Post Corona
Think you might want to read this book?
In Post Corona, Scott Galloway brings us into the future world economy and the forces that will drive it. He offers the idea that Amazon is set to dominate all operations services, Apple all entertainment and wearables, Facebook all social media and Google all information services. He cites specifics about each company or industry to support his theories (e.g., Apple’s commitment to your privacy and Amazon’s ability to compete with or acquire, just about any tangible goods company). While less about Corona than the title implies, it’s a clear window into the future from a great thinker. We would serve students better if we began to think a bit more like Scott Galloway about what’s to come... in education.
What Would Socrates Ask?
Are there some age groups that are more conducive to online learning? Are there some subjects that are more conducive to online learning?
Are there some subjects that are more conducive to online learning?
How do we balance learning that was ideally done in groups on campus with learning that is best learned off campus seamlessly?
What if schools offered their best courses online so that students from all over the world could access them?
What if schools operated under the subscription model?
What if we trained all high school students how to analyze the valuations of companies?
How do we most efficiently and effectively curate digital content for all learners?
Research
At 38 of the top 100 colleges in America, including 5 of the Ivies, there are more students from the top 1% of income than there are from the bottom 60%. You could argue that at this point, the Ivy League undergraduate programs are not colleges, but hedge funds that educate the children of their investors.”
In 2018, 1,200 students enrolled in Yale professor Lauri Santos’s course “Psychology and the Good Life,” making it the most popular in the school’s 300-year history. But when Santos and Yale put the course online, for free, over one million people enrolled
Concepts
Rundle- recurring revenue bundle
Unearned margin- dramatic increase in price with no accompanying increase in value or innovation
Unicorn- a start-up that turns into a billion-dollar company
Quotes from the author
“What we experience is change, not time. Aristotle observed that time does not exist without change, because what we call time is simply our measurement of the difference between ‘before’ and ‘after’.”
“First, the pandemic’s most enduring impact will be as an accelerant. While it will initiate some change and alter the direction of some trends, the pandemic’s primary effect has been to accelerate dynamics already present in society. Second, in any crisis there is opportunity; the great and more disruptive the crisis, the greater the opportunities.”
“The Chinese word for crisis consists of two symbols, one meaning danger, the other, we are told, meaning opportunity. What opportunities await us post corona?”
“For those with a path to the post-corona future, however narrow, the watchword for how to respond in a crisis is overcorrect.”
“... employees who are also mothers have often mastered a level of efficiency that noticeably outstrips their peers who are fathers.”
“We used to trade time for value. Now we trade our privacy for value.”
“Flexible spaces where people can work alone or in teams, distributed throughout cities and beyond, sounds like the future.”
“Apple’s phone was so successful that the company dropped “Computer” from its name, and now it’s producing television shows.”
“Apple owns the most profitable product ever made, the iPhone, and sells it through the highest per-square-foot retail business of all time, the Apple Store.”
“A decent signal an industry is vulnerable is the presence of pseudo innovation- the addition of features that add no real value to the product….”
“You’ve likely noticed that a key to a firm’s success is the inertia of the incumbents. There are few industries as big and immobile as higher education in the U.S.”
“At Harvard, David Malan has made the school’s renowned introductory computer science course into an international phenomenon, taking it online and tuition-free.”
(advice for 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. 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.”
“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).”
“... one of the silver linings of the pandemic has been 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.”
“One thing we should not do? Free college.”
Quotes from others
“If you need to be right before you move, you will never win. Perfection is the enemy of the good when it comes to emergency management. Speed trumps perfection. And the problem we have in society is that everyone is afraid of making a mistake.” - Dr. Mike Ryan - head of World Health Organization’s Health Emergencies Programme
“The financial solvency of many private colleges now rests on a latticework of probability.” - Kevin Carey of New America
“A step backward, after making a wrong turn, is a step in the right direction.” - Kurt Vonnegut
Organizations/schools working on answers
The applicability of this book to education is ….
Resources
