[MUSIC PLAYING]
MICHAEL HORN: Thanks
so much, everyone,
for taking out time
out of a work day
to hear about my new
book, "Choosing College."
I got to speak at
the Google Book talk
about five years ago when
my book "Blended" came out.
And it's interesting
because that book was really
focused on K12
education and this one
is obviously on higher
ed and adult learning.
A lot of people have
asked why switch
from K12 schools to focusing
on colleges, and universities,
and adult learners.
And from my perspective,
I guess, ultimately,
every day I wake up thinking
about how can we build a better
system that allows all students
to fulfill their potential
and realize and
build their passions.
And ultimately,
they're getting touched
by all these different touch
points throughout the system.
And so it's really
the same question.
It's just a different part
of your age and stage.
What's also interesting
about this particular talk
I think is Google hits the
question of higher education
in a lot of different ways.
Google, of course,
builds products
for colleges and universities.
Google supports
learning directly
through a variety
of partnerships
and its own created content, and
certificates, and so forth that
sometimes competes with or aids.
There's a huge
advertising business
through colleges
and universities,
particularly in the online
market in higher education.
And of course, many
of you come here as
lifelong learners,
or parents of kids,
or expecting kids
who are thinking
about this question that's
incredibly high stakes now
about where should they go
to college and so forth.
And the fundamental
thrust of this book
is that we all too
often default to asking
what college should we go
to or how should we get in.
We don't step back and
take a bigger question
of why are we trying to go.
What's the progress we're
really trying to make?
What's our purpose in going?
And if you answer that
question first and foremost,
then you can start to see a
greater set of options that
align to what you need
to make progress and make
a much better choice.
What I thought I would do given
all those different audiences
for this talk is first
step back and walk
through the methodology we
used in framing the book, which
is around this jobs to be
done thinking that arose out
of Clay Christensen's research
at the Harvard Business School.
My thought is that going
through this work, which
I know Google has used
in certain applications
and so forth, is something
generalizable to beyond
the question of higher
education and hopefully will be
helpful in a variety of ways.
And then we'll talk about
how we actually framed it
into this world of
higher education itself
and some of the conclusions
that we arrived.
And totally happy to
take questions as we're
going through it.
I know it's supposed to be
me talk and then questions.
But if people have
curiosity questions
or want to dive
deep on something,
I'm happy to follow you all.
I think it's most
helpful when this
is productive for everyone in
the room and everyone watching.
So we'll start with
this question of--
assuming these clickers work.
All right.
I'm just going to
click forward--
of why college.
And essentially, it arose
out of this larger research,
as I was saying, around
how do we design services
that delight our users.
And typically, what
companies will do
is that they'll segment the
world by product category
or customer demographic.
And then they'll
collect tons of data
about how they stack up along
these various dimensions.
And what we realized
through this jobs
to be done lens
or this jobs to be
done theory is that the
big challenge about framing
the world through data about
what type of customer are you,
or what product category
should I be competing with,
or what percentage of the
market do I have versus someone
else, is that from
the perspective
of the individual
buyer, him or herself,
the world isn't structured by
these artificial categories.
Instead we find ourselves
in particular contexts
or situations trying
to make progress.
And what you
ultimately have to do
is observe the world from
the individual's perspective
along that particular
context they're in
and what progress and
success look like.
So just as an example, to
start to make this come home
a little bit more, in the
1990s, Milky Way and Snickers
bars, both owned by M&M
Mars, were wondering
are these two candy bars
essentially competitors
with each other.
By producing both
of these things,
are we cannibalizing sales?
And so my co-author Bob Nesta
did research for M&M Mars
to ask this question
of let's take it
from a different standpoint.
Instead of thinking about
this by the average customer
demographic most likely to
buy one of these candy bars,
or thinking about this as
just a category of candy bars,
let's think about why do
people hire one of these bars
from the other one.
What's the circumstance
they're in?
And what's the job to be done?
And as he did the
research, he realized
that they're not cannibalizing
each other at all.
What's interesting is that
Snickers are essentially
bought as a meal replacement.
So when you're on the run,
you're trying to grab and go.
You don't have time for lunch
or dinner, something like that.
People often would just grab
a Snickers bar as something
to replace that meal.
And so it competed
with Clif bars,
today like RX bars
and things like that.
And once they realized
that, then they
could start to change the
advertising campaign around it.
You're not you
when you're hungry,
Snickers really satisfies,
and things like that,
and actually changed the recipe
of the candy bar as well.
They made it thicker,
more nougaty and so forth,
just to really make
sure that it satisfied
and filled someone up when
they grab the Snickers
bar on the run.
You contrast that with the
Milky Way hired for something
totally different.
Milky Ways were
actually hired honestly
as something to comfort
someone in times of distress,
or when they were sad,
or something like that.
And so rather than compete
with other candy bars,
it was much more likely to,
at least in my household,
compete with tubs of ice
cream or things like that.
And so once you realized
why people hired these,
you realize they weren't
competing against each other
at all but you would
actually structure them
extremely differently.
And this insight
points to something
that a professor long, long time
ago, Theodore Levitt at Harvard
said which was that
people are motivated
to buy not because they
want a particular product.
So people don't buy the
quarter inch drill as he said.
But people just really want the
freaking hole as I would say.
Right.
It's the outcome, not
the product itself
that they're after.
But even this is
frankly incomplete,
because it doesn't say why they
want the whole or what context
they're in.
Are they trying to hang
something in their house?
Is it for industrial use?
Is it to do wiring, because
depending on the answer
to that question defines
what products are helpful
and what isn't helpful.
Right.
A lot of different
things can make a hole
but depending on your
purpose and context
defines what's a good
outcome versus a bad outcome.
And it points to
this other question
which is which one is
better, pizza or steak?
Now if you're a
vegan, you might have
a particular answer on this.
