to market demands for jobs.
A quick inspection of the average marketing degree offered by Universities in Australia shows that the following marketing subjects are undertaken:
What is frighteningly obvious here is that digital marketing is missing.
In an age where the consumer has all the power and marketing campaigns are becoming targeted, it seems that much of this particular University syllabus focuses on old world above the line marketing concepts and ignores modern, lean techniques around social media, content marketing, web analytics, search engine marketing and optimisation, influencer outreach, email marketing and so on.
Busy professionals, often with mouths to feed, can also ill afford to take time out of their days to explore full time courses. Some universities have answered this call with accelerated and online MBAs for example but these tend to be expensive and still require a significant amount of time out of work.
.png)
The WorkFlow podcast is hosted by Steve Glaveski with a mission to help you unlock your potential to do more great work in far less time, whether you're working as part of a team or flying solo, and to set you up for a richer life.
To help you avoid stepping into these all too common pitfalls, we’ve reflected on our five years as an organization working on corporate innovation programs across the globe, and have prepared 100 DOs and DON’Ts.
