Hack your commute: Brush up your skills

Inspiring ideas to expand your mind on the way to work.

For any professional, training is the joint responsibility of your employer and yourself.

If you’re a chartered marketer, you will be familiar with the annual demands of demonstrating continuing professional development in order to maintain that status. But even if you’re under no formal CPD obligations, that’s no reason not to be on the lookout for new opportunities to learn – whether on company-funded, self-funded or free courses.

There are also now numerous options for learning remotely from your own devices, rather than waiting to be sent on a course at work, so your morning commute could be a good time to take the opportunity to immerse yourself without giving up social or family time.

For example, September sees the next intake on Marketing Week’s CPD-registered Mini MBA in Marketing, taught by Mark Ritson, associate professor at Melbourne Business School and regular columnist on these pages.

The online learning platform can be accessed anywhere you can use the internet, but if you can’t get WiFi and your mobile data tariff won’t allow you to stream the video modules, many of the core readings can be downloaded to read offline.

Other platforms host bitesize specialist courses, such as Dot Native’s digital marketing modules. These consist of short videos, interactive learning exercises, quizzes and knowledge-sharing forums, to name a few formats.

If you’re looking for free training and less commitment, you could check out edX, which hosts a number of quick courses at zero cost, with the option of paying a small sum for a verified certificate at the end.

The platform covers all manner of subjects, but among the marketing courses starting in the coming months are offerings designed by universities such as Arizona State, Edinburgh and Columbia.

Professor Mark Ritson will be teaching the next class on the Marketing Week Mini MBA in Marketing from September 2017. To find out how it could make you a more confident, more effective and more inspired marketer, and to book your place, click here.

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