Journey of a thousand miles: Marylhurst MBA Week 1

I’ve never really like that phrase about the journey of a thousand miles beginning with one step if only b/c you still have the thousand miles to walk…which is quite far.  However, this week I started on my own journey, I started the Marylhurst MBA program in sustainability. I’m going to reserve opinion because it’s only just begun and although I feel like I am holding my own it’s only been three days. But so far, I have been very impressed with the opinions and level of expertise of my peers in the program. I was very concerned that an online only program would be spare on the discussions but everyone appears to be thinking hard about each of the topics and expressing themselves very well.

I recently saw a TED talk about where good ideas come from:

Steven Johnson talked about how when people started to meet in coffee shops in London the spread and sharing of ideas accelerated. He goes on to say how the Web is accelerating collaboration. So, what does this have to do with a my online MBA program? I think a lot. I think increasingly this idea of everyone going to single location, whether that’s an office building or a campus will become increasingly anachronistic. But the need to have a place where you can talk, share ideas and collaborate will still be critical. Today, you can go into just about any coffee shop in Boulder and people are working on projects and talking about ideas.  I don’t think the value of face-to-face meetings can ever be underestimated but I do think as our online tools become more sophisticated the type of spontaneous sharing, working and collaboration that occurs in coffee shops, or shared spaces will happen online.

This program embodies a number of topics that interest me obviously but it is also the context that I find most fascinating.  From medieval guilds, to Benjamin Franklin organizing printer meetings, to pursuing an MBA online, there has always been a desire to meet and advance our learning from our peers. That desire coupled with the technologies available today make collaboration a possibility with people from all over the world; a truly sustainable and sustaining next step.