If you're gluten intolerant, you
might have a particular answer
on this.
But for the most part,
it's a silly question
because we hire them for two
fundamentally different things
in our lives.
So as an example, bringing a
second grade team soccer party
to a high end steakhouse,
really bad idea, right?
Bringing them to a
pizza shack, perfect
place for a second
grade soccer party.
Vice versa, taking a nice
client out to a low end pizza
shack, not a great
idea to impress.
A high end steakhouse
really does the job well.
And so that context of a
situation really matters.
One more story just
to really illustrate
this that unfolded
in the mid 1990s
again with Bob which was
this fast food company
wanted to understand why
do people buy milkshakes.
And more importantly,
how should we
improve it so that
we can drive up sales
and things of that nature?
And so they had categorized the
world by customer demographic.
And they knew the
average customer
most likely to buy a milkshake.
And basically, they would call
these people in to focus groups
and ask them how
should we improve
the sales of milkshakes.
And so they would give
very clear feedback.
You know, change these
flavors, add these ingredients,
whatever it might be.
And ultimately, sales
didn't budge a bit.
And it points to something which
is that when you ask someone
how to improve a product,
people will almost always lie
to you about whether they like
something or how to improve it.
And they don't lie because
they're mendacious people
or bad people.
But frankly, they just often
don't know what they actually
want in something.
It's not their job to innovate.
It's your all job as the
company and innovators
to innovate and help them
understand what progress is.
And so much more important
than asking them how to improve
something is watching what
they do, not what they say.
And so Bob, again my co-author
on this work, what he did
was rather than ask
people how to improve
the sales of milkshakes or
how to improve the product,
he stood in the back of the
restaurant for 18 hours a day
for several days in a
row for several weeks.
And he took copious
notes of any time someone
came in and bought a milkshake.
What time of day was it?
What were they wearing?
Were they with anyone else?
Did they buy the
milkshake and drink it
as they were running
off to their car
or did they stay in the
restaurant and slurp it down?
On and on and on.
And at the end of this
period of several weeks,
he saw a few interesting
things from the data.
80% of milkshakes were sold
at two times during the day.
50% were during the early
morning rush hour commute--
kind of gross but it is America.
30% were in the late afternoon.
Of the 50% group, every
single one of them
came into the restaurant
by themselves.
They bought nothing
but a milkshake.
And every single
one of them went off
to their car slurping
the milkshake down.
6:00 in the morning.
OK.
Of the late afternoon, it was a
very different situation, which
we can talk about in a moment.
So after watching
this behavior for week
after week after week,
Bob finally said,
I got to talk to these people.
Right.
And so rather than standing
inside the restaurant,
he finally positioned himself
outside the restaurant.
And as people left
with milkshake in hand,
he accosted them-- and
not to do an intervention
but maybe he should have.
But he basically
said, excuse me,
I just got to know, why did
you just buy this milkshake?
What job are you trying
to do in your life?
And they struggled with
it and couldn't figure out
what he was asking.
He said, OK, think
about the last time
you were in this
situation doing whatever
you're doing right now.
What else did you buy?
They said, you know, I've
got a 30 minute drive
to work right now.
I'm not particularly
starving at the moment.
But I know if I
don't eat something
I'll be starving by like
7:30, or 8:00, or 9 o'clock,
or something like that.
And I just want
something to keep
me full throughout the morning
and occupy myself, frankly,
while I'm driving for 30 minutes
on this really boring commute
that I have every single day.
And so come to think of it,
I hired bagels last week.
But take it from me.
Bagels don't do this
job well at all,
because if you live anywhere
outside of New York City,
they are dry and tasteless.
They crumb all over
your suit pants.
To make them taste
good, you've got
to spread cream cheese
and jam on them.
And if you're driving
with your knees
while you're doing that
and the cell phone rings,
you got major problems.
I hired donuts once.
But that was terrible because I
had to lie to my wife about it.
And she saw right through the
lie when she got in the car
later that night because the
steering wheel was totally
gummy and sticky and so forth.
I hired bananas once to do this
morning rush hour commute job.
But bananas actually
are the worst thing
of all because the stupid
banana is gone in 30 seconds.
I was starving by 9 o'clock.
And it just didn't keep me
occupied or full for my commute
or in the morning.
But it turns out that
when I come in here
and buy a milkshake, it
just does the job perfectly.
It's so thick and viscous.
I have no idea what they put
in the thing, if it's healthy
or not.
Frankly, I don't
care, because it
sinks to the bottom my
stomach and easily keeps
me full throughout the morning.
It's so thick and
viscous, it takes forever
to suck up that
tiny little straw.
Easily lasts me my 30
minute drive to work.
And you know, God
gave me two hands.
I've always had one
on the steering wheel.
Never known what to
do with this hand.
And it turns out there's
a cup holder here.
And the milkshake
fits in perfectly.
And so it turned out that the
milkshake did the morning rush
hour commute job better than its
competitors, which weren't just
like Wendy milkshakes, or Burger
King milkshakes, and so forth.
But it was all those plus
coffee, bagels, donuts,
bananas, and so forth.
Right.
And so their share of the market
was actually a lot smaller
than they realized.
In the late afternoon
just to give you a sense,
same average demographic
coming into the restaurant
to buy a milkshake.
But now they came
in with their kids.
And they would basically buy
the equivalent of a Happy Meal
and then you'd get the tug on
your jacket from your child.
And they'd say, mom, dad, can't
I please have a milkshake?
And basically, you felt
so tired and sort of sad
almost for having said
no to so many things
to your kid for
the past week, this
felt like an
innocent enough thing
that you could say yes to
and feel like a good parent.
And so you'd get the Happy Meal.
You'd get your
child a milkshake.
And then you'd sit
in the restaurant.
And you'd start to
drink the milkshakes.
To me.
