On Marketing and MOOCs

If you've been following this blog for a while, you'll have noticed the recent updates to my blog. One of the reasons? I've been studying a free marketing course online through Coursera.

Yes, that's right - the blog now has a new tag-line (friendlier for Google), an About page (complete with e-mail subscription form), a cleaner design (hello white space) and a raft of other minor tweaks. Ok, so it's nothing that special, but it was just a natural side-effect of what's really a fascinating course: Introduction to Marketing

This happened to be my first Coursera course, but it won't be my last! I'm a third of the way through (this course is nine weeks long), and am finding it really fascinating. The lectures are all in video form, and the quality is good - presented by the University of Pennsylvania. Best of all? I took my first quiz last night, and scored 20/20 :D Hey hey ... if you can't brag just a little on your own blog, where can you????

Long story short, I recommend that you give the world of free education a spin. It turns out that there is a surprising range of quality courses available for free, a robust student interaction on the courses' dedicated online forums, certificates to track your achievements (and even list on your CV if you want), and in Coursera's case a biometrically-linked Signature Track they keep trying to sell you for $50 (but which isn't mandatory) which helps to prove that it really was you who took the course (opinion is still divided over whether this is of any value to employers).

My favourite quote about studying: "Reading is how humans install software into their brains." That's so true, and if it can benefit your job - and many of those courses can - then so much the better!

Back to the start, what do you think of the blog updates I've made?