A useful endeavour or is it just common sense?

Another great Dilbert today (or maybe I just got bored on the plane coming back from WW Partner Conference in Houston - with thanks to Scott Adams).

Anyway, personal insight coming so look away now if you wish. :-)

It's particularly relevant to me for as of this week I enter the final stages of the MBA that I started 6 years ago with the AGSM - the business school of the University of NSW. I put this on hold whilst working with Microsoft UK from 2005-2007 & debated whether or not to pick it up again when I got back to Australia late last year. I finally decided that whilst yes, much of what we get taught in business school is just plain common sense, the chance to meet smart people from other industries & get into a different head-space is worth the 15-25 hours per week of study that it entails. (Working alongside a Major in the Australian Army for instance on a "how to motivate your staff" group project was interesting - how do you motivate someone to go into battle?) And besides, I get to wear a funny hat & gown when I graduate next year.

It does bring up a good point though around ongoing education. If you were anything like me, then you did your Uni degree (or TAFE or some sort of post-high school course) & then launched straight into your career. I didn't even think about further education until a potential career setback in 2002 forced me to reconsider what I really wanted out of life. And so after some looking around & talking with those that I trust, a Masters was embarked upon.

One of the best outcomes of this is my now voracious appetite for business books. Seriously, it's becoming a bit of a problem. Not a trip interstate goes by without me picking up some new release from a Seth Godin or Malcolm Gladwell at the airport bookshop & burying my nose in it for the next couple of days. Thankfully the speed-reading skills have improved given the amount of reading we need to do for each course, meaning I can pretty much get through at least one a week & capture the main ideas & what they could mean for me.

So back to the initial question - is it a useful endeavour, or just common sense? It's a bit of both. I love exploring new ideas, but also appreciate old ideas applied to new problems - especially relevant, for example, with the upcoming launch of SBS 2008. How should we approach this? Do we concentrate on the customer angle, the partner angle, the technology angle, the competitive angle or D - a mix of all of the above? The answer is D of course - but I've found that getting my head out of the typical Microsoft thought processes & into somewhere different is a good way to avoid doing the same old things.

No post like this would be complete without a list & so I turn now to one of my favourite voices in the worldwide SMB consulting community, Karl Palachuk. Along with Zaun Bhana from Leap Consulting in Australia, Karl has put together a very useful list of recommended titles that would be of help to anyone looking for a little more insight. I've read at best maybe 20% of them & so you'll know where to find me if you happen to be at Sydney airport tomorrow morning as I fly out to Brisbane for some more SBS/EBS partner training (I'll be at the Synnex Reseller Roadshow).

Cheers,

Robbie