College

Walter Mitty

I recently rewatched The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013).  It’s a memorable movie and it introduced me to the LIFE magazine motto:

To see the world, things dangerous to come to, to see behind walls, draw closer, to find each other, and to feel. That is the purpose of life.

“The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” (Movie from 2013)

From what I can tell this is a movie adaptation of publisher Henry Luce’s 1936 vision for the magazine:

To see life; to see the world; to eyewitness great events; to watch the faces of the poor and the gestures of the proud; to see strange things — machines, armies, multitudes, shadows in the jungle and on the moon; to see man’s work — his paintings, towers and discoveries; to see things thousands of miles away, things hidden behind walls and within rooms, things dangerous to come to; the women that men love and many children; to see and take pleasure in seeing; to see and be amazed; to see and be instructed…[10]

Source:  Wikipedia

Going back a bit further (1883?), the motto of the first issue of LIFE was:

“While there’s Life, there’s hope.”

I especially liked this exchange from the film:

Walter Mitty: When are you going to take it?
Sean O’Connell: Sometimes I don’t. If I like a moment, for me, personally, I don’t like to have the distraction of the camera. I just want to stay in it.
Walter Mitty: Stay in it?
Sean O’Connell: Yeah. Right there. Right here.

Here’s the clip on YouTube.

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Remote

When I visit in October, the island is back and booming. Nightclubs have reopened, and vineyards are booking tastings. And as the rest of the world returns to the office, the dream of what the nomads call a “location–independent” lifestyle is becoming more real by the day. According to a recent survey from Digital.com, around two-thirds of American businesses have permanently closed some or all of their offices since the start of COVID. Before the pandemic, just under 6 percent of Americans worked remotely. Now, nearly 25 percent of the full-time workforce is expected to do so this year. By 2025, an estimated 36.2 million will be working at home—unless they’re on the beach, in a yurt, or any other not-a-workplace workplace they can dream up. And those companies stubbornly hoping to lure workers back to their digs as COVID subsides are facing the so-called Great Resignation, with a record 21.6 million workers quitting their jobs from September 2021 to January of this year.

Escape to Zoom Island via GQ

(This is a bizarre tale of a tiny island and a community of digital nomads in the middle of the  pandemic. Emphasis mine.)

See also…

The song of American urbanization plays on an accordion. Americans compressed themselves into urban areas in the early 20th century. By mid-century, many white families were fanning out into the suburbs. Then, in the early 21st century, young people rushed back into downtown areas. But in the past few years, American cities have begun to exhale many residents, who have moved to smaller metros and southern suburbs. As with so many other trends, the pandemic will accelerate that exodus.

The Pandemic Will Change American Retail Forever via The Atlantic

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Too Many Choices

The biggest mistake we make in marketing is believing choice is a benefit. No, it’s a tax. Consumers don’t want more choices, they want more confidence in the choices presented.

TikTok Boom by Professor Galloway

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College

It’s graduation season, and I can’t help but think about how much higher education has changed in the past few years.  I believe Higher Ed’s issues are primarily related to the fact that colleges and universities are no longer the gatekeepers of knowledge they once were. 

Remote learning has shattered the illusion that instruction must take place in a classroom.  And once you separate the classroom from learning, you no longer have the physical, real-world constraint of class size to contend with.  This in turn shifts focus and attention to the best instructors in the world – regardless of location.  Presumably these teachers are located at the most prestigious schools.  But college isn’t the NFL.  Is it possible (even likely) there’s amazing talent hiding in lesser known schools across the country? Maybe as education’s platform shifts from the classroom to the internet, the best will rise to the top.

I predict the institutions that will survive this shakeout will be the ones that become hyper-focused on certain disciplines (medicine, teaching, programming, graphic design and animation, architecture, machine learning, robotics, etc.).  This is both ironic and disappointing, because one of the greatest benefits of higher education is to open student’s minds to new ideas and help them discover new fields of study. 

Unfortunately, it looks like things are going to get worse for colleges before they get better…

Nationwide, the number of high school seniors is expected to drop about 10% between 2025 and 2037, according to the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education. That means colleges will have to work harder to win students.

Colleges Dangle Tuition Deals to Head Off Harsh Economic Reality via Bloomberg, H/T Collaborative Fund

It appears supply will exceed demand for years to come.

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It’s A Virtue

Patience is waiting. Not passively waiting. That is laziness. But to keep going when the going is hard and slow – that is patience. The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.

Leo Tolstoy via The Better Letter

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Thanks for reading!  As I was compiling this memo, I realized this is the 25th issue.  Thanks to everyone that has taken the time to read it.  I appreciate your feedback and words of encouragement along the way.

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