In my 6 years at GMU I have been fortunate to participate in many discussions regarding disruptions in higher education and even Mason’s specific opportunities.
I’ve been bewildered by the bureaucracy and slow pace of modern universities a few times in regard to online education.
Steve Blank has an interesting post, Why Innovation Dies, highlighting the dangerous, bureaucratic, but professional approach that many universities are taking to online opportunities and challenges. Moreover, Blank offers an online education infographic (see below). Thank you Steve Blank, I hope this makes it to many .edu in boxes.
The problem is that the path to implementing online education is not known. In fact, it’s not a solvable problem by committee, regardless of how many smart people in the room. It is a “NP complete” problem – it is so complex that figuring out the one possible path to a correct solution is computationally incalculable.
Later,
Online education is not an existing market. There just isn’t enough data to pick what is the correct “overarching strategy”.
Making a single bet on a single strategy, plan or company in a new market is a sure way to fail. After 50-years even the smartest VC firms haven’t figured out how to pick one company as the winner. That’s why they invest in a portfolio.
via Steve Blank.
Campus Entrepreneurship 