Overnight Idea: The Virtual and Personal MBA

In thinking about what would be a really different and challenging thought, I came to this idea: Design a MBA program around internet searched materials, library books and course materials bought on the cheap or obtained for free. Now, (I know) this seems reaching into an area that is all ready done well enough to turn out so many competent and creative souls. I mean, look at Wall Street and all their recent successes?

To me this will a be a project of compiling data, doing the actual course work discovered at MIT Free Online Courses, incorporating known models at Harvard, Princeton University Economics, Columbia, Stanford, Michigan and Northwestern resources, while adding in the latest business thoughts, from entreprenuerial to regulatory practices.

A music interlude: Johnny Cash's I Walk The Line


By no means is this going to be groundbreaking or money making. It's a desire to learn and study in depth what makes all these $100,000 a year people (well, more in NYC, less, in Midwest fly-over) include oddities and books that are classic, and others, that teach a different mantra, that isn't in Milton Friedman's wettest dreams.

I wanted to take the GMAT years ago, back in 1998-99. Studied, bought the Princeton Review book, etc. Got sidetracked and wound up taking the LSAT. Scanner at heart and soul.

So, this will be a new project with a twist or two likely. I like to incorporate information into a model of how something works. Which is what Business is: a model of what works and what doesn't.

More interesting is to discover how Economics, Business, Law and Public Policy work (or don't work) together.

I figure it will take 2-3 years of reading, writing, researching and designing the course work. With plenty I won't learn or know, but plenty that will enlighten me to the history and evolution of what a true MBA graduate should know.

Example: Jim Kramer's Warning in October 2008 about Stock Market


I will post my work: course study, books read or researched, internet articles, business channel stuff, youtube vids, research papers I will write (God willing) and compiled program of PDFs, Powerpoint stuff, Excel spreadsheets, etc. Maybe it will work out well.

There is a few of goals to this: to create both a virtual program and get what others are learning (or mislearning) in their programs. Criticism is welcome - as well as resources that are good to use or available for free. Nearly free is also the goal. Who is getting their education on the cheap in these hard economic times?

I figure if I can put together a comprehensive, intelligent and understandable model for a learning (with the undergrad course stuff included), why does education need to be so expensive?

I'm not selling this idea yet. But it has merit. People need choices that are low cost and digestable in 1 1/2 -2 year window of learning. Also, the path to enlightenment is usually a personal experience more than a guided tour by people with their own motivations and shortsightness built in.

I hope that in the end I can be more informed while informing others in the process.

My 1st semester will start in January 2009. Till then, I am compiling the nuts and bolts of what I need to include and discover during the next 2 years.

(So, that Perfect Storm post will take a backseat.)

Final Music: Johnny Cash's God's Gonna Cut You Down

Music: When all else fails, put the needle on the record

I apologize for not posting Part III of On the Fly, Run the Table. Seems writing about other things sapped my brain of juices. Since I have a habit of the unfinished (whether it's procrastination or just inability to complete tasks), I will try my best to post it by Monday.

But you know how promises are: only as good, as the motivating factor to keep them. (Money & Sex are pretty good motivators for most mammals.) So instead, here's some music and thoughts surrounding the choices

M.A.R.R.S. - Pump up the Volume. Late 80's dance hit. My best friend at the time in high school totally loved this one-hitter. He was a classic heavy metaller. It is a dance club mix favorite.



Electric Light Orchestra - Don't Bring Me Down. I love this ditty from 1979. Jeff Lynne became the lesser member of the Traveling (Stoners?) Wilburys - Tom Petty, Bob Dylan, George Harrison and Roy Orbison. ELO was an 8-track legend as far as I am concern. Another friend had a 73' Olds 98 hoopty that sucked gas like a $20 whore does - but kept on a runnin', 8-track and all.


Material Issue: Valerie Loves Me. Classic early 90's pop ballad. They started in Chicago - where I heard them in the late 80's on the fringe rock station - but they fell out with God knows how many other bands. Toad the Wet Sprocket and Sister Hazel come to mine...as others.


The Why Store: Father. Another semi-big Midestern act out of Indianapolis. They performed at a frat house I happened to get invited into one night back in 1993 or 94. It was the first time I had to carry my then drunk best friend (6'4", 240 lbs. to the car I was driving, along with two women that wanted a ride.) Neither woman was interested in us...You might notice the Father in the video..supporting actor in "Seabiscuit" and "A Time to Kill", I think.


Gravity Kills: Guilty. Hell, I didn't know they would get into a Harry Potter vehicle. This song is about 12 years old or more.

I was going through a phase in music. Along with NIN, Ministry, Stabbing Westward, Manson, Tool and probably a dozen other fucked up bands of the genre, I listened to the this "cutting edge" garbino. (Only NIN had a message I could "relate" to.)


Stabbing Westward: What Do I have to Do?

And finally....

Johnny Cash: Hurt. Probably a better cover than the original NIN's version. At least, Cash had a sense of what made this song...special enough to record. I can't imagine what it was like for him to do it.


KEEP IT FRESH TO DEATH!!!!