PILOTed

Jack Chorowsky on Education Publishers and Education

Schools need to increase student learning. Publishers need to sell products. This interview with industry veteran Jack Chorowsky explores the disconnect, and talks about what publishers can do about it.

Jack, what do you do?

I work for a New York investment management firm; we invest largely in public equities across industries. My particular focus is on media, education, and technology. Previously, I worked at Pearson and Kaplan, in general management and product management roles, helping them build out digital products and platforms.

We first met at the IIR Education Industry Investment Forum in March. You were exhibiting some amount of frustration with the presentations of some of the companies.

Yes, people were describing how this product or that product was supposed to drive K12 student performance. But K12 publishers go to market in silos, lacking product integration and a solution oriented view, which should matter if you are focused on results.

For example?

Consider formative assessment. Publishers are focused on their testing content, because it’s what they do. They produce items that have great reliability and validity and are correlated nicely to standards. But ultimately, formative assessment is designed to deliver differentiated instruction. The test makers don’t behave like they understand the problems involved in delivering differentiated instruction.

The test generates a result -- then what? The teacher must figure out how to take those results and actually deliver the right instruction to the right students. That is a very different way of teaching than what they have done before. If we are asking teachers to make this big shift, how are we supporting them? The industry could be doing a lot more.

And how should it be done differently?

I would ask where is their pain, what can you do to alleviate that pain, and then how do you implement most effectively. Publishers are acting like content developers—they are asking what content do we develop, what can we sell—rather than what does the customer need?

I’m not sure that publishers appreciate the importance of integrating formative assessment with robust just-in-time support: the right prescriptive feedback, the right materials for students and teachers, appropriate professional development, all at the moment in time when it’s most needed.

The company that understands this will start breaking down silos to produce a more integrated solution. Professional Development, for example, won’t be treated as a separate product.

Don’t some of the publishers offer that?

They may have the different pieces of the puzzle, but I don’t think they put them together very well in a customer-focused package that helps drive performance in the classroom. One might take the view that differentiated instruction requires a culture change, and that to execute a culture change you need not just the right materials but someone on the ground to help make things happen. For example, in some of the schools that have been most successful in this area you find teachers getting together, comparing notes and brainstorming what to do in their classes. Publishers could ask: how can we promote and support these instructional team activities.  That’s just one idea, but it’s not the way companies are talking about the problem or their solutions.

This sounds more like services rather than products.

Yes, we’re talking about a service component to delivering formative assessment. Maybe you need a services organization. Maybe curriculum, instruction and testing companies offer to put people on the ground if districts buy into their solution at a certain level.

Here’s the problem: the publisher sells a product to the district. Then the district dumps it on their teachers. What resources and assistance do the teachers and the principals have to make it successful? Unless there is a solution to that problem, unless teachers have a way to buy into the differentiated instruction approach, you’re not going to get widespread implementation, and you’re not going to get results.

But, what is the likelihood of having money for those resources?

Districts have money for Professional Development; they pay for PD now. I know this is a finite funding stream, but there must be a way.

How can you do it in a way they can afford?

The services commitment doesn’t have to be so substantial that it breaks the bank. You could imagine a publisher-sponsored master teacher coaching an instructional team once a month. That could be affordable.

Or, maybe they could partner with PD or services firms who do that well already.

One way to phrase this to publishers is to make them see that a services component could facilitate the sale of formative assessment?

Right – we’re talking about a solution sale here.

My world view has been shaped by a consulting project in which I participated years ago; the project looked at schools that were achieving success with differentiated instruction. The study found that the big publishers were not the ones whose formative assessment products generated the best results. Successful implementations tended to be home grown; schools were developing their own tests in-house or were working closely with vendors on custom projects. Why? Because the link between tests and curriculum was tight and right, there was much more buy-in from all concerned, and they were more focused on implementation: on changing the teaching culture, on giving teachers the time, resources, and support to take assessment results and make them actionable.

Publishers need to understand, it is their job to deliver results; they have to know what moves the needle in the classroom. If there is a strong belief that differentiated instruction makes a difference, publishers need to figure out how to make that strategy a success. The data says that where it is well implemented it can be.

You’re saying that curriculum, assessment, PD, and support should all be linked.

