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Anton Chernikov graduated with a degree in architecture in 2010. But he had a problem… he didn’t want to be an architect.

In just two short years Anton has life hacked his way into a dream career. He is now the founder of two businesses.

Anton is a Founding Partner at GoodPeople, a social enterprise that is redefining how good people connect with each other. 

Signup and join the movement www.goodpeople.co.uk.

He is also the founder of Open Studio, a digital communications agency that helps startups and small businesses with their branding and digital strategy. www.openstudio.so.

Anton’s passion is using design, technology and enterprise to make good things happen. He posts his thoughts and ideas on www.antonsblog.com.

Of all the ‘how to be creative’ advice that I have heard, perhaps the most useful is the one that I have uncovered through my own experience.  It goes a little bit like this…

The first step is to STOP! Stop trying to solve the problem. You are only slowing yourself down. The bitter truth is that you won’t be able to generate anything close to an original idea unless you spend an overwhelming amount of time studying how other people have done it.

The best thing you can do when presented with a brief is to start scavenging the web for any relevant references, related ideas or bits of inspiration that you can find.  No problem or idea ever exists in isolation. Don’t waste your time reinventing the wheel.

Right! Once you have stuffed yourself with all this ‘Internet Mind Candy’ you are free to start thinking for yourself. You can now finally go into brainstorm mode and get all your thoughts down on paper. Just write it all down as fast as you can. Draw it, type it, paint it or post it note yourself to death. I don’t care. Keep going until you have nothing left in the tank…  and then Stop!

Don’t make any decisions. You don’t want to let a good idea stop you from getting a great one.  Just leave it for a while and do something random. Go read a book in some French café. Watch a movie.  Go to a museum. Think about another project. Go where you are not supposed to. Break the rules. Be Spontaneous. Think peculiar thoughts. You can do pretty much anything as long as it is not related to the problem you have just been brainstorming. Got it?

Because…this is where the magic happens.

Your moment of randomness will fuse with your scavenging and brainstorming to create an avalanche of remarkable ideas.

Before you know it everyone is calling you a creative genius.

We know better! :-)

With the cost of education tripling next year it has never been a more important time for students to think deeply about the value of going to university. Imagine yourself 3 years down the line with up to £50k in debt and a piece of paper that is all but useless at finding you a job.

However, in many ways the cost of not going to university is even greater. You are unlikely to have a similar period of uninterrupted study later in your life. You won’t get the experience of being surrounded by people who motivate you to study harder than you would ever be able to alone. We also mustn’t forget the awesome parties and friends that you make along the way. This time is such a crucial part of building a successful career that the alternative of just getting a standard job is not a good one. 

The bottom line is that you still need to get a degree level education.  However, with a few smart Internet tricks and the right attitude I believe that you can save yourself all that debt. 

The first step is to find your wolf pack, which is just a cooler word for study group. Basically you need to find 3 or more students of similar age and interests who are crazy enough to start a Micro University with you. Each member must make a commitment to stick together and fight for each other’s goals. Without this promise everything will fall apart. Just think back to the last time you went to the gym. I bet you trained harder when you went with someone. Maybe you wouldn’t have even gone without the commitment that you made to your friend.

The next step is to write down what you all want to learn and why. Once all the options are on the table you can design a course structure around the key topics. You can set yourselves challenges and goals. You could even invent prizes and rewards for great achievement. There is so much room for creativity here but remember that if you don’t take it seriously no one else will.

It is also very important to find mentors and online/offline learning resources.  The trick is to look in the comments of great articles. Googling will only show you the most obvious or SEO’ed websites. TED.com, seeducation.org, 99percent, MITWorld and dolectures are good places to start. Meetup.com and Lanyrd.com could also help you find conferences and interesting events to go to. 

I expect that the next generation of educational web platforms will connect you directly with mentors and employers who would be able to support and potentially even fund your Micro University.

Admittedly, this ‘self-education’ approach won’t work for every student or every subject. In fact many people will tell you that you are crazy for even thinking about it. However, if you are business minded or entrepreneurial I am here to tell you that this is a great way to stand out from the crowd. Imagine being an employer and reading about how a candidate spent 3 years running his own micro university. Remarkable! You would hire them instantly…

Am I right?

Right so there are two points of view.

1) Capitalism sucks! It leads to pollution, waste, hyper-consumption, global warming and deep inequality. The pursuit of wealth and power is at the heart of all immoral and unjust acts in the world. Power to the People!

2) Capitalism rules! It has given us a quality of life that is unprecedented in human history.  If we don’t reward people for the good work they do, then we would still be stuck in the dark ages.

The thing is I have always been frustrated by these arguments. In my eyes they are both right but also equally wrong. It depends completely on your perspective. Therefore I want to champion a new concept – ‘the evolution of capitalism’.

It’s quite simple really.

On one side you have material wealth that is based on material value such as money, assets, property and all the stuff that we buy. Then on the other side you have social wealth that is based on social value, which is all about happiness, new experiences, relationships, and a sense of belonging and purpose within your community.  In an ideal world we would have a currency that combines both social and material wealth in perfect harmony.

However, this will never happen because unlike material wealth, social wealth is completely subjective and qualitative. You can’t measure or calculate it. There is no magic formula that will let you trade 5 units of happiness for 5 units of community spirit. That’s just ridiculous.

So… What is this great evolution that I am talking about?

