How Instruction Works

The Conservatory has no fixed curriculum or academic calendar. Each course of study is organized around a real project, with instruction following the interests, experience, and practical needs of those involved. Most arrangements consist of a half-hour meeting every week or two, supplemented by informal questions over telephone or email. During periods of active development, we may meet daily. As projects mature and their operators become more independent, our meetings naturally become less frequent.

The work is wonderfully varied. A social media manager is developing an event management system incorporating memberships, payments, newsletters, contact enrichment, and outreach. A vice president is building a virtual data room for equity partners, an undertaking that has progressed from initial development to almost entirely independent administration. Our fortnightly conversations are now largely a formality, which I consider a rather satisfactory outcome.

But the ambition is always to become progressively less necessary.

Projects in regular service

Several projects have already entered regular service. A mixologist uses a food-logging application of their own construction every day; formal instruction has concluded, though we remain in correspondence and I occasionally look after the server. A people team operates a bespoke resourcing system serving more than a hundred daily users, with roughly thirty online at any given time. We ordinarily meet twice monthly, returning to more frequent collaboration whenever new development is underway.

Another ongoing investigation concerns a financial analyst developing a market intelligence platform. Our conversations involve mathematics, modeling, and the design of systems for collecting and interpreting commercial signals. In this arrangement I suspect I am learning more than I am teaching. Together with other members of the team, we are exploring how to represent a considerable variety of financial observations within a common schema.

Growing independence

My own involvement varies with the circumstances. I occasionally contribute code, perform server maintenance, or help investigate an especially troublesome problem. But the ambition is always to become progressively less necessary. The most satisfying result is a capable practitioner who knows their own instruments, understands their operation, and carries the work forward without much assistance from me.