Absolutely. Teachers don’t care about product categories. They just have needs and objectives.

It all comes back to customer focus. If you sat down with a product manager for paper towels for P&G, you could ask her a question about how people use paper towels, and she knows everything about what they wipe up, how they are used, how they are bought, etc. If you asked a publisher what they know about how their formative assessment products are used in the classroom, I bet their knowledge of teachers is not nearly as good as P&G’s knowledge of the Bounty customer. Why? It’s not that the data and understandings are not available; it’s because of the mindset.

I don’t know how much P&G spends on market research and related R&D for Bounty, but I’m sure that it’s a sizeable number. Now what happens in educational publishing? In a publisher with thousands of employees, how many are dedicated full-time to understanding how their products are used in the classroom? I bet that number is very small – in the single digits.

The level of investment in this function is simply not commensurate with its importance. You can only help teachers if you really understand them and what’s happening on the ground.

What is going to drive improvement?

If the question is how can the industry drive improvement, I’d say a renewed, more expansive, more creative focus on what works and how education companies can partner with schools to generate results. For example, I’d be looking at successful school reform organizations. KIPP is moving the needle, as are Achievement First and Uncommon Schools. If I were a publisher or a services provider, I’d be wondering whether I could learn something valuable from the experience of these organizations in challenging districts. What are they doing on the ground? Are there take-aways for my publishing program, or my approach to service delivery? Isn’t this worth exploring?

Kaplan is also nipping at the heels of the publishers in a handful of districts. And we are beginning to see an increasing focus on open source content models. Education doesn’t move fast, but anyone who believes they can sit back and continue collecting their checks is going to be surprised over the next 5-10 years.

Lou Gerstner changed IBM from a computer manufacturer into a solution provide. It was a painful process, but now IBM is thriving. If IBM can do it, maybe we'll see similar changes from the educational publishing industry.

Thanks, Jack.

Mindgames

This issue of PILOTed is about how the mind works in mysterious ways.

The first example comes from a 6 minute video on subliminal messages. It is well worth spending the time to look at the video, before reading on. In fact, the other Derren Brown videos are fascinating as well, for example, How to take someone's wallet, just by asking.

As a summary of the subliminal messages video, two advertising executives, on their way to a meeting, were exposed to the entrance to a zoo, various images of angel’s wings and harps, and a picture of a bear. They were then asked to develop an ad campaign, and lo and behold, the campaign incorporated all of the images that they’d seen on the way to the meeting.

It is tremendously powerful. If you can scaffold the right images into a student’s experience, can you better prepare the student to learn? How could this be incorporated into learning materials?

This link came from Stephen Downes’s OLDaily.

The second example is around Amy Sutherland, who originally published a column in the NY Times about how she learned how to train her husband by watching animal trainers. This also came from Stephen Downes’s OLDaily. Successful animal trainers respond to and reward behaviors that they want, and ignore behaviors that they do not want. The theory is that behavior that elicits a response is behavior that gets repeated; even negative feedback can serve to reinforce a behavior. When a subject does something wrong, you apply least reinforcing syndrome (LRS), or show no response. She has expanded these topics in a book, What Shamu Taught me About Life, Love, and Marriage.

Of course, first she had to understand what her husband liked. She also had to understand that she needed something for him to do; you don’t train animals not to do something, you train them to do something else instead. And, she had to understand that you cannot build a new behavior in just one step, she had to figure out what actions meant progress.

Sutherland used to nag her husband. Now she ignores him when he is performing in ways that she disagrees with, and rewards him when he acts in ways that agree with her.

I wonder about the application of this in schools. Obviously, when you are dealing with a classroom of students, there are a whole raft of negative behaviors that a teacher cannot just ignore. But, what about in eLearning? Is there a way that we can better motivate students and provide more positive feedback? Are there ways that eLearning can find positives even in wrong answers?

Could someone mention to my wife that positive feedback is even possible? I’m sorry, what I meant to say is, “thank you dear for all your attempts to communicate with me, even when I’ve been distracted.”

