Jolt: a month and a half in.
What’s the hype all about?!
Rushing through the gates at Osterley station, I hopped, skipped, leaned and bopped my way onto the packed Piccadilly line. I carefully pinched my phone out of my pocket, avoiding elbowing a fellow passenger in the eye and quickly sent a pre-emptive text to Beth, the community manager at Jolt. ‘I may be 5 minutes or so late’ I began as I skilfully shifted the blame on to the Google maps app.
I was on my way to Soho, but not for a Snog this time (the Oreo one is my personal fave), not a Burgeri burger either, but to acquire some food for thought, at Jolt’s Soho campus.
The excitement was something else. I had been selected for a scholarship. But not just any old one, the YSYS x Jolt scholarship. Tech-equality community YSYS (Your Startup Your Story) had partnered up with Jolt: the business school for the self-made, to provide this amazing 6-month long opportunity.
Jolt — A whole snack:
Whereas a traditional MBA may be likened to a high-end all you can eat buffet from a pre-set menu with all the classics, Jolt’s NAMBA (Not an MBA® programme) is more like an ever-evolving, hip, street-food stall.
Although a fancy buffet is nice, you don’t really feel that sense of excitement you do from an impassioned foodpreneur, whipping up a new dish that has the potential to go viral on twitter right in front of your eyes.
The NAMBA programme is made out of individual Jolt’s or lessons that provide soluble, 90 minute chunks of hands-on and practical knowledge on everything from project management to the psychology of technology.
Mini-courses at Jolt — The Full Meal:
The mini-courses are groups of 4 Jolt’s that provide a more in-depth insight into a subject area. Think of these as an entire meal.
My favourite mini-course so far has to be Medy Ract’s introduction to project management.
For starters, we learnt about project initiation- developing a business case, assessing feasibility and building a project charter.
For the mains (2 jolts), we learnt how to go from planning to execution. We dived into hands-on content from prince2 and the waterfall method and also learnt about scrum, kanban and agile techniques.
And finally for desert (the last jolt in the series) we learnt how to manage our stakeholders, streamline our communication and win support.
This mini-course couldn’t have come at a better time for me as our team were in the process of deciding how to revamp our project management and deciding which methods and techniques we’d like to adopt.
What really stood out for me with this mini-course is how fresh the content was. Medy even used examples taken from scenarios he encountered just a couple of hours before the jolt.
Workshops:
If the 90 minutes classes are a snack, workshops are like a large wrap. With all the trimmings, bit of chipotle sauce, or guacamole… (you get the point).
My favourite workshop so far has been Eyal Halamish’s ‘How to formulate, ideate and prototype ideas into products’. Eyal took us step by step from idea generation to rapidly prototyping and testing our ideas.
This again was so timely for me as my team were in the process of creating a new product from scratch. And that’s the beauty of Jolt, you can choose classes that fit real time issues you’re facing.
Soji’s:
No this is not a plug for a strawberry-goji berry smoothie I’m trying to sell you! Soji stands for ‘Students Of Jolt’ and it’s the Soji’s that make Jolt truly unique in my opinion.
I’ve met Soji’s from fields as varied as supply chain management and higher education to social media marketing and machine learning. I’ve connected with Soji’s who work in the same and complementary fields as me and we’ve bounced off product ideas and customer development methods off each other. But one thing I wasn’t expecting was connecting with a Soji who shares my passion for Street Fighter II. I’ve promised to give him a whooping soon.
The different perspectives these eclectic soji’s bring to the table is what makes Jolt an exceptional learning experience.
Feeling peckish for some hands-on knowledge lead by industry experts? Why not give Jolt a taste?
Visit www.jolt.io to learn more!
