🚨 Hot take alert 🚨 With the explosion of online learning platforms, masterclasses, and YouTube rabbit holes, here's a question worth asking: Has online learning displaced the need for face to face cohort-based programs? When you can learn anything from a world expert at 2x speed in your pyjamas, why bother joining a structured, time-boxed program with other humans? Are we clinging to the idea of peer learning, accountability and shared experience out of nostalgia, or is there still something irreplaceable about moving through a program together? Is the cohort model becoming the Blockbuster of education? Beloved, but irrelevant in the era of streaming? Or is it the only antidote to the overwhelming, isolating ocean of self-paced content? What do YOU think: 🔥 Still essential for deep learning and behaviour change? 💡 Dead model walking? Let’s hear your unfiltered take👇 #DeepTech #HardwareStartups #Accelerators #GapBlitz #StartupLife #CohortBasedLearning #HardTech #InnovationEcosystem Katie Green Leah Lucas Joanne Jacobs Gavin Heaton Shelley Laslett, MSc Alan Jones Eric Wedepohl David Kenney Jonathan (Jono) Herrman 何天赐 Ann-Mary Rajanayagam Elizabeth (Izzy) Whitelock Ted Esdaile-Watts Vanouhi Nazarian Disruptors Co
I’m a firm believer that a 12-week sprint with the right people can move the needle on real stuff: supply chain, team capability, customer validation, hardware development… not just pitch decks and vibes. It’s just that I’m wondering if I’m alone in this??
Here's where I am right now. I have been undertaking a Tas TAFE course in Training and Assessment. I've completed the first module entirely online. There were real time learning sessions and there was homework and assessment required. Things I liked: - Being able to join a class at 5:30pm, directly after a full day of work - Being able to access the learning materials in my own time, and being kind of forced to do so through the assessment regime - Getting to know some of the other learners in the cohort - I found a new tool where I could demonstrate a digital tool and watch the other person's screen at the same time as I was demonstrating. I now completely love CoScreen. - Learning new stuff. That's always great. Even at my age! Things I didn't like: - The online environment, cameras and physical infrastructure is still spectacularly poor, so trying to demonstrate stuff to another person is still ridiculously hard online. - While breakout rooms and chats help build connections, they only go so far. Meeting F2F even once or twice in a program is better than not at all. - Good grief some learning management systems are poorly designed. Please get some learning and interaction designers in there!
It depends what you're learning to do. I'm a big believer in the benefits of online learning but I'm still not ready to go under the knife of a surgeon who's gained their qualifications online. I do a lot of pitch training workshops and 1:1 pitch training and there are a lot of important benefits to in-person pitch training that just can't be taught online.
Online programs are great for efficiency, accessibility & scalability. But there will always be a place for the F2F or hybrid cohort model. The unplanned questions, the side chats, the moment someone says exactly what you were too afraid to admit. That’s where trust, accountability, and momentum get built. Oftentimes, the real power of a cohort is more than what you learn from facilitators, its what you learn from each other. The F2F cohort model isn’t Blockbuster. It’s vinyl.
Sometimes you need a quick fix. Sometimes you need top-up knowledge. And sometimes you need to go deep. These all have different learning experiences that can be designed and orchestrated. I have learned a lot from online sources, books, podcasts and elearning - but often the most remarkable things I have learned, I learned in the company of others.
Online is key to streamline time (of time limited founders). I have had a dislike of programs are lacking the wisdom/respect of the time spent that are focused in cross selling. The face to face is something that is earned from proven value where relationships are able to be deeply connected from an excellent curation online. We just finished an epic experience with Kirk McDonald and Derick Gyabeng and the ignite incubator for deep tech start ups -New Energy Nexus program. Total game changer.
Not alone folks! Online is so useful and efficient especially for people in remote areas. (Speaking from experience- did a digital Nomad sting while travelling to remote areas in Scandinavia). BUT F2F wins hands down for meaningful conversations, product tear downs and whiteboarding sessions IMO. The mix is what needs to be debated!