You'd eat your burgers.
Those would go quickly.
And then your child would
go in on that milkshake.
And if anyone's had this
experience recently,
you know kids don't exactly
slurp these things up quickly.
So they start to
slurp it up slowly.
And first you'd sit
there waiting patiently
because you hired it to feel
like a good patient parent.
And then you'd sit there
waiting impatiently
as they just struggled to
get a quarter of the way
through the thing.
And then at some
point, you just say,
oh my god, we just
gotta get going.
This is ridiculous.
And you take the half
consumed milkshake.
You'd throw it in
the trash can as you
dragged your kid to the car
with the temper tantrum ensuing.
And then you call me
into a focus group
and you say, well, how should we
improve the sale of milkshakes.
How should we
improve this product?
And what do I tell
you because I hire it
for two fundamentally different
jobs and circumstances
in my life.
Right.
And so it points to
something that Peter Drucker
said a long time ago, which
is that the customer is rarely
buying what the business
thinks it's selling him.
As we'll see in
higher education,
this is certainly the case.
But once you understand--
this is part of the argument
that we make in the book--
is once you understand
what success looks like,
and what the job really is,
and the dimensions of that job,
you can actually design
a far better experience
to help students or
anyone make progress.
And so in the case of--
it starts with understanding
what's really the job
to be done, not just the
functional dimensions of it
but the emotional and social
ones are really important too.
Right.
In the morning
rush hour commute,
the social dimensions is I need
to be seen alone with this.
Like I actually
don't want anyone
to see me as I'm consuming
a milkshake in the morning,
whereas in the afternoon
it's all about how I relate
to my kid and how
others perceive me
as he or she is having
a temper tantrum.
Once you understand
that, then you
can start to say what
experiences in purchase and use
do we really need to
provide so that we
can nail this job perfectly.
And then finally,
the last part of it
is, then we can
say, OK, what are
the actual things
we need to build
and how do we have to
stitch them together.
How do we have to
integrate them to create
this holistic experience that
delivers on that odd job?
And so just really briefly, in
the morning rush hour commute
job, you'd actually make
the milkshake thicker
because you want to
make sure that it
lasts for the 30 minutes.
The restaurant thought that
they were well integrated in
that they had a machine
in the back that
would mix all the ingredients
together in a dispenser.
But actually understanding
the morning rush hour commute
job that people want to get in,
just get on their day, and go,
you'd realize that
you'd actually
pull that dispenser to
the front of the line,
give people a pre-paid swipe
card so they can just dash in,
gas up, and get on their way.
And then finally,
you'd actually stir
in tiny chunks of fruit, not
to make the milkshake healthier
because the individuals
are extremely clear they
don't care if it's healthy--
I mean they're buying
a freaking milkshake,
but so that every once in a
while they'd be slurping up
the milkshake and
swallow a piece of fruit
and, gee, that was interesting.
So it sort of keeps them
awake as they drive.
True story if you want
to have a Panera or Jamba
Juice shake after this.
So ultimately,
understanding this job
helps you understand how to
build or design the experience.
So just briefly
targeting the job,
if you categorize the
world by product category,
you tend to have misaligned
feature creep because you're
constantly saying, oh,
Burger King has X, Y, and Z
in their milkshakes.
We ought to do the same thing.
Or in the case of higher ed,
if Stanford adds a high price
gymnasium, you better
believe Harvard's
going to do the same thing.
The flip side is framing the
world by customer category.
And then you tend to
get a lot of one size
fits none products
because you're
trying to be all things
to all people regardless
of the situation
or circumstance.
And then the third piece is if
you frame it by job to be done,
you can really get that
proper critical integration
of critical experiences.
So one more thing around
the job to be done
is how do you discover
it, because it's not
always the case that
you can actually
watch someone for multiple
weeks on end making a purchase
and see the timeline
of the events unfold.
And so the way we
tend to think about it
is that every job basically
has two forces that
are pushing and pulling you
to make a change in your life.
And you have two things that
are impeding the change.
And so the forces
that are pushing you
are, one, the push
of the situation.
Something about my life
could be better right now.
Right.
Where I am isn't sustainable.
It's not something
I can keep doing,
or it's something that's
actually uncomfortable
and I need to change
something about it.
And then the second thing
that's compelling a change is
what we call the pull
of a new situation.
So it's basically
I see the solution.
I'm like, oh, if I use
that, if I enrolled there,
I could have a better
life or whatever it is.
And it's pulling me toward it.
At the same time, there's
two things impeding change,
one of which is just your simple
habits of the present situation
that you're on the
treadmill and it's
easy to keep doing what
you're doing right now.
And then the other
thing is what we
say is the anxiety
of the new solution.
So all the things that
make you wonder, gee,
with the Pixel out,
will I be able to use
all of its features?
What happens if I can't use it?
Oh my god, maybe
I'm just better off
staying with the devil I know.
Right.
And oftentimes, when you're
designing experiences,
people want to put in more and
more services, and features,
and so forth.
And it turns out often
actually taking things away
to simplify the solution can
reduce that anxiety and cause
people to jump in, which we'll
see as relevant on the higher
ed question.
And so to discover
it we essentially
do interviews, not
to do focus groups,
but to basically recreate, in
essence, a mini documentary
of how someone chose to
make a switch in their lives
around a new product or
service or, in this case,
to enroll in a higher
ed institution.
And so you essentially
follow this path
where almost all customer
decisions go through something
similar where they have a first
thought that something could
be better, that they're going
to make a change in their life.
They go into this
passive looking phase
and then there
tends to be an event
of some sort that triggers them
into an active looking phase.
And then there's
typically a second event
that defines the time horizon
over which that they'll make--
over which they'll
make the decision.
So it might be a
friend of yours gets
an early action
for an 18-year-old,
for example, at a college.
