STUDENTS IN MY CLASSES AT BYU KNOW that I’m a big Seth Godin fan. If you don’t subscribe to his blog, you should—even if you’re not into advertising and marketing.

I’ve pasted yesterday’s post from Seth Godin below. I’m committing my students to go through BYU kindly prompting and encouraging every professor they meet to help them make their university experience relevant and powerful. I’ve told them to push me too. I don’t mind.

Pushing Back On Mediocre Professors (by Seth Godin)

College costs a fortune. It takes a lot of time and it takes a lot of money.

When a professor assigns you to send a blogger a list of vague and inane interview questions ("1. How did you get started in this field? 2. What type of training (education) does this field require? 3. What do you like best about your job? 4. what do you like least about your job?") I think you have an obligation to say, “Sir, I’m going to be in debt for ten years because of this degree. Perhaps you could give us an assignment that actually pushes us to solve interesting problems, overcome our fear or learn something that I could learn in no other way...”

When a professor spends hours in class going over concepts that are clearly covered in the textbook, I think you have an obligation to repeat the part about the debt and say, “Perhaps you could assign this as homework and we could have an actual conversation in class...”

When you discover that one class after another has so many people in a giant room watching a tenured professor far far in the distance, perhaps you could mention the debt part to the dean and ask if the class could be on video so you could spend your money on interactions that actually change your life.

The vast majority of email I get from college students is filled with disgust, disdain and frustration at how backwards the system is. Professors who neither read nor write blogs or current books in their field. Professors who rely on marketing textbooks that are advertising-based, despite the fact that virtually no professional marketers build their careers solely around advertising any longer. And most of all, about professors who treat new ideas or innovative ways of teaching with contempt.

“This is costing me a fortune, prof! Push us! Push yourself!”

ARE YOU FOLLOWING Richard Branson’s relentless quest for orbital human spaceflights for the public? His company, Virgin Galactic, got one step closer on Sunday with the successful completion of the first piloted free flight of SpaceShipTwo (named the VSS Enterprise). The spaceship was released from its mothership at an altitude of 45,000 ft and glided to a picture-perfect landing at the company’s Mojave Spaceport.

Over 340 Virgin Galactic astronauts have already reserved their sub-orbital flights at a ticket price of $200,000 each. The first SUB-orbital flights will overlap the Earth’s atmosphere at 70,000 feet, with only a short period of weightlessness.

When the price comes down, are you game?

SO, LET’S SAY YOU HAVE AN $8,000 stereo system in your living room, and a new $4,000 HD flat screen TV. On Thursday nights you spend 30 minutes watching The Office—and that’s about it (maybe a movie on the weekend).

On the other hand, you spend 3 hours a day (over 20 hours a week) on the web using Facebook, watching YouTube, tweeting, listening to music on your tiny computer speakers, etc.

A new integrated media delivery concept called over-the-top-tv is about to change our media consumption habits—and, it isn’t going to take years and years. In my opinion, it will happen fairly quickly, given the powerhouse companies that are on board. Then, as soon as it gains tiny traction, major networks will follow and so will advertisers. Yes, this is pretty huge—and huge for social media marketing.

What do you think?