The third example comes from a WNYC Radiolab podcast on deception. This podcast takes about an hour, and there are four parts. The first deals with a snake capable of lying. The second is a story about a person who has defrauded dozens of people, and the experiences of those who know her. The third explains how the brains of pathological liars—those who seem compelled to tell lies—are different from those of the rest of us; they have more highly developed connections or white matter in the pre-frontal cortex regions of their brains.

It’s the fourth segment that is more applicable to education. This segment focuses on the times we deceive ourselves. It seems that people who are better at deceiving themselves are more productive and effective and are happier than those who have a more accurate view of reality. Some swimmers, for example, are able to believe that they are unbeatable every time they race. Even when they start out a season doing the same times as others, the ones who have deceived themselves into the belief that they cannot be beaten end up with faster times.

Can we help student learn to think about themselves and the world in a way that helps them succeed? Perhaps they don’t need to really deceive themselves in order to reach peak performance, perhaps they just have to choose a point of view that spurs them toward success.

One current rage is the book and video, The Secret. The secret to The Secret is the law of attraction: that which we think about, happens. A more scientifically based exposition of this general philosophy can be found in Carol Dweck’s book, The New Psychology of Success. If we can inculcate students with the growth mindset as Dweck terms it, can we help them achieve more?

Can this be embedded in our teaching materials? Can schools deploy it?

Derren Brown creates an entertaining video and shows how one can employ subtle messaging, messaging that isn’t even consciously seen, in order to influence behavior. Amy Sutherland uses animal training techniques, specifically positive reinforcement and least reinforcing syndrome to pattern desired behaviors in her family. Two psychologists are out at a bar one night and come up with a way to test whether people are prone to deceiving themselves, and then other psychologists apply that test to determine that those who are capable of deceiving themselves are also capable of higher levels of achievement and happiness.

Here are three techniques with the capability to change student performance that were not designed with education in mind.

Young Adults Making a Difference

Our family is very proud of our niece, Eve. She graduated with a Masters of Education from Quinnipiac college last May. Since she did not have a teaching job lined up, she and a friend decided to travel. But, instead of just joy traveling, they made a difference. They worked at an AIDS orphanage in Cambodia. Below is her tale, in her own words, from four emails. I’ve left the misspellings, but remember that she only had 15 minutes or so on a PC to get these written and sent.

Here is her first email, in mid-January, 2008:

Hello everyone!!!

I am so sorry it took me so long to write. I am in heaven and would love to reside in Cambodia. Ok since I have been here tons has gone on. I came to Phnom Penh thinking I was going to spend 3 days. I am now on my third week. I am heavly involved in two orphanages. I have rasied close to one hundread dollars for one orphange. I went out with my Cambodia friends and bought 60 lbs of rice and dried fish. Its enough food for 2 months. It was amazing to bring it over and see how greatful all the children were. I have been teaching in both orphanages as well. The orphanage with all HIV/AIDS children has VERY little resources and support so the kids speak little English. I am finding it incrediable that I am still able to teach and they are picking up on many things. I have gone a couple times with a Cambodian friend who helps translate. Tommow I am bringing about 10 kids to my guest house to show traditional dancng to raise money. I have never felt so happy and in place in my life. I have become attached to every single child and I don't know if I can leave. I really have found my nitch. The kids here are unlike any kids I have ever come in contact with. I have also become close with the street kids who gfo around selling books. I teach mini lessons to them in the evening. The kids LOVE to learn. I feel like a part of the community. I am currently staying for free at my guest house because I am working there. The free accomadations means living like the Cambodians. A hose is used to shower. I have a little colony of bed bugs sleeping with me and Amanda and I share a wooden plank as a bed.

Yesterday I went with two Cambodian friends I work with to this island where all the local families go. I am seeing things tourists never see. I am just in love with EVERYTHING! I know this sounds crazy but i am contemplating extending my visa. The guy in charge of the orphanage said he would do it for me since I am volunteering there. He really wants me to stay and teach. Everything is wonderful. I miss you all and love to everyone!!! I will write again when I have a minute! XXX

ps sorry i did not proof read...i know gramma my spelling is awful!

Here is her second email a week later, asking close relatives for help.

I know I just wrote an update but I just met with the director and asked about field trips. The director was thrilled and said the kids barely ever make it out of the orphanage. I have raised enough money to buy a good amount of food, clothes and some activities. My next move is to take the kids on field trips. I would like to go once a week to a different place. I am volunteering at two orphanages, in all 53 kids. The field trips cost money. This is where you come in.

