Teach the Future

Teaching is the best way to learn.

Here are some things you should teach as soon as you get the chance.

1. Teach your grandmother how to play a social or casual game on Facebook. Seriously. Pay attention to how the game creators try to get you to keep playing longer than you should. Pay attention to how the game creators try and get you to shell out some real money and make you feel good about it in the process.

2. Teach your younger cousin how to make and buy ads on Google or Facebook. Work together to pick a product or something to advertise. It could be as simple as his best comic book. Put it up on eBay or run a manual auction on Squidoo. Think through the process. Who are you trying to reach with these ads? Are they searching for your product? Do they fit within certain age, income, geographic, or gender categories?

3. Teach a friend how to be a Linchpin. Share your copy of Linchpin. Take on the role of coach. Transfer emotion and logic. Be persuasive. What are your friend's strengths? What makes her unique and remarkable? How do they come to see that in themselves and what do they need to ship?

Comments

[mike green]

I like this concept. Here's an idea that may dovetail with the teaching concept:

Using existing community orgs, a workshop that teaches young and old alike to think like a successful entrepreneur could engage local residents with initial brainstorming sessions to devise solutions to local problems that have commercial potential.

The students can ultimately agree on one or more of the ideas to move forward through the process of entrepreneurship. The students become the team and must determine the roles they each will play in moving through the stages of bringing the idea to fruition. Once the class has determined a channel of focus, they are assigned a mentor who helps move them through the process, assigning goals and timelines while the team assigns tasks. They learn as they go.

The workshop then starts up another brainstorming session to recruit another class that will eventually become another team with another idea they seek to bring to fruition. And another mentor will be assigned to the group.

And then the process is repeated again.

Your thoughts?