And you're, like,
oh my God, I'm going
to have to make a decision about
which college I need to choose.
But there's typically
some sort of second event
that occurs that actually
puts you in this,
and then you actually
buy, and then consume,
and you can look back
and see if it satisfies.
And so, in essence,
in our study,
we interviewed
hundreds of students--
200 plus stories of students
making the college choice.
And then we followed it up with
another 50 or 60 interviews
or so to go deeper
on this-- just
to basically understand
in a variety of contexts
across a variety
of demographics.
So races, genders, et cetera--
what were these jobs to
be done that people had?
This shows you
that it's also-- we
did a huge spread of learners.
So it wasn't simply
just the 18-year-old
leaving high school
going to college,
we interviewed students as
old as 60 about enrolling.
And we were looking
at people who
had a wide variety of background
education, so everything
from high school diploma,
to GED, to some college,
to master's degree, even
a PhD or two in there.
And then, finally,
our sample set
attended all sorts
of institutions
from simple online programs,
coding boot camps, part-time
and full-time, traditional
four-year colleges,
grad school, and the like.
So it's a pretty wide
range that represented
a lot of higher education
and we were-- and mirrored
a lot of what higher education
looks like in the United States
today, which really
is not the student
just go into the
grassy, green quad
and living on a residential
campus for four years.
But tons of students who live
off campus, 70% by the stats
in our sample, which is
roughly equivalent to what
you see nationwide.
A lot of people working
part-time or even
full-time jobs,
typically attending
within state or within 75
miles of where they live
and so forth.
So a pretty comprehensive
view of students
that looked like what
higher education looks
like across this
country at this point.
And what we essentially found--
and I'll just summarize
it here and flip
through some of the slides
when we get into it--
but there were five core jobs
to be done around why students
hired college.
And so the first
one we found is what
we call help me help me
get into my best school.
So these were students for
whom that the college choosing
process in some
ways was circular.
They were looking to
get into their best
school for its own sake almost.
They had done the
work to be the best
and they felt like
that they deserved
the best in many cases.
And it was all about
the act of going in--
excuse me, of getting in, not
necessarily what they would
do once they got in itself.
To be sure they would say that
they wanted the classic college
experience, they wanted
the residential experience
where they could reinvent
themselves with new people--
reputation and prestige were
certainly important to them--
and there was the
sense, well, it's
the next logical
step in my life.
It's what I'm going to
do next because that's
what I'm supposed to do.
But they were
typically genuinely
excited about the experience.
To be clear, it didn't have
to just happen in college.
For better or worse,
I realized, as I
got put through this
interview process myself,
that when I went
to business school
I clearly fell into
this job as well.
When you looked at my
decision-making process--
I thought I was in a
very different position,
but when you looked at
the actual decision I made
and how I prioritized it--
best was very clearly
motivating this decision.
And we'll talk about it a little
bit more in-depth in a moment.
The second job is the other
side of the coin of help
me get into my best
school, it's what
we called helped me do
what's expected of me.
So these are students
who are going
because someone
else in their lives
said that they ought
to go, in essence.
And they're doing it to
satisfy their expectations,
not necessarily because
they're super excited.
They're doing it to fulfill
the wishes of a parent,
to fulfill the wishes of
a counselor or a teacher
who said that they ought to
go, to do it because just all
their friends are going.
And, well, it's the next
logical step in my life,
I might as well.
They were often doing it with
the sense well of saying,
well, it's not exactly
what I want to do,
but, at least,
I'll check the box
and I'll have a safety
net to fall back on--
this can't be a bad decision
is often what they would say.
We'll talk about
how that ended up
in some hot water for a
lot of these learners,
but that was essentially
the job that we
found in the second one.
The third one was a group of
students who were basically
hiring school to help them
get away from something
really bad in their lives.
So they were basically running
from something, but not
necessarily toward something.
And college with something
socially acceptable that they
could say, hey, I'm
signing up for college
and no one would question
them, but they really
weren't excited about
the experience itself.
It was all about
running from something.
So it might have been
an abusive stepfather,
it might have been a bad
hometown that just didn't mesh
with who they were, it
could been a bad job,
it was all about getting
away from where they were
right now, though, and
not necessarily where
they were running to.
The fourth job that we
uncovered is what we're calling
helped me step it up.
So these are learners
who, in essence,
were saying I actually like
certain parts of my life,
but I'm realizing what I'm doing
right now-- typically at work,
but not always--
isn't who I am.
This just isn't me
and I need to get
some more education and skills
so I can step it up in my life.
And it was typically
triggered because people
were relying on them
and they knew that they
couldn't disappoint them.
And so it might have been that
they were about to have a child
and they realized
that this is going
to bring on a lot of expenses
and the current job they
were in was no longer fulfilling
what they were going to need.
They had a new mortgage maybe
that was hanging over them.
It was some sort of
event that triggered it.
It's now or never.
I got to go to school and
step it up in my life.
And then the last one
we found is what we're
calling help me extend myself.
So these are learners
who basically--
life was pretty
good around them,
not great necessarily,
but pretty good.
There was very little
push, but they were all
about now I have
the time and budget
and I've always wanted to
challenge myself in this way,
or be something more,
or learn something else.
And now I have the
time and I'm going
to go pursue this and do it.
And so they would
typically take what
was a low-risk option for their
position and go this dream.
So I'll give you a little bit of
color now around each of these,
but we already went
through a lot of these.
But on the help me get
into my best school job,
these students were
overwhelmingly satisfied
with the choice.
You can see it skews that
a lot of these students
were quote unquote your
traditional college age
student.
A lot of satisfaction
with this choice which
makes a lot of sense, they
were energized going in.
They didn't really
know what they
wanted once they got there.
And, in many ways, you
could argue the moment
they landed there,
they were in a new job
to be done of trying
to figure that out.
