MIT Antifragile Entrepreneurship Speaker Series
by Bill Aulet
A Must Watch, Free & Available Now (Disciplined Entrepreneurship)
One of my proudest projects from the past few years is the Trust Center Antifragile Entrepreneurship Speaker Series, which is now available to watch for free in its entirety. These 8 sessions were designed like a course to help the viewer understand what it takes to become more antifragile in concrete ways within the context we are living in right now.
The series went from concept to execution in about 30 days and it is content that will be relevant for a very long time. What follows is the story of how it happened and why you should spend time with it. You can view the full series of talks, with additional supplemental materials, or you can pick and choose individual talks, by going to https://entrepreneurship.mit.edu/speakers/
The spark for the series came when I saw just how unmoored our students were at MIT. The school has some of the best students anywhere and the COVID-19 crisis had turned their world upside down; they seemed frozen and did not know what to do next. This was truly unprecedented, unlike any other crisis in magnitude and uncertainty. The dotcom internet bubble burst, 9/11, the housing crisis of the late 2000s, the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombing, and the tragic killing of an MIT police officer all seemed more manageable than this. COVID-19 completely permeated all aspects of our lives and there was no end in sight for rational thinking people. It was a humanitarian and economic catastrophe of epic proportions… our students and others seemed lost at sea.
I had started to write individual pieces about what should be done. I found myself constantly referred back to a November 2019 article I had written about how our goal as entrepreneurship educators was to produce antifragile humans rather than to focus on their companies. That article now seems prescient-as if I had some insight on what was to happen. (I certainly did not.) I referred to this piece in every interview, article, and general discussion I had about how we should move forward.
Finally, it hit me that what was really needed was an integrated program on antifragility, like a mini-course, focusing on this specific context of our times. It would be rigorous yet give specific actionable guidance to participants. I thought the fastest and easiest implementation would be a speaker series, much easier now because people did not have to (and could not) travel. Everyone was getting used to being on Zoom. On Friday, March 27th, I drafted a program with themed lectures ordered in a logical sequence. The program would last for one month and have two talks per week at lunch time (Tuesday and Thursday) when MIT students did not have classes; 8 talks in total.
Keep reading and watch the videos, here
Talk 1: Decision Making in a Crisis
Speaker: Jocko Willink, Navy Seal
Talk 2: Staying Mentally Strong
Speakers: Arlan Hamilton, Brad Feld and Kathleen Stetson
Talk 3: Making the Ethical Decision
Speakers: Tom Byers (Stanford), Jon Fjeld (Duke), and Laura Dunham (University of St. Thomas)
Talk 4: Creativity in a Crisis
Speakers: Tina Seelig, author of “Creativity Rules” and a professor in the world-famous Stanford Design Lab; Dave Morris of TED Talk fame.
Talk 5: What Are the Opportunities on the Other Side?
Speakers: James McQuivey, VP and Principal Analyst at Forrester Research; Jean Hammond founder of LearnLaunch, the world’s largest accelerator, incubator, and investment fund focused on EdTech.
Talk 6: Market Positioning In and After a Crisis
Speakers: Chris Reitermann, head of Ogilvy Asia and Greater China; Allen Wang CEO of Babytree
Talk 7: What Are the Opportunities on the Other Side
Speakers: Professor Scott Stern, MIT Sloan; Emily Canal Inc. Magazine journalist on the Surge Cities Index of the most vibrant hubs for entrepreneurship.
Talk 8: Antifragile Teams, Organizations & Society: a How-To
Speakers: Coach John Calipari, head basketball coach at the University of Kentucky and author of “Bounce Back”; Deval Patrick, former Massachusetts Governor
Originally published at https://www.d-eship.com on May 31, 2020.
