I just got an email from one of my (Netconcepts’) first clients (circa 1995) that he’s now completed his MBA, doing it while still working full-time as a marketing exec. It takes a lot of courage to get an MBA after being in the workforce for several decades. Way to go, Greg!

Lifelong learning is where it’s at. Even if you don’t go back to school, you need to keep developing your brain and your skills.

Once you stop learning, you become a dinosaur, unable to compete in this increasingly complex world. This has never been truer, considering that technology is advancing at an exponentially faster rate.

Simultaneously, technology — such as the Internet and podcasting — is breaking down barriers, making it easier than ever before to access knowledge and information once only available to the priveleged elite. For example, MIT are making publicly available course materials and videos of lectures — for FREE! It’s not just MIT, there are Stanford Graduate School of Business MBA lectures and UC Berkeley lectures too, for example.

If nerdy professors aren’t your cup of tea, then how about business leaders and technology pundits? IT Conversations offers some amazing material, again all for free. Such as talks from Malcolm Gladwell and Tim O’Reilly. And entire conferences such as Web 2.0, PopTech and Accelerating Change, all of which I highly recommend.

The way I make time for learning is by subscribing to podcast feeds of this material and having it download to my iPod. Whenever I work out at the gym or go for a bike ride or drive to the office I’m listening to gurus rather than singers or DJs.