But they were thrilled sort
of to be where they were,
in many cases and
it worked out well.
Importantly, this
wasn't just sort of
look at the "US News and
World Report" rankings,
figure out what your top
school is, and go that way.
It was a little more
nuanced than that.
It was best for me.
And so Ujana was a
student, we talked
to who as you can
sing-- she was she
was a great pianist,
great singer,
really wanted to sing
gospel for a gospel choir
when she went to college.
So she framed her set
of choices essentially
by a set of historically
black colleges
that were within a certain
mile radius of where she lived.
She was in North Texas
and ultimately she
ended up picking the college
with the most impressive choir,
but it was also the one where
her sister went to school.
And they offered her a full ride
and the moment that happened
she was all in on this school.
She was thrilled by it.
What's so interesting is that
a lot of these students--
they would check off on a box--
I'm going to
college to get a job
and she could talk about how
they had a good early childhood
teacher preparation program, but
really was all about the choir
and how much it felt
like family to her.
And they sang in lots
of different styles
and you could just see
the dominoes cascade
of once she had heard them,
spent time with the choir,
and so forth.
If she got in and
she got the full ride
this was clearly
where she was going.
It was best as she defined
the best, if that makes sense.
Now where we saw
failure was typically
when a student would
frames what best
was in terms of someone
else's demands on them
rather than what they wanted.
And I suspect that if we
went in deeper in this job,
you'd see a lot of subsets, and
flavors, and so forth of this.
My narrow one is
that there's probably
an intrinsic
motivation around best
and there's probably
an extrinsic one.
And the intrinsic
results and success more
often I would think, but the--
but either way this also
obviously is-- this job
is driving a lot of the behavior
we saw with the Varsity Blues
scandal and a lot
of the headlines
that have rocked higher ed
admissions over the past year.
Is-- it seems clearly, from
our perspective, motivated
in this particular job.
I think a large
part of the reason
is students don't step back
and just say let's relax.
And, as parents, we don't
give the message to kids
that if they attend a
school, and they work hard,
and they make a great
network, they'll be fine.
And they're going to get
into school somewhere,
the question is what's
the right fit for them,
not obsessing over the college.
And if you look at the
stats across the country,
there's basically
fewer than 50 schools
that are extraordinarily
selective in who they admit.
And out of the
other 4,000 schools
that exist in this
country, there's
a great deal of
likelihood that you're
going to get in many,
many, many, many places.
And many of them will be quite
good if you're fitting it
into what you really want
and not this conception
of following the rankings
or something like that
just blindly and saying, oh,
the top 10 schools in "US News
and World Report" list
are mine because that's
what I just think I'm supposed
to do out of what best is.
But instead you step back--
and in the book we talk about
taking a page from what color
is my parachute book and making
a seven-petal diagram around
what's the right
fit for me itself--
so thinking about what's
the purpose of the school?
Does it match something
that I'm excited about?
What are the people like?
The geography.
The size of the schools--
small, medium, big.
Extracurricular activities,
are those important or not?
Academics, do I know
what I want to do,
and which field I want to be in,
and, therefore, it's important.
And then the campus life itself.
Is it a, quote unquote,
traditional college town
or something like that?
Is it an urban
environment, et cetera.
And as you start to
make these decisions,
frankly, you don't have to know
the answer to all these petals.
You just have to
identify which ones
are really important to you,
and, maybe even more important,
which ones are
nonstarters for you,
and start to see what
you gravitate toward.
In the book we talk a
lot about essentially
prototyping the experience.
You probably can't
read this cartoon,
but the basic idea is
that a lot of parents--
this is advice to
parents of what not to do
as you stumble through that.
The basic idea is
that it's very easy
to go to a couple college
visits and just get excited
as the parent about what you
think would be right for you,
but not listen to your kid
about what they're actually
gravitating toward.
In this cartoon
the girl's clearly
gravi-- toward-- gravitating
toward an urban lifestyle
for the campus and
then you say, OK,
let's pick a few
others schools that
also had that urban
context to it, for example.
The flip side I'd say is maybe
you go to a school and you're--
that was awesome.
It was both small and in a city.
OK, so is it the small thing
that you're excited about
or is it the city that
you're excited about?
Let's visit a large
school in a city
and start to narrow
this down to figure out
what is it that's really
drawing you to this campus
and then start to
find other options
and broaden your options
alongside of this
so that you can go--
to get into your best school,
but something that actually
fits how you think about this.
Really briefly, one
student we talked
to for whom this
went really poorly,
she was a hockey
player, honor student,
got into her Honors College and
a scholarship for the hockey
team, felt like a ton
of work to her parents,
but she was, like, no, I
want to be able to say,
I'm going to this top,
nationally ranked school
and I'm playing for this top,
nationally ranked hockey team.
Being able to say that
sentence was really important,
not for her own sake,
but to be able to tell
her friends about it.
And so she picked it and
within about a semester,
it totally went sideways where
she was just overburdened
by both the workload, and the
practice load from the sports,
and so she dropped out.
So clarifying that
is very important.
I'm going to skip the advice
for schools for right now.
The second job, as
I said, is that help
me do what's expected of me.
Perhaps not surprising,
but 54% were
dissatisfied with their choice.
74% of our sample dropped out or
transferred from their school.
So this was a
school-- this was a--
one where I would say if you're
in the help me do it's expected
of me, a four-year
college with-- that
was going to be a high price
tag probably not a great choice,
looking for other
options was going
to be a much better fit to give
you some passion and purpose.
We saw two distinct personas
emerge in this particular job.
One was your traditional high
school student going to college
that you can almost tell
this story to yourself
and it's interesting
a lot of adults
who felt like they went to
school to do what someone else
expected of them.
They've come up to us
and readily identified
with this one.
The other persona that we saw
was a working adult student.