Just 6 months ago 25 children were sharing one packet of ramen noodles per meal; one bite per child. The children have come a long way and are now properally fed, medicated and clothed/

Now that I am here, I want to try to raise some funds from outside sources so these children can experience activities and trips outside the orphanage , If any of you are interested in donating or want more information please forward this e-mail to whomever. Any money donated will go directly to the trips and activities I have arranged.. I want to leave here knowing that others, like yourself, understand the struggles of this life and are prepared to help in any way possible. I have also been offered a teaching job. I am going tonight to co-teach with the manager of the orphanage. I am looking in to buying some teaching materials from this school to donate to the orphanage since the children with HIV/AIDS do not get proper schooling. Thanks so much for your support. If you are interested I will tell you how to wire money in to my account. Now I am here I am able to directly deal with the money I raise and spend it how I believe it should be spent! Love u all!

Then, a week later, she and her friend expanded the list of people they asked for help.

Hello

For those of you who do not know, I am currently in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. I stumbled across an orphanage a month ago and immediately fell in love. The orphanage was in a lot of trouble when I arrived. The children were barely surviving. I, along with a couple other people, are doing everything and anything to stabalize this orphanage. I wrote a little story about a very special man who devotes his entire life to the children. If you have already donated this will allow you to see where the money has gone. Your money has helped change the lives of 21 beautiful children. For those who would like to donate this story will inform you of the costs to keep the orphanage running. Thank you so much from all of our hearts! Pictures are soon to come!

Mr. Lee Sary, Tuk Tuk driver by night, superhero by day. He starts his morning at 5 am. Mr.Sary drives his Tuk Tuk to NOC (New Orphanage Center). He is greeted by two women, volunteers, who devote everyday and night to the orphanage. Mr. Sary, Mom and Nanny dress, feed, bathe, and medicate 21 children before they are off to school. At 6:30, Mr. Sary must take multiple trips in his Tuk Tuk to transport the children to school, where they attend school. Meanwhile Mom and Nanny prepare rice ($20, 55 kilos, for 3 days) necessary for the day. 21 blouses, trousers, and underwear must be washed in preparation for the next day. The three devoted souls are hard at work while the children are off learning. 11:00 rolls around and the children need to be picked up from school. A tank of gas($30/month) and an hour of transportation time later the children return to NOC. From 11 to 5pm travelers passing through are encouraged to stop by to play with the children. 5pm comes and the children sit down for dinner. Rice, dried fish ($), and sometimes vegetables($5/day) are served. The children, all infected with HIV/AIDS, must then receive their medication. The time, 7pm, Mr. Lee Sary must say goodbye. He is off to work for the night to earn money to support his family and the orphanage.In the little free time Mr.Sary has the electricity, ($30/month) water bill ($45/month)and rent ($160/month) are paid. Three dedicated strong individuals keep these children alive receiving no monetary compensation.

This is just one day in a set of many. Depending on the donations for the week, this story may vary but the volunteers remain the one constant. They see the light from within the children's eyes, soak in their laughs and absorb their vibrant spirits, this is their payment. Mr. Sary has many responsibilities and can sometimes feel overwhelmed. Rent, electricity and water are vital for the success of NOC and donations and the kindness of others provides that stability; one less concern for Mr. Sary. If you would like to help keep this organization going please contact me through email and I will inform you how.

The two raised almost $1,000 over about a month. Here is what they were able to accomplish.

First off, we would like to thank you for donating you time/money to this needy cause. Many things have happened thanks to your kindness and generosity. Your money has been used to support the orphanage for the last 7 weeks. Thankfully, there is help on the way; grants are being applied for and a new formation of staff and principles is being put together to save this orphanage. Listed below are just some of the things we have done.

The Essentials: For the last seven weeks, we have been providing food and healthy drinking water for the children, paying the electric, rent and other various utilities that make the orphanage run. While the government provides basic health care for the children all extra complications that come along with HIV are not covered. Your money has been also used to buy the medication that is considered a luxury for them on a normal basis.

