Singapore's problem is encouraging Lifelong learning for "Green" personalities

This week I did something unthinkable in my 20s - I switched universities just before completing a course specialization. 

As it turned out, I no longer wish to pursue my studies in Digital Marketing. The University of Illinois has a decent program on Coursera but the material was too macro and high-level for me. I just wanted to bring more readers to this blog and then figure out how to start a better social media campaign. To continue this agenda, I will continue by reading some technical texts on content marketing. As I dislike marketing and prefer Dr.Wealth to handle the bulk of it for me, I prefer to keep this kind of selling to a minimum.

EDHEC Business School, however, has a program that is just designed for my skill level in Investment Management Python. The program dives deep into financial programming and expects students to be proficient in programming. This program is designed to be just challenging enough for me. 

For a Dominant RED personality like me, I take charge of my learning and will jettison any project that no longer gives me any ROI. My current course allows me to develop insights and improve my web app with new features every day, so my product grows in functionality and I grow in developing market insights on local stocks. If you study under a MOOC under Coursera, you should be familiar with thousands of ambitious RED and super smart BLUE personalities hustling to get their scripts marked, many from India and Sri Lanka. 

Singapore's policy-making cannot about REDs unless it is to get REDs to create jobs - something we'd like to do because it gives us some minions to boss around. 

I think Singapore's lifelong learning problem deals with GREENs. The steady, warm and accepting citizens that are the majority in Singapore. How can you convince unambitious GREEN folks who are contented into becoming unhappy, discontented, or worried enough to sign up for a program. 

There are many dimensions to the problem that is not within my pay grade to solve :

a) The first problem is that the majority of human beings hate programming which is where the best paying jobs are at the moment. Some startup guys can even know when someone gives up on Computer Science - at the point recursion or pointers is being taught. During my JC days when computer science was an A level subject across all JCs, the dropout rate for the first three months of JC ( even in a top JC ) is about 50%. 

b) GREENs may take the easy way out even if they come from the right industry. You hardly hear of 40-something guys talk about Tensor Flow or Keras, but there's always a way to escape via project management, AGILE, Enterprise Architecture or Scrum qualifications. Stuff that does not involve copious amounts of mathematics that is in high demand today. Mickey Mouse bullshit that does not add value to the world today. 

c) The only time a GREEN gets desperate to upgrade is when he gets retrenched, then all the years to pick up foundations for harder skills are lost. Government struggles with this group because they cannot fit into the jobs available in the market at the moment. 

So here's the thing : If the government fails or sees it as something beyond their pay grade, the private sector picks up the slack. 

Here is one thing I know: My course has a very BLUE/RED dominance.  It is, after all, fairly rigorous for a fun weekend that could have been spent in a zoo. I know my constituency -  ambitious RED guys want more money to push their ambitious into the investment and business realm, they are here to improve their own investment models, not to pick a new one up from me. The analytical BLUE guys want the tools to secure their portfolio so they can sleep better or sound more intelligent in their analysis. 

RED wants FIRE to kick ass. BLUE wants FIRE so they can stop their asses from getting kicked by REDs in the office.

If I follow the industry, I think I can make myself 2x richer if I shift my focus to GREENs. Just water down the course and promise a tool to generate a portfolio at the press of a button. Just teach folks how to press the button, then triple the price and focus on legal disclaimers. Focus on motivation, creating a subjective feeling, and engender a ruinous desire for money. Any simple TA strategy will do, the important thing is that you feel good about yourself. 

I know - I can rent a Lambourgini and stop wearing bermuda on weekends replacing it with suspenders and a bow tie. My motto should have been "Shake Leg your way to Retirement". 

Does that sound familiar?

You know what prevents me? 

I'm not a saint, so it's not my conscience. 

What stops me is the fact that my community will then be full of GREENs Jonesing for stock tips every day without really develop the wisdom to disagree with me every now and then. 

It's not a community. It's a cult. It's the reason why you guys hate all these Youtube guru videos. 

If you think about it, what the fuck is the discipline of marketing all about?

Having slogged painfully at my Digital Marketing Certificate, I think that marketing is all about getting  data from GREENs over and over again using cookies, so you can fuck GREENs by making them unhappy and inadequate because they are too lazy to know any better. 

We know that the majority of humankind is bogged down by personal inertia, they are agreeable and naive, why don't we track their movements on the web and hit them when they are most vulnerable? 

Let's show them a sportscar and make them feel bad for not having one!

I actually think it started with Procter & Gamble, where I learnt how to be a loyal employee. How to make housewives envious so they buy detergent. Hence Soap Operas! 

Now bloody copywriters are telling me to tell the angry customer that the reason they fail is that they're not diligent in following my formula. I think this disclaimer works if the customer is GREEN, the argument that they are not diligent will almost be universally true. You did not do enough qualitative research or read 10 years of financial reports, that is why you lose money.

I can't do that because my customers are smart. They know that they may lose money. But their only guarantee is that their trainer is leveraged so he stands to lose more, so he has tried his best.

So, maybe instead of listening to a copywriter ( who probably imbibed the same drivel from the 1990s Internet Marketers ), maybe you can bet on the portfolio customers have built and try to make a living out of that.