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13/ The challenge is working out a systematic business model for delivering Weird Topics learning material from the Long Tail of the Great Weirding. My experiments so far have been Random Acts of Mildly Profitable or Break-Even Teaching, and I don’t trust that to be sustainable
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14/ What’s missing is a clean conceptualization of how Weird Topics teaching directly links to research/writing/making/kickstartering end of things. Just like there’s Aman R&D/PhD/grad-coursework nexus in academia. Once I figure that out I’ll be more enthusiastic about teaching
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15/ This thread is a reflection of my own ambivalence towards the online courses game. I have had a Ribbonfarm School set up on teachable for a year now with some bare minimum stuff available, and I’m both attracted to/put off by the idea of doing more.
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16/ What would make me get serious is if I could figure out a good model, with many teachers, of Ribbonfarm School as a Weird Topics grad school. I have no interest in the undergrad-equivalent stuff (though I need that to exist) or things that univs do well already at grad level
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17/ Btw if any of you are interested in this stuff and looking to “disrupt” regular grad school or even undergrad, note that that’s likely a bad idea. They’re disrupting themselves pretty well with their free/cheap catalog-openings in partnership with the Courseras of the world
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18/ What we’re talking about here is really an indie teaching scene by analogy to indie music. The big univs are like the big record labels. No point competing where they have a deep back catalog of material ready to go. Either teach New Economy UG or Weird Topics grad school
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19/ If you want to teach New Economy UG, you have to think like a consumer business and design for scale, efficiency, packaging, mass marketing, intake funnels, and probably a sub $300 price range
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20/ If you want to teach Weird Topics grad school, you need to figure out a link/cross-subsidy with research/writing/making/indie-creating, focus on bespoke teaching relationships, and a price < $100, unless you can figure out a scholarship model and make it free (my preference)
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I have similar ideas for “weird topics” in productivity taught by many different teachers. But why don’t you think it can be premium priced? Like boutique in-person courses on massage therapy, orgasmic meditation, public speaking, sitting/walking techniques
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Same reason nobody who deserves a PhD ever pays for one. Adverse selection. The point of such teaching is to surface best talent who can advance research/writing, not people who can most afford to pay. They’re not entirely orthogonal, but definitely not the same populations.
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I guess I’m thinking of it more as a form of intellectual entertainment or personal development, not as actually pushing the frontier of anything. Still hard to imagine that happening outside of institutions, even for me
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That’s likely because you have an exalted view of what happens inside institutions. If you’re willing to trust my word for it, the only serious difference is high capex equipment like electron microscopes. Otherwise they do exactly what we outsiders do: read, think, code, write.
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You could do premium pricing but probably not for the most research-interest frontier topics. The examples you offered are more a sort of luxury lifestyle consumption product than what I’m talking about.
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Would there also be benefit (to the teacher) of simply getting feedback on how the Course affects the students? e.g., when I taught SW engr, I learned a lot about my "market" and got better "course-student fit". Adjusted course accordingly. Good prep for writing a book.
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