Best Free MOOCs In Business For July

Creativity & Entrepreneurship

School: Berklee Institute for Creative Entrepreneurship

Platform: edX

Registration Link: REGISTER HERE

Start Date: July 25 (4 Weeks Long)

Workload: 5 Hours Per Week

Instructor: Panos Panay

Credentials: Panay is an entrepreneur (and guitarist) who is the Founding Managing Director of the Berklee Institute of Creative Entrepreneurship. Before entering the education space in 2013, Panay had founded Sonicbids, described as a ā€œleading platform for bands to book gigs and market themselves online.ā€ Before selling the firm, Sonicbids had developed a network of 550,000 bands and 35,000 promoters. Panay has also been heavily recognized for his work in technology and startups, honored as a ā€œFast 50ā€ by Entrepreneur and a ā€œ40 Under 40ā€ by the Boston Business Journal. He has also written for outlets like Forbes, Fast Company, and the Wall Street Journal.

Graded: After completing the course, students can receive an instructor-signed certificate for $49.

Description: Business and art are often considered separate entities. To most, Business involves growing markets, fine tuning operations, and turning a profit. Creative expression, on the other hand, requires artists to tap into their dreams, fears, and experiences and build something from nothing. In reality, starting a company or producing a work of art are one in the same. They are both creative acts that follow a similar process to produce a result.

In this course, Panay draws processes from musical creation to better illuminate these parallels. Notably, students will sample concepts like ā€œobserving, prototyping, iterating and embracing failureā€ from an artistic perspective to see how they apply to entrepreneurship. As part of the course, Panay will share interviews with ā€œworld renown entrepreneurs, innovators, songwriters, producers, creative directors, educators, performers, visual artists and chefsā€ to show how their creative strategies can be used to overcome the obstacles faced by startups in development and launch.

Review: ā€œThe course content is to the point. I’d say that high school students with short attention spans could easily do this course and get good results. A lot of creative people are like that. The instructor is confident, yet humble. His honesty about how he got into the music business was refreshing. He interviewed a wide variety of people and they made some interesting points about what being an entrepreneur is really about. It’s an inspiring course that hits all the right notes. The provider is fine – invisible to the senses. That’s a good thing I suppose.ā€ For additional reviews, click here.

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