And right now, in
particular, in America, we're
focusing a lot on
lifelong learning
and trying to make
sure we figure out
how do we upscale
and reskill employees
with technological change,
and automation, and AI,
and so forth changing
the nature of work.
If that training wasn't aligned
to what the student wa--
or the learner or the employee
wanted to do for themselves
and the company
was paying for it--
often you got a lot of
people that would just
enroll in a
post-secondary program,
but they had no
sense of why they
were doing it for themselves.
It was all about, well, my
employer's paying for it,
so, I guess, they
expect me to do this.
But I don't actually
see the connection.
And, unsurprisingly,
you didn't see
a lot of completion or
mastery of skills and things
like that when
that was the case.
Really aligning that
was really important.
Just one quick story on this
one from the book that we tell
is about Trisha who's raised in
a religious environment where
her pastor essentially chose the
school that she was going to.
She knew nothing about it.
She enrolled literally
miserable, homesick
within the first semester.
As-- the moment things
turned south where she--
at home on the financial
front, she was--
I'm out, I don't
want to be here.
My parents need me at
home, I'm dropping out.
And we saw a lot of that
occur with students who have
this particular motivation.
And so the biggest
piece of advice
honestly is you don't
legally have to go to school.
This isn't something
you need to do.
Instead figure out
what are other options.
In the book we talk a lot
about taking a gap year
and figuring out ways to
actually get work experience
to sort of build a sense
of passion and purpose
around what you want to do.
Earn money if you can.
When we say "gap
year," we don't just
mean gallivanting around Europe.
Actually work some
jobs to figure out
what do you like,
and don't like,
and things of that nature.
If you do enroll, however, we
saw three pathways out of it.
One was to choose
a really low risk
school where you could
not pay a lot of money
or there was easy--
there were good chances that
you could transfer the credits
to somewhere else.
So one student we talked to
we thought really smartly--
the anxiety stripped away when
she went to a regional college
that she knew she could transfer
the credits to any other state
university in the state.
And the moment she realized,
oh, the credits were all
transferred, she
found herself back
into that help me get
into my best school job--
able to think through a
new set of choices for her
and basically shopping,
again, in the first semester.
The second path was actually
with Bob, my co-author, did.
He when-- he didn't
get into Purdue,
which is his first choice--
his parents still said
you're going to college
and he went to Michigan State.
He wasn't particularly
excited about it--
was trying to figure
out how the heck
he could get out, and
drop out, and so forth--
took a part time job working
as an engineer, loved it,
and his boss basically said
you want this job full time,
you've got to get your degree.
You've got to step
it up and do this.
And that gave him the
motivation to understand
the purpose of the experience
and go hard charging into it.
And then the third
pathway we saw
was essentially you
arrive at campus
and you're immediately
in help me get away job.
And so you move away, but
moving away without purposes
is dangerous.
And so moving into the
help me step it up--
basically creating a
gap year experience,
a series of experiences
that you can understand
what do I actually really want
to do, and build my skill set,
and pathway around that.
I'm going to skip through the
parents, but just to say--
we saw a lot of parents forcing
their kids into this job.
Try not to be the reason
your kid has this experience.
Try to figure out an underlying
passion or purpose that
can get them excited
about the experience
and they can make a choice
consistent with that.
The third job that we talked
about, the help me get away,
unsurprisingly, again, a
lot of dissatisfaction,
a lot of incompletion
with this one.
Perhaps that's not
surprising, but we had
a lot of students like Naomi.
They were running from, in
her case, an abusive stepdad
and a mother who is
forcing her to take
care of two kids who were 13 and
14 years younger than she was.
She was just
thrilled to get away.
The moment she
arrived on campus,
she took an extra heavy
course load in subjects
that she didn't
actually care about.
She said she'd always
wanted to be a nurse.
She was a business
major because they
didn't have a nursing program.
It was the only school
she had applied to--
started to cascade in
debt, her grades went down,
she had $40,000 in
private student loans
by the end of the first
year, dropped out, went home,
and worked for five years
before she went back to school.
And you got a lot
of these stories
when you didn't realize that
a really important success
criteria is getting away.
If you're in this job,
you need to get away--
but the big question
is how do you
get away without
incurring a lot of risk
in terms of time and money.
And so you have to realize
you don't know what's next
and so you've got to take
a step where you're not
going to bite off more than
you could chew so to speak.
And really prototype
your future.
So go from a period
where you're thinking
about what you want to
do-- design an experience,
scope it out, try it
out, and then reflect.
What do I want more of?
What do I want less of?
What are the things--
say, you worked at a
tech company, right?
I like coding, I don't
like project managing.
I like working with
other individuals,
I don't like being solitary.
Start to understand the
experiences and the things
that you like doing to start
to figure out what else
might follow into that
so you can broaden again
your options in line
with your passions
and make a better choice.
The fourth job we talked about
was this help me step it up.
Maybe not surprisingly
tremendous success in this one
as well because
people really were
motivated to move beyond
what they were doing.
And they had some sense
of the future as well.
Our only real advice
here, frankly,
was to make sure that
you clarified the future.
So Ken is an interesting
example where
he quit his job at a tech
company in the Bay Area
after seeing his prospects
their decline when
he was put on a
project in a group
basically that he
knew had no future.
He enrolled in a
part time boot camp
basically to fill out
his portfolio of work
so that he would have a set
of projects in data science
that would allow him
to get a next job.
And he picked the first
available boot camp
because it was all
about convenience.
And that's an
interesting-- that's
an important point
about this one.
This job is-- it's not
about the brand or prestige,
it's about the thing that will
actually get me the skills,
or certifications, or portfolio
the quickest and cheapest
possible.
I want the most
direct path into it.
And so where we saw
failure, frankly,
was where people hadn't
taken the time upfront
to really clarify
their future and really
ask themselves do I really
want to do what this is going
to put me on a pathway to do?
