How Seth Godin's altMBA Program Showed Me The Future of Customer Education

This post is for anyone interested in finding better ways to train their customers, demonstrate the benefit of their products and services, create meaningful learning and development programs, or scale high quality customer education. 

Do the hard part first. Seek out emotional labor. Dance with fear. - altMBA

The altMBA is an intensive, 4-week online workshop designed by Seth Godin for high-performing individuals who want to level up and lead.

During March I experienced the most intensive and creative educational experience of my life. Once my application was accepted the next challenge was convincing my wife that on top of work I would also be attending a month long course. That meant long nights and busy weekends. I gave her my best pitch and got her blessing. Now the final challenge was payment. After selling some of my Microsoft stock, and convincing LinkedIn to help me pay the rest, I was able to secure one place out of 100 to attend Seth Godin's altMBA. It was worth it! Let me tell you why. 

While I could concentrate on so many aspects of this incredible experience, in this post I want to share examples of how the altMBA transformed the way I see customer education being delivered in the future. While we already have massive online courses and online university programs it doesn't seem that the same has translated into the business world to help train our employees and customers - at least not in a productive, meaningful, and creative way.

Here are a few aspects of the the altMBA that I see becoming common business practice in the world of customer education: 

A Blend of Physical and Digital

You can see in the description at the top of this post that the altMBA is described as an 'online workshop'. Before the program started I received a box filled with intriguing books that were recommended reading. Inside the box was also a large coin and a welcome letter to remind me of the culture of the altMBA and what I was setting out to achieve. This helped build anticipation and prepared me in ways that no website or app could have done. I still carry the coin with me to remind me of what I learned.

Give your customers something that begs to be opened and remembered. 

Community Style Coaching 

The altMBA uses Slack as the collaboration platform of choice to connect all 100 students. Slack is further separated into different channels (groups) so that students can direct themselves according to their interests, needs, and projects. You also have the altMBA coaches who act as community managers and mentors. They send out announcements, encourage conversations, and provide valuable feedback. The coaches are extremely present, but they're not there to tell you what to do.  One of my best experiences was getting a private message from one of the coaches giving me feedback on a project I had published and asking me questions that I hadn't even considered. 

Coach your customers to help themselves, and each other, through an easy to use community platform. 

Small Group Learning Through Video Conferencing  

Zoom is the video and web conferencing tool that the altMBA uses to create live video rooms that students access each week. No, it doesn't involve creating invites/calls or entering pass code details. It's simply a link on a page that you click each day during times that you agree to meet with your team. The cohorts are usually made up of five students and each cohort has a dedicated video room. This experience was by far the core value of the altMBA. In the span of four weeks I got to meet a large number of passionate individuals seeking to improve their leadership and entrepreneurial skills. The small group meetings made it possible for everyone to have a voice and learn from each other in ways that wouldn't have been possible any other way - since students in the altMBA are from around the world. This process was repeated with different teams every week.

Bring small groups of customers together in a specific place, at a specific time, for the purpose of learning from and working with each other.

Shipping Projects, Giving Feedback, and Reflection Summaries 

The written projects in the altMBA WordPress site make it a very intensive experience. You're given a few days to review the project prompt, collaborate with your team, publish your project, give feedback, and write a reflection summary based on the feedback you receive. Although projects can be individually or team based you are always encouraged to work with others to help you publish your projects. Each project challenges your assumptions on leadership, business, and even your own goals. Working with people from different cultures and industries makes the learning experience worthwhile. What I also came to realize is that each project had a specific purpose tied to what I want to achieve in my own career and life. It wasn't a generic task or simply steps in a curriculum. Each project was meant to help me with my work outside of the altMBA. 

Focus on specific and measurable projects tied to your customers business needs and aspirations. Ask them to provide feedback for their peers and encourage them to share reflections on the feedback they receive on their own work.

The future of customer education relies on companies creating a unified journey that gives customers context, related to their work, each time they engage with your learning resources. This invites customers to share how your products and services work in the real world by making them active members of the education process. Finally, take advantage of the thought leaders already influencing your customers and industry, and learn from them as much as you can.

I believe that companies that focus on leveling up their customer education experiences and creating strong customer communities will reap the most rewards. Empowering customers to achieve more for their business and careers will ultimately create more valuable customers in the future.