Virtual MBA

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        Traits: 
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        Inexpensive; you subscribe for life
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        Flexible
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        Encourages natural cohort formation 
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        Mix of F2F and online 
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        On-demand access (invent curriculum as you need it)
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        Imagine if the people from your favorite college study group or cohort were available to 
        you for the rest of your life (well, as long as you wanted to be there; it sounds like 
        such a long time!).  
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        One of the problems with our educational system is that the course is primary, the 
        students are secondary.  We force students to ingest courses the way we design them at the 
        times we want to offer them and we make little effort to support the students' own 
        activities.  Students participate in the system at our convenience, and when they leave 
        our walls to head off to work, the most we do is ask them for money.  
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        I wish someone would build a virtual university -- I've played this through in my mind as 
        a virtual MBA program, but it could be any curriculum -- that I can join for life, paying 
        membership dues the way I pay for life insurance or a gym.  The fees would be low and 
        reasonable.  One of the benefits that the university would bring me (and why I would pay 
        for participation) is the admissions process:  the people I would meet and work with in 
        the virtual U would be vetted by someone with good judgment (at least in principle :).  
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        I might go many months without taking a course from the virtual U.  That would be fine.  I 
        wouldn't be a second-class citizen in the system because I'm not "enrolled" in a course.  
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        When some event in my life causes me to need the university, I jump in and find materials 
        relevant to the event and, more importantly, other people interested in the topic.  Say, 
        for example, that I just got my first international client.  Now I need to learn about 
        foreign-exchange exposure, barter and hedging, foreign customs and maybe export and 
        import.  As the cohort forms that wants to learn this stuff (and how it forms is important 
        stuff I haven't fleshed out yet), it customizes the materials.  Note that participants are 
        now motivated to learn the materials, because we're all here for a reason.  
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        The infrastructure would be useful for courses taught completely online, in person, or any 
        combination.  It would be the place where students and teachers put documents, hold 
        conversations and otherwise organize their activities.  Perhaps most importantly, it would 
        have life beyond the end of any course.  
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        If you're on a track to spend two years getting a certification, this may not sound too 
        interesting.  But that may be your first path through this system.  
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