A new perspective to learning and development
My name is Willie Maritz. I’m the founder of NoMoreCourses. Learning and development are all about courses right? During 21 years of being within this industry, I decided to call the company NoMoreCourses.
I bet you are wondering why do we say NoMoreCourses?
I really believe that the concept of a course for effective learning is quite an archaic concept.
Most of us would agree that the best way to learn is to learn directly from an expert like the boy who learned how to be a carpenter directly from his dad, spending hours with his dad honing his skill to perfect his craft. That is the way we will learn best.
Learning with the Greek Philosophers
The concept of the formal course probably evolved from the Greek philosophers, wealthy families would send their kids to the Greek philosophers, asking them to tutor their children.
The problem came in when the demand for this type of education increased and exceeded the supply.
So, the Greek philosophers ended up having to teach more than one child, and sometimes groups.
Quite often these kids didn’t have the same pace of learning or the same aptitude for learning, but they all had to sit in the same classroom. This same problem became even worse when more and more kids needed to be educated. The Greek philosophers at that point started to document their knowledge using manuals and books, and taught non-experts how to teach. And that’s where the concept of teachers came from. Read Evolution of Learning
The whole concept of the classroom involved a series of compromises to bring education to the masses. Now with technology, we actually don’t have to make these compromises anymore.
Learning in the Third Industrial Revolution
During the third industrial revolution, I think the Learning and Education fraternity actually did quite well to embrace technology and see how we can use technology to transcend the barriers of geolocation and the barriers of volume. And we tried to use technology to get quality learning, quality education to the masses.
The problem is, we still apply the concept of a course in learning and development, and we don’t have to. A course provides skills and knowledge to their consumers through in-class platforms or even online platforms.
Once the course is done, there is no follow-up and certainly, no way for a person to integrate the knowledge and skill. Often there is no way to measure the result.
So that’s why now we believe that we can use technology to take learning in a different direction, adapt to the way we really learn. Get the best learning and development opportunities to people all the time, when they need it in the way that they need it. That’s why we say NoMoreCourses.
The answer
Our solution takes the idea of modern-day Social Learning and technology and how that impacts the way we learn and creates long-running drip campaigns containing nuggets of information to create understanding, awareness, care and influence habits to create a more value-aligned culture.
We don’t do Courses, we prefer measured, targeted results. We love to see real change and real learning, but most importantly we like to see the development of successful companies driven by passionate and focused employees.