The Maryland Association of CPAs, in collaboration with partners, vendors and others, has created the Business Learning Institute as a center that facilitates the development and sharing of competencies and strategic knowledge required for leadership in today’s rapidly changing business environment. BLI delivers competency-based curriculum, courses, content and community to enhance learning and grow intellectual capital for organizational and executive leadership.
This statement can best be understood by more closely examining a number of its key elements. A sort of BLI "glossary” follows to help explain this concept.
Collaboration with partners, vendors and customers
Collaboration and co-creation are key in bringing BLI courses and content to market quickly, maintaining fresh course content, providing multiple delivery systems, and diminishing overhead and technology investment. BLI has been designed to be customer-centric, participative and built on an open partnership with our providers.
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| The BLI conference center in Second Life, part of our "click and mortar" strategy. |
Center
Click and mortar, virtual and physical. Classrooms and computer screens are envisioned for BLI. But there is more to the concept of a center. It is an identifiable “place” (which could be virtual -- e.g., Second Life, or a portal), understood as much for the content it provides, the kind of people who are found there and the opportunity it offers.
Facilitating
BLI is not a traditional university or business-training organization. It is an infomediary, enabling customer power by encouraging feedback and pressing for innovation.
Development and sharing of competencies and strategic knowledge
Not only will strategic knowledge come from experts (e.g., “professors”), but from members, customers and partners as well. Community means sharing, and strategic knowledge is distinguished from commodity-like information at the lower end of the professional competency spectrum.
Required for leadership
The CPA Vision is about leadership in a constantly changing business environemt. C-level executives, consultants, counselors and entrepreneurs are the target audience for BLI content. It is not hard to imagine the active participation of political and civic leaders who are eager to understand and embrace the dynamics of the Next Economy.
The Next Economy
The Network Economy, the Internet Economy, the Next Economy -- all are terms that speak to the new body of knowledge, new strategies and fundamentally new dynamics that shape not only our economy but our society. This forms the core of all content found at BLI.
Competency-based curriculum, courses, content
BLI delivers learner-centered knowledge founded on the competencies captured in the CPA Vision and others necessary to lead enterprises. Seat-time is not a driver and certifications are of secondary importance. The words "curriculum" and "courses” speak to a body of knowledge — one of the defining characteristics of a profession. "Content" seeks to embrace the rich variety of ideas and information that we can’t begin to anticipate -- new information in new forms and new functions.
Community
Learning at BLI is not a one-way or even a two-way transaction. It is point-to-point over a growing network of similarly interested professionals who share, learn and do business together. In a community, relationships are key.
Enhance learning and grow intellectual capital
In today’s knowledge economy, intellectual capital is becoming a line item on corporate balance sheets around the world. Yet intellectual capital also “appears” on an individual’s balance sheet -- his or her value to an employer. This critical asset is central to the mission of BLI. At the same time, "learning" is a on-going process, continual, life-long, dynamic.
Organizational and executive leadership
Businesses, governments, non-profit organizations and any other enterprise in search of strategic, executive leadership should value BLI. The competencies of leaders are broader and more diverse than the skills of accounting or other professions. Leadership is what BLI is about.