Development Guild
Environmental Scan
1. Organization – business and government - in crisis, enormous overload. They need to recruit people who are already open and aware and practicing the “new” model.
2. University education as the singular entry ticket to career work is under threat
3. Students and early career professionals have different expectations of how they are developed and how they work
§ Community – a sense of belonging based on compatibility
§ Flexibility – work on their time, on demand
§ Interactive and technology based
§ Emphasize participation and engagement rather than traditional, largely passive receivers
4. Universities have real challenges:
§ At risk of being out of touch and archaic even in professions where they are the only provider (medicine, law, education, etcetera).
§ Demography and professors –professors retiring and shrinking supply of business PhD candidates.
§ Student expectations changing – expectations of what they get out of it, and expectations of how they get it. More kids are going to have to work while at school- time pressures and flexibility become critical. Going to demand online courses.
§ Student cost increasing - ~$15k pa for education and residence, and increasing.
The Opportunity
- Develop a guild model of development.
- Target market for pre-career, mid-career and quarter career.
- Validate it with “test markets” – UPEI, TCS, maybe another?
- Franchise it
The Offering
Development Guild provides development in technical/professional areas – affinity marketing, digital business models, sales and marketing disciplines, strategy management, etcetera. Many places can provide that, and our guild differentiates because we provide the development of these capabilities integrated with the “Natural Step” business model.
Additionally, we emphasize:
1. Engagement and Judgment – our “students” are engaged in the learning, in real-life situations. The learning and supplementary projects provide an experiential environment, with a strong results expectation. Emphasized real-life judgment, insight and action.
2. Tools – practical tools that work in the networked, dynamic world of work.
The guild as a metaphor emphasizes a community, sometimes a place. Master craftspeople seek the guild for collaboration, belonging and for multi-disciplinary development – their own, their products.
Journeymen come and go, they seek specific learning to help advance – specific tools, specific advanced techniques, sometimes personal development.
Apprentices – tend to be more engaged, ongoing while they get the fundamentals. The development and the work are connected, not separate. The approaches emphasize action learning, with theory as reinforcement.
These programs will be designed to help “students” prepare themselves for the work they want to engage in, or to shift and enhance the work they are already engaged in.
Principles evolving
1. Build on the foundation that kids already have in their learning
2. Instructors are actively involved in the leading edge of today’s business world
3. Brining the most up-to-date experience
4. Dealing with transition from command and control, machine based metaphor to a natural, collegial, distributed organism
5. Use materials and projects that are extremely current
6. We have experiential class-room style, model in what we do the new business organization
7. Professor as coach, working collaboratively at a distance, they speak personally
8. Try and include a project in real situation in every course i.e. a strategy to implement the Natural Step in agriculture in PEI. Next is h2 market lobster – shift from commodity to a positioning that is more in keeping with the reality that lobster is a scarce and valuable resource
Risks
1. Threat to traditional university faculty
2. Does our offering need to be eligible for university credit?
Clearer segments -
· Some want more from work
· Some want less from work
· Some want more from life
It will be appeal most to those who – as described in Richard Florida's The Rise of the Creative Class - expect their work and life to be
· Highly integrated
· Challenging and fulfilling
· Tap into new models of belonging - affinity based on values and interests - community not organization - intention not obligation
· Expect local diversity and accessibility in their communities - work & play, creativity and spirituality,
Development guild curriculum provides “students” with choices of courses authored and delivered by 6 professionals. Each of these has significant experience as a teacher, coach, mentor and as a business executive. Their own worldview and the design of this program come together.
1. The Natural Step
2. The Natural World as a place to learn
3. Connecting to one’s self – using western business technique and eastern models of self discovery and personal development to bring more fulfilling success
4. Building a successful digital business
5.
Faculty
Rob Paterson
Alan
Sebastian
Steve
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