An example of this was
Mindy, who we interviewed.
She enrolled in an
online university
to be a teacher, even
though she had always
wanted to be a midwife.
And she did it because
she was desperate to prove
to herself that she
was college material
and that she could do it.
A lot of her family
had been teachers
and so she's, like, I
guess, I could do that.
She signed up-- the moment
she got in her practicum
experience-- so
teaching in a school--
she was like, oh, I hate this.
This isn't for me at all.
Dropped out when she realized
that the school didn't have
any pathways into midwifery
that she could transfer
and she was stuck again out on
her third attempt at higher ed.
And so the-- again
the real thing in here
is prototyping, in essence,
a variety of possible futures
through a variety of
immersive experiences,
whether that's
jobs, internships,
volunteer opportunities,
and the like
to really start to
understand who you are
and develop some
clarity around that.
For time's sake, I'm going
to step skip the cartoons,
but the one thing I'll
say is, as a parent,
you really want to make sure
you don't allow your kid
to avoid the struggle
that's inherent in the help
me step it up job--
in the sense that
it's easy to say
I know your strengths
and weaknesses
and, therefore, this is
the right choice for you.
It's a much better
thing to guide
your kid through this
process, ask questions
to help them navigate to realize
who they are, but don't avoid
the struggling moment
because they need
to innovate in
their lives and they
need to be invested
in it ultimately.
And we would see
failure occasionally
when the parent made it
too easy, if you will,
to make the choice.
And the child wasn't
actually bought into this.
Last one, the extend myself.
Tons of satisfaction
in this particular job.
I often think about
this, frankly, the help
me extend myself job as the
massive open online course
job--
people that are all about
extending themselves,
challenging themselves.
And it's OK if
they don't complete
because they can
go back to doing
what they're doing right now.
When we uncovered
this one, Bob--
I told my co-author Bob, I
said, I've never experienced
this particular job in my life.
He was, of course, you
have, but your version of it
is reading a book,
or hiring a podcast,
or watching a video on YouTube.
It's not dropping everything,
taking out another mortgage
to go to school.
You have two young
kids and a mortgage,
that wouldn't make any sense.
So it's appropriate to
your stage and phase
of life of extending yourself.
And I think that's an
important way to look at it.
Naveena was someone who
worked in the company
where she was a marketing--
in marketing and
communications, realized
that she wanted to get much
more data analytics and the like
and so went to a boot
camp around that.
And what was so
interesting was she
realized that she had
all the negotiating
chips because if
it didn't work out,
she was totally happy
in her current role.
And so she brought a job offer
that she had from another
company that was going to train
her in data analytics to her
existing company and said, I'm
about to jump ship to try this
out and they're like,
no, please don't.
We'll pay for you to
go to a boot camp.
And we'll tell you
that you can actually
start up our data analytics
department in this company
if it goes well.
And if it doesn't, no harm lost.
And she basically realized
she had all the chips.
And so a really important
thing, I think, on this job
is, A, be very clear about
where your boundary is.
What's too much risk
for you to take on.
And once you've clarified that,
really expand your options.
Fight to realize you have a
lot of choices through this
and then realize that it's
much more important to choose
something over doing nothing.
Because, at the end of the day,
if you choose something that's
relatively low risk
for you, you can always
go back to what you were doing
and you haven't foreclosed
anything, in other words.
We saw a lot of learners
particularly-- this job
appeared a lot for
moms who had taken
a few years of the
workforce and we're trying
to get back into the workforce.
We saw a lot of women who were
hesitant to get back into the--
to take the plunge, if
you will, into higher ed
again because they would say
do I deserve this opportunity?
Will I be able to hang?
It's been so long,
things like that.
Giving people permission
to go forward and do
for it was incredibly
important so that they would
take these jobs on and do it.
Just some overall advice of
three things that I think
are important.
One, we saw this again and
again, in the research,
was that many more students
ought to be taking a gap year.
And, again, it's
not a gap year just
to travel around
for travel's sake,
but to really build a
sense of who they were--
passionate and
purpose-- and then
to come into a
higher ed experience
that they had chosen really
fired up to go tackle it.
Being able to take pa--
routes that take you
off the beaten path--
incredibly important
so that you're not just
following the herd because it's
what you're supposed to do,
but it's in line with your
own code and who you are.
And then the last
one is recognizing
that the reason you don't have
to run the school right away
is because we're going to
live long lives at this point.
We're in an economy
in a day and age where
upskilling and
reskilling is just going
to be part of our learning.
We're all going to
be lifelong learners.
And you're not going
to be in any one
of these jobs your whole life.
You're not a help me get
into my best school person,
because that's what you are now.
You are this at a certain
phase and realizing that you're
going experience
most, if not all,
of these jobs at some point
in your life and many of them
you're going to experience
several times frankly
and education itself might not
always be the answer for it
sometimes career or a job
switch or something like that
might also give
you that learning
that you need to make progress
Hopefully that gives you
a good sense of the book
and why we were
fired up to write it.
It was interesting and
I'll end on this note
and then love your questions.
But when we started
the book we started it
from the perspective of
higher ed institutions
actually-- wondering if they
were trying to serve students
who were coming to them with
so many different motivations,
how could they possibly be
all things to all people?
And was that
responsible for a lot
of terrible outcomes in
higher education right now
and a lot of increasing
costs because they're
managing so much
complexity of trying
to be all things to all people?
And I would say we left the book
feeling like that's absolutely
the case.
And there were so many
interesting stories
of students trying to navigate
this really difficult process
that we thought by writing
the book we could give really
sound advice to
parents and students
so they could recognize their
why and make better choices.
So I'm hopeful that this talk
gives you an early flavor that,
but, more importantly,
that you leave the book
and able to navigate your
own life, your kids' lives,
but also to be able to
help those around you
make these decisions.
