What could a Personal Masters Degree look like?

I love learning. It's something I've been passionate about for a long time, and over the past few years I've been positively excited about the way in which learning has evolved.

Learning used to be walled. Originally before the printing press books were only something the rich had access to. Later books became widely available, but then more formal education was restricted to who could pay tuition or course fees. Today learning is no longer constrained, it is more widely available than it ever has been before.

At a recent TechWaterloo event (pictured above), I provided some thoughts on how learning has changed. I view the ecosystem of today's learning as something like the following:

Books - A traditional way we've learned from, but now are more widely accessible through audiobooks and e-books. When I go travelling, instead of lugging around a number of books, I have them all on one device.

Courses - Online education is now free, or very cheap, which provides access to many career-development opportunities, as well as a broadening of skill sets through semi-related to un-related domains. I've had mixed experiences with this medium, but undoubtedly these MOOCS (Massive Open Online Courses) have provided new access to learning.

Forms of Idea Exposure - Conversations, Podcasts, TED Talks and other forms of media I've grouped here which can expose us to new ideas. These areas may not provide tremendous depth of learning, but rather can be very helpful for creative pursuits or to broaden one's mindset.

Apps - There is of course an app for everything. Two in particular I've been impressed by are Duolingo, which I've used to learn introductory Spanish in 5 minutes a day and Evernote, which I've started using to document my learnings in a more organized and searchable way.

Beyond these 4 there is of course experiential learning as well, which can be obtained from one's job as well as from other extra-curricular projects (for me as an example I get learning out of my job, hosting my weekly podcasts and hosting the TechWaterloo events). The key I've seen here is the process of journaling can be very helpful to consciously learn from these daily experiences.

How do we best use all this technology?

As technology continues to upend the jobs of yesterday, there will be a need for us to retrain and adapt to the changing nature of work. There are also other competing demands for our attention, so here are a few ways I believe can help in best leveraging this wide access to learning for our own personal benefit:

1. Having the will to learn - Do we have the will and discipline to prioritize discretionary learning before our Netflix? Assuming this is outside of our formal job, we will need to prioritize it above other discretionary activities.
2. Structuring a learning plan - Are we being focused enough in our learning to make deep progress in particular areas, or merely following the Wikipedia path of exploring interesting articles?
3. Building in learning times to our day - What times of our day work best for us to engage in this sort of learning? For me I've found my bus rides to work a great time to engage in daily reading, my workouts a good time to listen to podcasts and my weekends as a good time to engage in online learning.
4. Determining which technologies / formats of learning work best for you - Some of my friends and colleagues love audiobooks. Others have engaged in programming boot camps for 6 weeks to improve a specific skill. The formats will be different for each of us, and the key here I believe is to experiment with different options.
5. Documenting our learning - This is an area I have not done a good job of. Traditionally I have always kept a physical notebook with me, which I use to take notes and write down my learning. The challenge is these can't be easily searched through or added to later, which makes extrapolating key themes hard over time. Evernote for me has been helpful with this lately as it's providing a structure to organize my thoughts, learning and notes.

Creating our own "Personal Masters Degree"

There are individuals who are starting to buck the trend as it relates to formalized education. Josh Kaufman for example, author of "The Personal MBA", built his own MBA curriculum by reading books available to him, speaking with people who he wanted to learn from and learning day-to-day in his own job. Seth Godin was an early supporter of this approach.

"It's hard for me to understand why getting a MBA is a better use of time and money than actual experience combined with a dedicated reading of 30 to 40 books"   -Seth Godin

There are a number of other individuals such as Tim Ferriss that preach a similar message, to do a self-directed MBA or invest the same time and money in other learning activities (in Tim's case investing the tuition money in stocks and viewing that process as a learning opportunity).

The "Derek Masters Degree"

I was originally planning on doing a masters degree part-time next year, but for several personal reasons I've made the decision not to pursue that at this time. If I had gone ahead with that I would have had to invest 15-20 hours per week in the program, as well as making a significant financial investment.

If I were to go ahead and invest the same amount of time, and a portion of that financial investment in personal learning still, what outcomes could I achieve?

It would depend ultimately on the curriculum developed. This is where I come to the idea of building a personalized masters "degree".

I already engage in a high degree of personal learning including experiential components (job, podcast, hosting tech events, volunteering), books (reading on average 1 every 2 weeks), listening to podcasts each day and doing online courses from time to time. What I've found is I haven't had a structured approach to focus my learning, nor did I document my learning in the best way.

In response to these reflections I've come up with 5 priority areas of continuous learning and development in 2017. Some are specific skill sets, some are areas I'd like to be more knowledgeable in and some are strengths I want to hone further:

1. Communication Skills - In here I've grouped sales, public speaking and interviewing skills. I consider each of these to be a strength already, but I want to accelerate each of these much further. Learning Approach - Primarily experiential through my job, podcast interviews and hosting gigs.
2. "MBA-Lite" - Out of a MBA degree, I would look to develop strategic thinking abilities to view a business from a 10,000 foot level. Thus I would like to hone in on strategies for organizational leadership as well as the corporate finance aspects that I can improve in. Learning Approach - Online courses, books and experiential learning in my job.
3. Innovations in Edtech - I am passionate about the potential for technology to improve the effectiveness and accessibility to education. Learning Approach - Experiential in my role at Axonify, experiential through my own experimentation with education / learning technology and learning through people in conversation and podcast interviews.
4. City-Building - I believe there is a considerable amount of entrepreneurial energy happening in cities right now. The factors that make cities work / not work are so interconnected and require considerable knowledge and consensus building . I'd like to learn more about this area to support my volunteer work on the side as a community builder. Learning Approach - Experiential activities in the city, online courses and podcast interviews,
5. The Future of Retail - I'm working with a number of retailers right now in my role at Axonify, and as part of that I'm diving into the future of the retail industry. It's an exciting place to be with a lot of change happening, and I'd like to be at the forefront of it. Learning Approach - Experiential as I work with my customers, learning through books and insights via news, magazines, podcasts

In speaking with people in my network, the largest area I've received feedback on is about having a proper accountability system. One friend suggested giving another friend $1000 only to be returned if I complete the curriculum I've set out. Another suggested finding people to engage in this learning process with me.

Beyond that, the big questions in my head as I enter into this process are:

• Focus (I realize 5 areas of development is a lot)
• Tracking progress
• Ensuring I properly document my learning.

In sharing this I hope it is helpful for you. I would love to hear your thoughts on this idea, and more broadly on personal learning.

• What do you do right now as it relates to personal learning?
• Are there best practices that you believe are worth sharing as it relates to your own learning and development strategy?
• Are you passionate about any of these topics? If so please let me know as there may be a great offline conversation to be had or podcast discussion topic.