Mekong River Field Trip: All 21 children were able to go out for the day on a boat tour of the Mekong River to Mekong Beach for a wonderful day with some new beach toys.

New Clothes: The children each received 2 brand new outfits including hair ties, jackets, socks, underwear, pants and dresses.

New Watches: The children are able to have their own watches, something that may seem small, but it has made a significant difference.

Washing Machine: A brand new washing machine was bought and installed with enough washing powder to last for a few months. This will free up a lot of time for the volunteer nanny and cook to do other things.

New Toys: Coloring materials, dolls, cars, electronic cars ect.

   

Artwork: The children, many of whom are excellent   artists, were able to decorate the first level with Chinese New Years dragons.   Paper and supplies were all through your donations.

Sewing Machine: A brand new sewing machine was bought for both the nannies and older children to learn to repair their torn items and to create new ones. Another way to self sustain the orphanage. In addition to this, multiple yards of fabric were bought to get the projects started.

Appreciation Gifts to Volunteers: As an appreciation to those who work the hardest at NOC but are purely volunteers, necklaces were bought to show the women that good deeds don't go unnoticed.

   

Pizza/Amusement Park Field Trip: All 21 children   went out for pizza on the Riverside and then to the amusement park where they   were able to ride roller coasters, Ferris wheels and jump in a bouncy castle   for hours.

Tee Shirts: With the help of your money, we were able to design and produce 130 tee shirts with the children's artwork on them. Selling for 5 dollars, 100% of the proceeds have gone to the children.

Conclusions

 

And now, Eve's coming back to the US to look for a teaching job. She spent almost 3 months in Cambodia, raised about $1,000, and changed people’s lives.

All of us often forget how lucky we are to live the lifestyles we live. Wouldn’t it be great if everyone could use their blessings and make the kind of impact that Eve and her friend did?

 

Learning to Speak English in Second Life with SRI

Innovation seems to be the hot topic of the moment. Countries have to innovate, or their populations are doomed to a lower economic status. Companies have to innovate or die. Education has to innovate to propagate educated workers and citizens that can compete in a flat world.

SRI has been innovating for 60 years. Curt Carlson, President and CEO, has written a book (well worth reading) on innovation (Innovation, The Five Disciplines for Creating What Customers Want) and he will be the keynote speaker at the SIIA’s Ed Tech Industry Summit on May 18 in San Francisco.

Recently, I had the opportunity to talk with Valerie Crawford and John Brecht of SRI’s Center for Technology in Learning. They provided me with a preview of a really cool new technology, and also with great background information on what SRI does and how it works.

The technology was built around voice recognition software developed at SRI and is designed to support building fluency in English, through either formal or informal learning approaches. What was most cool was that the software worked with Second Life (SL). Second Life is a three dimensional world where visitors can travel, interact with each other, learn, build stuff, take classes, buy things, conduct meetings, etc. Once logged into SL, using SRI’s technology, students interact in social situations through speaking. The SRI software not only conveys the meaning into the Second Life world, it responds and also provides feedback about how well their speech compares with native speakers’. In SRI’s SL-based environment, users can engage in game-like activities, talking through a microphone and listening to responses. This allows them to practice and assess their English-language fluency, comprehension, and pronunciation, all with speech recognition technology. 

The core software for the speech recognition technology was originally designed for the exact opposite function. The software was originally written so that the computer would allow for errors in speaking, but would still recognize what the person was saying, a forgiving speech recognition system. In order for this to work, the developers had to understand the differences between how a native speaker would speak and how a non-native speaker would speak. The software has to select meaning from different possible interpretations.

The education application uses those same capabilities, but with the opposite purpose. It compares the user’s speech to an optimal voice pattern, scores the results, and provides feedback and possibly remediation to the speaker. For example, take the pronunciation of the letter “t,” which has different sounds depending on the context (wrestle, put, better, vacation, these, thing). One type of error would be to use a wrong but valid “t” sound in a word. A different error is to pronounce a “t” like a “d” or “z”. (My mother-in-law is Hungarian, so I always know when “ze dinner is on ze table.”) For each context, there must be trapping sequences for common speech errors.

A second hurdle involves interfacing the technology with SL.