Well… it is really a growing awareness that there is an invisible currency floating around that is distorting the world of macro economics. This currency is called social capital. It appears every time you help out a friend, volunteer, or give advice. In fact every time you do something for someone else without getting paid you are unknowingly trading in social currency.

For some this currency means very little. They can’t see it and they don’t care. However, for others the profits can be unbelievable. Have you ever wondered how some people can get things done in double the speed and at half the cost? Well it is because they are trading in social capital. They are trading in favours and the value of their social currency is based on this thing called ‘TRUST’.

If you take and give nothing back you inflate your social currency. If you promise and don’t deliver your social stocks crash because the trust breaks down.

Like I said before. The evolution of capitalism is quite simple. It occurs when we realise that there is a hidden social currency floating around us. All organisations and businesses must learn how to trade with this invisible currency or they will be left behind. 

Imagine a room of education ministers quietly sipping their tea and crunching on their favourite chocolate digestives. They are all pretending that they can’t hear the chaos that the pink elephant is causing in the room next door.  However, no one dares to mention it in case they get the job of ‘cleaning up the mess’.

The truth is we have an enormous pink elephant in the field of education today. This pink elephant is called ‘Employability’ and the mess is evident when we learn that over 1 million young people in the UK are out of work, training or education.  This is not because we have run out of jobs, but rather none of these young people have the right skills to meet the needs of employers.

There is a very obvious conclusion to draw from this. We are teaching our young people the wrong things.

The education system that we have today was designed for a different time. It was conceived in the Industrial Age where emphasis was put on memory and analytical skills.  However, we are now in the Information Age and the skills that are in demand are creativity, leadership, adaptability and teamwork.

It is not about knowing lots of stuff. It is about understanding complex ideas and then knowing where to find the information you need.  It is not about having lots of qualifications. It is about having a passion for learning and self-development. We are teaching our kids how to fit in when the very thing employers are looking for are candidates that stand out.

I could go on… but I think we can all now see the pink elephant in the room. The next step is to figure out what to do about it.

I believe that the first step is to be honest and open about the shortcomings of our education system.  There is too much ‘book learning’ and not enough ‘learning by doing’. There is also too much emphasis being put on exam results and qualifications. When was the last time in the working world that you were asked to take a test in order to negotiate a deal or design a killer product?  The big problem is that there is a ‘disconnect’ between educational institutions and the world of work. They are not speaking the same language and this has to change.

We need to allocate much more lesson time towards nurturing creativity and teamwork. Lessons need to be much more interactive, problem-focused and collaborative. Students need to start taking ownership over their own learning.  

The best way to achieve this is to bring ‘an entrepreneurial spirit’ into the classroom. The ‘hacker; build something in a day’ culture that you find in companies like Facebook and Google needs to be developed in our schools and educational institutions. The teacher’s job is not to tell students what to do or what to think, but rather to encourage the students to explore their own curiosities.

This is what School of Tech is all about. We believe that every graduate should get the opportunity to experience the thrill of a Hack Day. Every young person should not just learn how to use a computer, but also how to do basic programming. 

The next generation needs to become ‘masters of the internet’.  This does not mean spending all day on Facebook. It means learning about how to use social media to find the information and knowledge that you need. It means learning to manage the information that you encounter online and making sure you are on top of your time management.

These are the skills that will turn Britain into a Global Force in innovation and technology. 

I have always been amazed at how many people stand in line without checking whether there is another way in. They end up waiting their whole lives behind a door that will never open.

However, if only they stepped out of the crowd and applied a bit of lateral thinking to the problem they would be through the door and trying to figure out how to get through the next one.

Right… so what am I taking about? (It’s not breaking and entering, although I have always wanted to learn how to pick a lock). I am talking about career opportunities.  I am talking about how to get that lucky break, that foot in the door, that once in a lifetime opportunity that will launch you into the job of your dreams. Ok… maybe I’m exaggerating a little but I definitely think this little tip can help a lot.

The secret is to never ask for a job, but to get the job to come to you. Yep you heard me right. Don’t write a CV. Don’t submit an application. Instead think of a way to start up a conversation with the boss.

Figure out what his/her company or department is looking for. What is he/she struggling with? You can ask the simple question how can I help? Or you can go one better. You can come with a bunch of ideas and suggestions. But don’t fool yourself. You don’t know the business better than the boss. However, you do have an outsider’s perspective on their business and the best leaders love to listen to this stuff.

So you meet with the boss and behave as if you are a trusted member of the team. Offer ideas, suggestions, say that you will do all this work for free because you find it interesting and you believe in what they are doing.  Btw, you actually have to believe it. You can’t fake this.

The trick is to show enough inventiveness, creativity and initiative to keep them interested. Offer enough to get a second meeting, and then a third. You are building a relationship and finding any way possible to add value.  Then, when the time is right, the job offer will come without you ever having to send in an application or go to an interview. After all, you have had 3 or 4 interviews already. They were undercover interviews disguised as a casual meeting.

Now, if you don’t feel you can offer any tangible ideas about their business then another approach is to come up with a related project or business idea and ask for feedback and advice. You just need to find a way to demonstrate initiative, creativity and leadership. If you do this you will be blown away by how generous most successful people are with their time. The best people want to share their knowledge and experiences. They want to give something back.  If you show them that you have a spark and that you are full of enthusiasm, they might just give you a boost up the ladder!