And I guess my only ask
would be if you see someone
struggling with this
decision and not
asking the why
question, I'd love it
If you could point them
toward this resource
to try to help
them untangle that.
So appreciate it so
much and look forward
to answering any
questions you have.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
Microphone I guess
is there and yeah.
AUDIENCE: Hello, thank you
for the be interesting talk.
I was curious if you had a
perspective on credentialing--
MICHAEL HORN: Yeah.
AUDIENCE: --since that is partly
the reason most of us need to
MICHAEL HORN: Yeah, totally.
AUDIENCE: --go for
higher education.
MICHAEL HORN: Yeah, totally.
So credentialing is in two forms
also right now because there's
also the rise of badges,
and micro credentials,
and all this new set of
things that I would say
is confusing the heck out of
this higher ed world right now.
Credentialing was
a huge part of it.
Frankly, a lot of
people in the help
me step it up job or the help
me get into my best school,
it was all about the degree
and what it signaled,
not necessarily about
the journey there.
And so if you could imprint
on someone the degree--
they already had the skill set--
they were delighted
with that option.
And it would drive a lot of it.
I think a very clear takeaway
is companies like Google that
have stopped requiring
degrees for jobs
and actually started to look at
the actual skills and knowledge
that you need to be successful
in those jobs would be
a tremendous step
forward, frankly,
to take a lot of the
pressure that has built up
on this college choice.
I mean, it's interesting
like in help me
do what's expected of
my job, I've decided
I'm not excited about college.
My parents are pushing me.
Why are they pushing me?
Because they think it's
the key to get a good job.
Why do they think that?
Well, because employers are--
there's been tremendous degree
inflation in the last three
decades--
where jobs that
30 years ago that
did not require degrees and
people working in them today
don't have degrees
now require degrees
because they can't
figure out what
are the actual skills
at the heart of them.
And it's created a huge
problem of over credential,
like you said, for
various things.
At the same time, we're seeing
all these micro credentials
emerge that, I
think, it's unclear
how that's going to play out.
Is it going to add to this
race or will it allow us to get
more precise about the signals?
And I think that's going
to depend a little bit
on the analytics,
and assessments,
and so forth that
we apply to this.
And do we insist that these
are mastery-based degrees
like you've actually
mastered something or are we
going to continue under the
facade we have of it's about
the brand where you went
to school and the fact
that you got in, not
necessarily what you
learned during the experience.
That-- I think that'll
be a key question
to watch to see
how this plays out.
It's a really good question.
Others?
Go for it.
AUDIENCE: First of all,
that was fantastic.
MICHAEL HORN: Thank you.
AUDIENCE: There's nothing
wrong with a milkshake
in the morning.
MICHAEL HORN: Amen.
AUDIENCE: When you're
doing the research, did
you also find a group
of students that--
and I guess it was
in the slide that you
had where the
progression towards
getting to the point
where they were jacked up
about going to school--
MICHAEL HORN: Yeah.
AUDIENCE: --did you find a group
of students that for a while
there were almost pushing
back on the whole idea
because they didn't want
to get to that next step,
they feared the next step?
MICHAEL HORN: For sure.
AUDIENCE: I saw that in my
son and both of my nephews--
all three who then got
into terrific schools.
MICHAEL HORN: Yeah.
AUDIENCE: But for a while, at
the end of their high school,
they would have rather climbed
Everest in shorts and t-shirts
than actually gone to a
college to look at the school.
MICHAEL HORN: The anxiety--
so, yes, absolutely.
And you'd see the
anxiety build up
in the stories of misgivings
about will I make it,
misgivings about the
process, the competition,
and, frankly,
fanaticism around it.
I mean, the over focus
in certain communities
on this decision contributes
from a social perspective
to the job to be done that
creates a really overheated
context that I think
pushes actually
a lot of people in the help me
do what's expected of my job.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE].
MICHAEL HORN: Yeah, exactly
because, oh, my God, I don't--
like you're just telling me
and I might have had a reason,
but now I'm pushed--
being pushed toward this.
Thing and I think we
saw that several times.
What's so interesting is that
the learners themselves-- they
don't always have the language
around that or the ability
to sort of step out of it
because the social pressure is
so intense.
The flip side, a lot of
people have asked, well,
what about low
income communities
that maybe don't have access
to college historically
where the social pressures
may be very different?
And what's
interesting there is--
that is true on the
one hand, but we also
saw a lot of no excuses charter
schools and students going
there where from day one, even
though their parents weren't
talking about college per se,
the teachers and the counselors
were.
And, on the one hand,
that's a really good thing
because it can--
going to college and graduating
can lift your entire family
tree out of poverty literally.
And, on the other
hand, if you were
going because you didn't have
the motivation-- you didn't
know why, you didn't develop
a bigger sense of purpose
besides, well, my teacher for
five years has been telling me
this is what I'm
supposed to do next,
then the outcomes there
tended to be pretty bad.
And I think that's one of the
reasons people don't realize
that the six-year graduation
rate from four-year colleges
in this country is roughly 60%--
so six-year graduation
for four-year colleges.
If you're going to
a two-year college,
the three- or four-year
graduation rate
is effectively 28%.
So we're sending a
ton of people where
they lack that
intrinsic motivation
and it's not going to end
well is the point right.
And so I think rethinking
these pressures and questions
around it is really important
for employers and parents,
frankly, in a lot of
these communities,
but also the educators
themselves, not necessarily
to say you shouldn't
go to college,
but before you go we're
going to actually help
make sure that you've built
up an intrinsic purpose
and passion.
So you can make a choice
you're excited about not
we're excited about for
you, if that makes sense.
AUDIENCE: Yeah.
MICHAEL HORN: It's
a great question.
Hitting about time, I
guess, but anything else?
Thanks so much, hope this was
helpful, and I appreciate it.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
