The TED Advanced Video Degree in Entrepreneurship

There just isn’t time to go back to school to receive advanced entrepreneurial training. You’re too busy running your business. Heck, most business owners never received any formal education in entrepreneurship. They learned the craft at the school of hard knocks.

Welcome to the University of TED (Technology Entertainment Design). Within these videos are the greatest entrepreneurial thinkers of our time. I’ve chosen 10 courses (videos) from the TED archives and laid them out as curriculum to an advanced education in entrepreneurship. Complete all 10 to receive your honorary degree from The Marketing Spot.

**Note to students subscribing by email and feed readers, click here if you don’t see the video players below: TED Entrepreneurship Videos

Your Syllabus

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Product Development 5483

Instructor: Malcolm Gladwell
Lecture: People Don’t Know What They Want

Lecture Notes:
Things aren’t better, they’re different. There are no universals. There is no best product, there are best “products.” Embrace the diversity of your customers.

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Entrepreneurship 5371

Instructor: Cameron Herold
Lecture: Let’s Raise Kids to be Entrepreneurs

Lecture Notes:
Being an entrepreneur is a cool thing. Parents and education should be raising kids to be entrepreneurs rather than lawyers and doctors. Key entrepreneurial concepts such as recurring revenue.

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Entrepreneurial Psychology 5301

Instructor: Brene Brown
Lecture: The Power of Vulnerability

Lecture Notes:
Have the courage to be imperfect. Have the compassion to be kind to yourself first, enabling you to be kind to others. Be authentic so that you can make true connections with other people.  Show the willingness to do something where there are no guarantees. Entrepreneurship takes vulnerability so you should fully embrace vulnerability.

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Brand Strategy 5351

Instructor: Seth Godin
Lecture: Standing Out

Lecture Notes:
Consumers don’t care about you. They care whether or not you’re remarkable. You Don’t have to appeal to everyone, just the people who will talk about you. The riskiest thing you can do is be safe. The safest thing to do is be at the fringes, be remarkable.

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Strategic HR Management 5660

Instructor: Dan Pink
Lecture: The Science of Motivation

Lecture Notes:
There’s a difference between what science knows and what business does when it comes to motivating employees. Extrinsic motivators destroy creativity. If you want your employees to think on their feet, be creative and motivated, forget rewards (carrots and sticks). The secret to high performance are intrinsic motivators such as autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

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Behavioral Economics 5207

Instructor: Dan Ariely
Lecture: Are we in control of our own decisions?

People just don’t know their own preferences that well. Our intuition fools us in repeatable, predictable ways. Rather than rationality, decisions are influenced by design, complexity and context.

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Marketing Communications 5561

Instructor: Simon Sinek
Lecture: How Great Leaders Inspire Action

Lecture Notes:
People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it. The goal is not to do business with everybody who needs what you have. The goal is to do business with people who believe what you believe. Talk about what you believe and you will attract people who believe what you believe.

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Advanced Advertising Concepts 5834

Instructor: Rory Sutherland
Lecture: All Value is Perceived Value

Lecture Notes:
Most marketing problems are problems of perception. Replace material value with symbolic value. To change a product’s value, change the perception of that product.

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Dynamic Leadership 5969

Instructor: Itay Talgam
Lecture: Lead Like the Great Conductors

Lecture Notes:
Treat your people as partners rather than as instruments. Authority is not enough to make people your partner. If you love something, give it away. Let your employees be the storytellers.

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Operations Management 5761

Instructor: Jason Fried
Lecture: Why Work Doesn’t Happen at Work

Lecture Notes:
The office isn’t a good place to do work because of M&M’s (managers & meetings). These involuntary distractions prevent people from doing productive, uninterrupted work. Three ideas for managers to lay off and allow people to get some work done.

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Congratulations, you’ve graduated. No dissertation is necessary. Now go out there build a better business and change the world!

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