Since 2013, we’ve helped thousands of students hone their professional skills through our courses in productivity and personal effectiveness. We’ve seen them gain knowledge, master new skills, and take on new perspectives that have had a profound impact not only on their careers, but on their quality of life.

Now we are kicking things up a notch, with the official launch of Forte Academy, an online school for professional development in the 21st century. We are combining our courses into an integrated curriculum for modern knowledge work. This will allow us to radically improve the student experience, making it more consistent, rigorous, and impactful.

The Opportunity

Technology has reached a critical threshold: many of the most powerful tools available no longer require technical expertise to be used effectively. With the explosion of information available online, anyone with a computer and the willingness to learn can build a website, design a database, make illustrations, publish a blog, or deliver their services remotely to anyone in the world.

To be able to harness these incredible new capabilities, certain skills and knowledge are required: best practices, mental frameworks, daily habits, rules of thumb, tacit skills, and empowering beliefs are just as important as the tools themselves. But this “tacit” knowledge is scarce, confined to a few technology hotspots and exclusive professions. 

Those who know how to effectively consume, organize, interpret, and share their knowledge will be best prepared to take advantage of the unprecedented opportunities opened up by the Internet. The mission of Forte Academy is to democratize access to these skills – to offer the best professional education in the world designed for the modern, connected era. And by doing so, to enable people to unlock their full potential.

Who We Serve

We serve knowledge workers: professionals who manage large volumes of information in their daily work, and use it to produce real-world results. We exist to help these people perform their work more effectively. Our training is designed to empower them to act with confidence and clarity in their work while avoiding information overload, stress, and missed opportunities.

We offer a series of online courses, including Building a Second Brain and Write of Passage, which together make up a curriculum for high-performance knowledge work. Our online programs are supplemented by a variety of other educational formats—books, videos, articles, essays, podcasts, and subscriptions—as well as in-person workshops.

These programs equip knowledge workers with practical skills such as task management, habit formation, knowledge management, goal-setting, and modern writing. And they deliver not just information, but the frameworks, habits, and mindsets to deploy them effectively. We teach these skills alongside technological tools that can be used to amplify and extend them.

How We Teach

Forte Academy is an interactive learning community where people of different ages, backgrounds, and learning styles come together. We believe in a practical, hands-on approach to learning. That the process of learning is iterative and experimental, not simply about memorizing facts.

Our live courses—Building a Second Brain and Write of Passage—are taught in cohorts of students who meet via video-conference at pre-scheduled times. On these live calls, we engage in discussions, ask and answer questions, reframe limiting beliefs, examine case studies, demonstrate tools and techniques, and provide feedback on students’ work. This is not a passive experience—we expect every student to attend, to participate, and to make an active contribution to the learning of the whole group.

You’ll meet your instructors first as teachers, but more importantly, we will be coaches, consultants, designers, and collaborators. As coaches, we keep students accountable for completing concrete projects and provide feedback on the results. As designers, we curate a structured, yet flexible environment where everyone is challenged but also gets the support they need. And as consultants, we advise them on customizing their own learning process. 

Most importantly, we support our students in the big-picture questions that are more important than any individual subject: what matters to them, where they’re going, what they need to get there, and the impact they want to have on the world. Self-paced courses are effective for learning simple tasks, but for transformative learning, students need a community of fellow learners who can provide the accountability to see it through. 

We are taking Forte Academy to the next level next year. We will be expanding our programs, adding staff and support, and continuing to build an educational curriculum designed for modern knowledge work. If you want to be part of the future of professional education, enter your email below and join our community.

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