Know-How Exchange : Student Questions

First, read from the range of opinions in the articles listed here, many of which come from Forbes, The Financial Times, and the like: https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&a...

Then, and by all means, feel free to reject my line of thinking, after all, I have no under graduate degree in marketing, and no MBA. However, despite my lack of education and credentials, I've become one of the top three ranked contributors of what is arguably the top online marketing forum online.

How can that be?

In most job interviews in which the person you're sitting across the desk from is the decision maker on who gets the job on offer and who walks away with bupkis, it's often a coin toss between a super educated MBA with no real world work experience, and someone with MASSES of real world work experience, but with no education to back them up. In those cases the hard (for which read "smart") money is on the latter candidate. Here's why:

In the world of commerce, anyone who's had Porter's Five Forces and a good deal of other overly complex schooling shoveled into their minds is potentially a huge liability. While they may indeed be book smart, what these people frequently lack is street smarts and, more importantly, people awareness.

Ultimately, EVERYTHING in marketing—EVERYTHING—is about people: their preferences, foibles, likes, dislikes, assumptions, wants, dreams, desires, needs, problems, aches, and pains, and their search for happiness, simplicity, solutions, value, and a memorable experience that they want to repeat, and that they want to tell their friends and family about.

Get this right and you're set. You. Are. Golden.

Cock it up and you're hosed. Screwed. S.O.L. and F.U.B.A.R.

"Strange question"? You say? Hmmm ... to me, no: not really. And in truth, your observation as such is—and again, to me—a flapping red flag, cracking like rifle fire in the stiff breeze of fast approaching career maelstrom.

My best advice to you is to slow down and to get some real world experience and skills under your belt before you commit to a world of attitudinal pain, a learning curve you may not in truth be ready for, and, it must be said, a huge chunk of debt.

Why do you need this credential now?
What will it bring you?
Will it make you a better marketer?
Are you sure?
What will this piece of paper do for your potential employer?
What will it do for potential clients?
How will it help you add value and solve people's problems?

I do not doubt that you're smart, young, eager, and full of piss and vinegar. I'm sure you're keen and itching to show this big bad world what you've got. Been there. Done that. At the end of July, i'll be 53. But if I could go back to being 25 or so and do it all over again, knowing what I know now, I'd do things differently.

Despite my lack of marketing education, I've made it my business on this forum to make an impact and to help people. That impact is, I feel, coming to an end: a few weeks ago I confided in a fellow leading contributor that I needed to move on. Your question seems like a suitable place on the map to end things but before I do, permit me to clarify one last thing.

Mark Twain is generally recognized as having said "I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." The citation is from 1907,

However, the quote predates Twain and originates with the writer Charles Grant Blairfindie Allen—now THAT's a name to read more about—otherwise known as Grant Allen, (February 24, 1848 – October 25, 1899). Many of Grant's essays were collected and published in 1894 under the title “Post-Prandial Philosophy”. Here's a quote:

"One year in Italy with their eyes open would be worth more than three at Oxford; and six months in the fields with a platyscopic lens would teach them strange things about the world around them that all the long terms at Harrow and Winchester have failed to discover to them. But that would involve some trouble to the teacher.

What a misfortune it is that we should thus be compelled to let our boys’ schooling interfere with their education!"

Personally, I don't know one MBA program from another. It is though, your career and your choice. You must find your own path and pay your own fair. All I'm urging is a little clarity and a modicum of certainty that THIS path, should you choose to embark on it, is the right one for you. It may be, and if it is, good luck to you. But if it is not, well, in that case, there may be an equally valuable education to be had as well. Either way, I really do wish you the best of luck.

Bon voyage.

Respectfully,

Gary Bloomer
Wilmington, DE, USA