Weekend Shorts: A More Personal Educational Experience

by Skip Cohen

Everybody has a dream.  We all have goals and aspirations for our business and our family and I'm no exception.  I've been incredibly lucky and always loved my job and my career path, but there's been this haunting dream since I started Hasselblad University over twenty years ago.

I 've wanted to create something better, more personal when it comes to education for photographers. It's not just about gear or computer skills. It's about relationships, networking, business, marketing and diversity. It's about passion and waking up every day and literally running to your computer to see what happened in the world of photography while you were sleeping.  (Yeah, I really do that!)

Over the last few years I've seen a change in the educational programs available for photographers. It's become big business and in the process it got bigger, but not always better.  The line on the home page of SCU really says it all,

So at SCU we've decided to do something radical. We're going to go back to basics. To human handshakes, telephone calls, meetings that happen face-to-face in a room full of people who share a passion for photography.

When we started this concept I got some serious criticism. I was told we shouldn't be doing something like this so close to another convention. It didn't matter that this is an educational resource that goes all year long.

I was told the market already has too many educational programs and didn't need another one, even though so many of them don't meet the needs of the photographers they're trying to attract.  Don't get me wrong, there are some outstanding programs available and I highlight them all the time, but there are also too many that miss the mark.

There is a need for something better in education and with an incredible team of dedicated artists, we're building it and the response has been amazing.  So, to my critics, I've only got one comment and it's my favorite quote...

"I do it because I can, I can because I want to, I want to because you said I couldn't." Author Unknown

On March 8-9 we're going to launch the first SCU program. It's going to be a small group and that's intentional. We've never anticipated much more than fifty people. There's a lot going on in Vegas at that time and we're not interested in standing room only crowds. In fact, we'll NEVER be interested in crowds!  It's simply not who we are.

This is about getting to know each attendee. It's about everybody getting a little extra help from some of the finest instructors in our industry. Most important of all, it's about leaving the program with ideas you can implement and get started on your goal to "Thrive" not just survive.

With an amazing team we're about to take education to a new level in photography and we're going to keep it small, personal and customized as much as possible to each attendee's needs! We've got limited space and when the program is sold out, that's it.

See you in Vegas!

P.S. We did make one update announcement just a few days ago. The Summer Session of SCU in Chicago will be August 11-14. We want to always keep the cost for every program down as much as possible, so attendees of the March program will be able to apply this cost as a discount for August. More coming next week on the August program!

Registration for "Thrive" is just a click away