Second Life has an API for developers wanting to create new applications. You would think it would be a quick leap to interface the speech engine with Second Life. But, the licensing agreement calls for Linden Labs to have unrestricted use of all intellectual property in SL. In order not to lose the IP, SRI had to put the speech recognition and all software architecture for the system outside of Second Life, without diminishing the user’s SL experience.

They were able to accomplish this through a combination of client software (on the user’s machine) and server software at SRI. Oversimplifying a little, the client software captures what the user is saying and communicates data over the Internet with the SRI server. SRI has also integrated into the SL environment to capture information about avatars’ actions in SL, and then communicate actions back to SL.

One vision is to develop this into a SL resort island. Visitors would have the ability to practice and self assess their language skills in a risk-free setting, and learning experts acknowledge that language use in context is the best way to build language skills, and a lot more fun than memorizing conjugations and verb tenses.

For example, visitors might go to a bar and ask for a drink. The bartender avatar might respond, “I think you asked for a drink, but your pronunciation needs a little practice.” They may be given a language improvement mission to complete before they get the drink. When they come back to ask again, if they still need practice, the bartender might respond, “Yes, I understood you, you want a drink. You still need some practice on pronunciation. If you want a glass of water I can give you some now, but if you want something more upscale, first go to the language gym to work on your letter ‘R.’”

As Valerie made clear, the speech recognition technology that interfaces with SL is not a stand-alone product. The CTL group of SRI does not create products but rather focuses on innovating new learning technologies, designs, and resources. They perform five different types of services, generally in the disciplines of math, sciences, and language.

1. They develop assessments of student learning (devising and deploying instruments to assess different cognitive skills)

2. They evaluate methods or products to determine their effectiveness in cognitive, information, or skill transfer

3. They research and study different methods that try to improve teacher effectiveness, specifically looking at how teachers learn complex forms of pedagogy. In fact, they host one of the longest running online social networks: Tapped-In (tappedin.org)

4. They develop technologies that can become the basis of products (creating feasibility demonstrations, and then partnering with others who will produce and sell the product). Once a technology is developed, they may also help specify an infrastructure that will allow the technology or products to scale.

5. They      provide consulting to commercial firms to leverage existing and new      research to inform product design and product strategy, to lower      innovation risk and enhance product effectiveness and traction.

The SL/Speech Recognition technology falls into the first part of the fourth service, technology development. To actually take this technology and turn in into a product that people can buy may still take $1–2 million and 9–18 months. That is where SRI looks for partners.

A partner can be a joint development effort, technology can be purchased, it can be licensed, or there can be royalty arrangement.

So what can we learn from SRI?

First, SRI may have a technology that you can use to create a business. SRI has a lot of different IP that can be applied to education, and they are looking for partners to commercialize the technology into products.

Second, successful innovation requires overcoming a number of different hurdles. CTL started with an existing voice recognition software, developed years ago at SRI’s Speech Technology Lab. There are a slew of complexities in figuring out how to best leverage this technology for learning in the current and near-future learning technology market, through integrating it with learning environments, such as Second Life and mobile devices. Creating successful products almost always takes substantially more resources than expected; plan to have the people and resources to continue moving forward even when obstacles slow you down.

Third, interesting ideas often come from where you least expect them. When developing a forgiving voice recognition application, who could have predicted that the product might also be used to grade the quality of speech of English language learners?

A Vision for Professional Development in Education

The Professional Development – Teaching Connection

At FETC this past week, I had a great discussion about education with Don Hall, CIO of the Muskogee County School District in Columbus Georgia, and Cory Linton, Executive Vice President of School Improvement Network.

We had just attended a focus group on School Improvement Network that was put together by the BLE group. School Improvement Network is a client of ours. Their fastest growing service is PD360, on demand online professional development based on The Video Journal of Education’s 17 years of publishing 8–12 PD videos a year. Don had been a member of the focus group, and the three of us just got into a discussion on our vision of how PD should fit within comprehensive education framework.

Don led our talk, and most of these ideas come from his vision. Don started out describing the following diagram of how good instructional material works with teachers, students, and classrooms.

