Online Education

What is the value in an online education? I see college being useful and valuable based on the social connections that emerge and the atmosphere. You don't really get that from an online education, do you?

My roommate is going to college right now. Despite the fact that he "wants" to be an electrical engineer he is taking a bunch of english classes. I have it in my mind that he will do much more with literature and writing than with mathematics and engineering based stuff. He had a bit of a crush on his first English teacher and she got him into a course he normally would not have been able to attend as a freshman through her recommendation.

Now I am convinced that the social network that the web is...that is a really powerful thing. I am not convinced that one needs the structure of a course to learn though. Simply open yourself up to market forces and out of the need to survive and desire to succeed you will probably lead yourself toward water.

Within my first two years of site creation / promotion / extensive online interaction necessity led me to search engine marketing and even allowed me to have a one on one chat with employees and managers of some of the largest search engines int the world.

The more you learn about the web and its underlying technologies the more you realize that any field usually only has a few exceptionally powerful forces or sources in it. Its sometimes nearly impossible to directly access some of them right out of the gate, but as you learn more and more about a subject you can lead yourself toward water.

The real tricks are:

• figure out something that you are really interested in
  
• participate in communities related to those fields
  
• read books and tons of web pages about your topic
  
• as you learn, share.
  
• don't be afraid to be wrong.
  
• and learn to become a good judge of motive

Lots of internet marketing plays upon greed. In a sense there is a huge field of affiliate marketers who do nothing but write bunk testimonial letters and try to get thousands of subscribers to their newsletters to buy the shit they make money off of.

One of my recent customers just sent me a few emails. The first one covers that typical an ebook which is chuck full of affiliate links that really tries to sell that affiliate marketing pryamid scheme stuff.

I just finished reading XXXX. Very
interesting - seems like effective marketing is
basically learning how to fool or lie to people best
-lol.

Useful though in terms of knowing what works.

he also read my ebook and left a comment on my site

Hi Aaron. Thanks so much for all your help! Your SEO book is fantastic. Very informative and super honest! Thank you also for all the personal help you gave me via email. You are extremely patient.

You have inspired me to go in the direction of honesty, something I have thought about, but wasnt sure if I could do.

Thank you for being such a great role model.
Sincerely,
Tom

for myself the turning point(s) which really helped me sort order from bunk were:

• when SearchGuild invited me to be a moderator there
  
• when I read Andrew Goodman's ebook and it referenced a guy by the name of Seth Godin

Most everything on the web comes down to creativity and citation analys. If you do not give into emotions such as greed your instincts will probably lead you down the right path. Good people and good sites usually tend to reference good people and good sites....that is what makes them good.

As I write this I am chatting back and forth with the guy who created one of the better blogging software systems out there. He also runs the forums for Knoppix.

Its not easy right out of the gate for most people to do well online, but after you get to do something you like and eventually become a self sustaining business the logarithmic growth can really make the economics shift in your way really friggen fast.

When you are already doing exactly what you want to and money is of no concern for your day to day living you can focus a bit more on life :)

Posted at January 9, 2005 7:10 AM