It baffles me how old and antiquated marketing courses at our local colleges are. In fact, this problem isn’t just for marketing majors but represents a major lag in a world of rapidly expanding technology.

Not one of our three local major colleges have a marketing program that focuses on online or Internet marketing.

Google has a market cap that is larger than the entire auto and airline industry combined. Yet most of our higher education treats Internet marketing as though it doesn’t exist. I can recall a conversation I had with a senior marketing major that went like this:

Josh: That’s great you are doing marketing, do they teach you any online marketing?

Marketing Major: Umm, yeah I think they do some online classes.

Josh: No, I mean do they offer any classes that talk about online marketing?

Marketing Major: I am pretty sure they let people take some marketing classes online.

Josh: Yeah, but in your marketing classes do they teach anything about online marketing?

Marketing Major: Um … (Long pause and blank stare)

Josh: hmmm….

The Internet has reduced all barriers to making money anywhere you live, Google sells 17 character ads and makes billions every month, more people than ever are online and broadband Internet connection is reaching 50% of the country, yet nobody is teaching Internet marketing!

I think something is seriously wrong here.

Could the bigger problem be that nobody teaching these classes even knows what PPC or PPM is? It’s true there is a world that exists outside of the confines of the Internet, but when will the two meet in higher education?

I hear that Stanford offers a class on Facebook. Funny how it’s possible to make inroads in the college just a few miles away from the Internet epicenter in Silicon Valley.

The truth is that the Internet and technology move quicker than school curriculum, and the only way to learn Internet marketing is to jump in and start.

More and more marketing will be geared to the Internet and especially mobile technology. As more Americans are packing more powerful communication devices, marketing will evidently follow. Soon we will all be carrying our very own billboard everywhere we go.