A teacher looks at a student, and can start at any of three different places. She can look at what he needs to learn, or learning standards. She can start by using specific resources or methods to teach him what she believes he should learn next. Or, she can employ an assessment to find out what he knows, and what he has yet to learn. As an industry, we’re starting to do a good job of integrating those three, assessments are starting to point out what learning standards have and have not been achieved, while also pointing to learning resources that will help the student achieve the next step. Learning resources are being linked to specific learning objectives, with the goal of then fitting in with the way the students will be assessed.

The other side of the issue is to ensure that the teacher has the knowledge and skills to be able to use the standards, resources, and assessments to achieve superior results. Existing development plans and support resources include district wide professional development, coaching, and learning communities.

But the idea of integrating the specific information a teacher needs, at the time she needs it, in the way that she is most receptive to learning, is the next step and is illustrated by the diagram below.

How might this work?

Let’s say a new teacher, who has been schooled in the ideal world of classroom teaching, confronts her first real life hurdle. Wouldn’t it be great if she could pull up a resource that would tell her about different ways to handle the hurdle? And then, what if she could watch an exceptional teacher actually employ one of those solutions in a classroom? And then, if she wanted, learn why that method works?

Historically, the teacher would go ask the teacher next door for advice. But, as Don pointed out, couldn’t this be the continual perpetuation of bad teaching practices?

The ideal situation would be, for all teachers, to have experts available to describe what to do, show how to do it, and explain how to do it, right when they need it most, and tied to the learning standards, instructional resources, and assessments that they use every day. This diagram might look like this:

A teacher would thus be able to obtain the information about the standards each student needed to achieve, what he needed to learn, and would be able to skillfully use the available resources to fashion an appropriate intervention in an effective manner at the right time.

Wouldn’t that be great?

If you want to continue the discussion, Don Hall is at the Muscogee County School district, http://www.mcsdga.net. Cory Linton can talk more about how School Improvement Network is working with publishers, education experts, and school districts, and can be reached via http://www.schoolimprovement.com, or we welcome comments to these articles at http://academicbiz.typepad.com.

Merry Christmas from UPS

We are all set to go on a family vacation in Thailand. My son leaves his passport at college. A friend of his offers to drop it off here on her way home, but once on the way, decides that she is too tired and that she will just send it overnight delivery the next day.

On Monday, she goes to a UPS store and has the passport sent to us overnight air. Next day delivery. Guaranteed. So begins a UPS nightmare.

It was sent on Monday. We leave the following Monday. On Wednesday, the UPS tracking number shows nothing and the customer service people at UPS say that they do not provide information to anyone who uses a UPS store to ship, they will give information directly to the store, but to no one else. That is an interesting piece of information, isn’t it? If you use a UPS store, you forfeit your ability to get information on a package shipped via UPS. And, in case you were thinking that is just one person, during our three days of “customer service,” there were four UPS customer service reps and/or supervisors who told us the same thing. But, there were another 17 UPS people who made no mention of that policy as they talked to us about the package.

On Thursday, the UPS website shows that UPS mis-scanned the package, and it is being re-routed. When we call, we are told that it will be delivered sometime on Monday. So, question 2, if an item is shipped overnight air, and it is discovered that UPS misrouted it, why does it take an additional four days to reroute it? It’s already in the system, it is marked as next day delivery, why not just deliver it the next day?

Needless to say, if we need to be at the airport at 9:30 in the morning, it does us no good at all for the passport to be delivered to our house sometime on Monday.

So we call, and we are told that it will be delivered on Friday, not Monday.

Starting on Friday morning, we start calling. On the first series of conversations (2 people) we are told that someone will call us back in an hour. No one called.

On the second series of conversations (2 people again) we are told that the package is in NYC, and that if we call NY, we can pick it up. They admit that this is a UPS problem, “sometimes packages just get scanned wrong.”

We call the number in NY and get “Wilma” on the phone. She tells us that UPS customer service people are always telling people that they can pick up their packages in NY, but that she can see that the package is not, if fact, in NY, and that it is scheduled for Monday delivery. It is “in transit” which means that it is on some truck, but no one knows what truck or where the truck is going.

