One of the most critical metrics for software companies — but also one of the most difficult to measure — is the lifetime value of their customers (LTV). The lifetime value dictates how a company should spend its marketing and sales dollars. Unfortunately, many early stage startups struggle to measure LTV, because they haven’t been around very long and, consequently, haven’t seen a large number of customers through their lifespans with the product. // &! http://techcrunch.com/2015/08/29/the-saas-success-database/

https://twitter.com/jhagel/status/634747935356551168 - Hagel is/was Deloitt CEO? // working in a self-organising group, << big corporation. multi-product company. // Start-up of You - invent your own dashboard for you. OKR & continual learning, exploration, execution, challenging yourself. getting up again after failure and learning/analysing it and trying again. &! passion, curiosity, interest driven. // https://twitter.com/jhagel/status/634747935356551168

A big challenge for business schools is that students are looking for a higher return on their investment. Candidates also require greater depth and variety in terms of courses, in particular on analytics, and teaching modes.

for people w funny money and time.

min 4 - liberalising student loan's, making student loans a pure private entity. lol. what could go wrong? the small print. the "selling" of said in-transparent contracts. where in the USA, you can't default on your student loans - they are exempt from private bankruptcy proceedings.

Note: Start-ups (with traction) can be the cheapest real-world MBA for undergrads with some business/job experience at an established firm. // Business Schools still have to sell themselves.

11:20 - entrepreneurial venture, learning a ton. equivalent to MBA &! Without Their Permission: Alexis Ohanian's Full Talk at UVA // HackCville Media - youtu.be/Qa_yNfRALkY - 22:00 if you have not figured it all out, it is ok. your first version will be jenky and that is ok. sucking is the first step to becoming better at X. If you don't ship, you will never find out. Will never get any kind of user feedback.. &! Be Awesome Without Their Permission - SXSW Interactive 2014 - youtu.be/6_STlNJHDMQ &! Triangulation 131: Alexis Ohanian - http://youtu.be/2-Kg33VwT7U &! HubTalk Alexis Ohanian Reddit - youtu.be/XFNTVyjMiko &! Alexis Ohanian: Full Video from WTP Book Tour - youtu.be/5mBhQEuC8jQ

see comments ie: "There are lots of areas where formal education is a must. Even when you can self-teach everything, you still need some structure, some meta-learning, to learn what you need to study to build the pillars of your knowledge. And you still need some organization that certifies that you know what you claim you know. Medicine is an obvious example. Engineering is another. No-one would like to live in a tall building made by somebody who claims to know how to build tall buildings, but didn't go to college. I bet not many pharmaceutical companies would like to hire someone without a degree to design a new drug. [...] She started studying again, realizing that without a career, she's going to have a really hard professional future." &! "A college degree and a college experience is a nice thing to have, I think. But I doubt it's worth $250K as the price of basic entry to the job market. Something's got to give." &! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8687714

the product precedes marketing and promotion. "in a world of infinite noise, you have to get extreme, to get peoples attention." >> ON WRITING :: know the beginning, have the beginning and have the end - of what you want to write about (topic, message, blog message) ... and work from there on both ends, towards the middle. >> you can succeed as generalist - like Steve Jobs. You don't need to be a specialist. >> Q&A http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLWA9V6Ki04 :: MBA has minimal benefit for entrepreneurs (practical knowledge) - when writing - have clear target, then radiate out. - failing is inevitable

There will be also be an overhaul of the curriculum, with less focus on individual academic departments, such as accounting, finance and marketing. Instead teaching will be based around four overarching concepts, which the dean says will cut across all subjects: innovation and entrepreneurship; how business interacts with government; markets, customers and growth; and what it calls “architectures of collaboration”—essentially the new ways that companies are organised, including with suppliers and customers.

The reason for the change is a belief that business problems are no longer simple enough to be solved by those rooted in a particular discipline. CEOs, says the dean, now think about the world in terms of these four concepts, not in terms of traditional silos.

Harvard MBAs have proposed that all MBA students sign an oath. The oath can be found on http://mbaoath.org/take-the-oath. It pledges, among other things, to "contribute to the well-being of society" and to "create sustainable economic, social and environmental prosperity worldwide."

I don't believe that this is a good idea, for three reasons. First, some parts of the pledge are inconsistent with fiduciary duties and ethical standards. Second the oath is a misplaced response to the financial crisis. Third, I don't believe in pledges as an instrument to guide people's behaviour...

The OpenLearn website gives free access to Open University course materials. This is the LearningSpace, where you'll find hundreds of free study units, each with a discussion forum. Study independently at your own pace or join a group and use the free learning tools to work with others.