On Saturday 2 February 2008 I was one of those who attended a seminar organised by Akamai Uganda on goal setting. There are several things I learned from that seminar that I could (should?) share on this blog. One that I must write about immediately is the concept of a "degree awarded by the market place".
This phrase was used by one of Uganda's Dollar multimillionaire. The short and long of it is that he runs several businesses including hotel, property (real estate), telecommunication services, energy, etc. He told the meeting that for each of the businesses he gets into, he makes sure he learns a lot about it through reading books related to that business and also the experience he gains in the process of running the business. For each of his several successful businesses, he has so much knowledge that he equates it to a degree in the respective fields. He therefore, because of the success bestowed upon him by the market place, considers that the market place has found him worthy of degree awards - he passed all the tests and examinations with distinction. He believes that he has up to 9 degrees now based on how much he knows about specific businesses.
Some questions:
1-How many degrees do you have? Who awarded them to you? How much do they help you to make money and how much money?
2-How can universities tap the wealth of experience and knowledge from practicing businessmen and integrate them in their teaching curricula?
3-I believe that if one sat at the feet of this businessman (with degrees from the market place), they would get sufficient knowledge to start them off in their journey to creating wealth. How many people would become wealthy if they sat at your feet to learn from the knowledge you have gained from your degree(s)?
The advise about reading is that each of us should put aside some time everyday to read about the businesses we are engaged in. That way, we could learn and excel in our businesses and possibly get degree awards from the market place. By the way, this is not a paper award we are used to but I think it is wealth created through the success of that business.
2 comments:
Dear Sam, thanks for sharing its a nice topic on wealth creation. I remember the lesson also from Akamai Uganda 2010 (for vet V) on the rat race game it was so educative. All those were your efforts to make sure we leave school with some business mind for wealth creation.
Yes Sam, the best place to learn wealth creation is the market place. The degree holder from the market place you are referring to here could be Bitature. How I wish such people are invited to talk to our students say ones every two years on how to have both degrees
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