Next call, we talk to a service rep, then a supervisor, who both tell us that the UPS policy is that they do not help people who ship through UPS stores, and they will only deal with the store. But, we talk to the manager, who says that he has traced the package and it is now in NYC, scheduled for a Monday delivery. He used to work in the NY office, knows the people and he will find out how we can pick it up and will call us back in an hour. He even gave us his direct number. Two hours later, no call, no manager. There is a voice mail box with his name, and there are instructions at the mailbox to reach someone else, but that number just results in a general voice mailbox. Left a message in each mailbox, but no callbacks. Is there really a David Alverado, or is it just a phantom voice mail?

Another call, and we ask to speak to a manager. While on hold, we go back online to check the status, and notice that the delivery date was just changed from Friday delivery to Monday delivery. The person reports back that the package has been re-marked. Because there are so many late deliveries for our area, they have all been pushed up, and it, along with all the other packages, will be delivered on Saturday. But we tell her we just looked online and that in the last hour it has been marked for Monday delivery. We get put on hold again.

She returns to the line and says she has talked to people in the Bronx and in NYC. The package is in the Bronx. She has had it marked, and we can get to the UPS building at 9 in the morning and it will be waiting for us.

First thing in the morning, I check online. The package was scanned in at the NYC office at 5:23 in the morning and was put “in transit” for Monday delivery. Oh, I guess Wilma, Jeanette and Lynn were all wrong. It had been in NY. But not anymore.

Hoping, against hope. We get to UPS at 8:30. It’s open. There are two people ahead of us. Both were told to pick up their packages at this facility. Neither leave with their packages. Our person tells us that the package is either in a truck, in a trailer, in the NY office, in that office, or in the other Bronx office. But that they have no way of finding out, and it is scheduled for a Monday delivery, but no specific time.

While we are waiting for the manager, we are talking with two of the UPS employees. We ask them what they do when they ship. They shrug and say that they use Fed Ex or DHL. Interesting.

We talk with the manager. About 45 minutes later he comes back. It was placed on a truck in NYC at 5:23 in the morning bound for this facility. There was only one truck that came from NY, and it is in the yard. They do not unpack trucks on Saturdays. He does not have the key. The only person with a key went out to lunch. Do we want to wait? Yes.

So, here is the next question, actually two. The rep from the previous night told us that all shipments in our area were going to be delivered on Saturday. This is the warehouse that all shipments come from. The warehouse is closed except for a few people trying to find packages for customers. Where did she get the information that all shipments were going to be delivered on Saturday? And, if it was the heaviest time for deliveries, and so many packages were late, why wasn’t the warehouse open and trucks being loaded up for Saturday deliveries?

An hour later the manager comes back. They are “pretty sure” that the package is in a specific trailer. The trailer is over 70 feet long, 12 feet wide, and about 12 feet high. It is completely packed with packages. He has opened the trailer, crawled in as far as he could, but there is no way they can unload it. He has talked with the facility manager, who is home. If we can come to the facility at 4:00 Monday morning, we can be there while they unpack the trailer. If it is on the trailer and they spot it before it goes on the conveyer system, we can have it. If not, there is nothing more they can do. And we have no backup plan for my son going with us to Thailand.

Oh, and they advised that we should file a claim so we are not billed for delivery. That’s their recompense for spending 4 hours on the phone, 3 hours at their facility, not getting the delivery in any reasonable amount of time, taking an extra trip to the Bronx at 4:00 in the morning, and having our family vacation disrupted: here’s $18.00, Merry Christmas.

On the way out, one of the UPS people we’d talked to waves us over. “Do you want to know why the managers are here today?” he asks. “It turns out that a truck from NY was supposed to go to Philadelphia. It was filled with next day air packages. The driver came here and left the trailer of packages here in the Bronx. They don’t know what to do. Christmas is Tuesday. There is no truck, no truck driver, just the trailer. None of those packages are going to be delivered until Wednesday at the earliest.” Maybe that is why he uses Fed Ex or DHL.

You should visit a UPS facility and see how disorganized they are; how many times they have to tell customers they do not know when a package will be delivered, or even where it is. You should hear the people at the UPS offices talk about how their customer service people give mis-information to customers on the phone.

We have talked to 21 different people at UPS to try to find the package. None of them could figure out where our package was. Once something goes wrong with a shipment, UPS does not have the systems to find out where a package is or to reroute it. Fed Ex does.

I know that most shipments get through on time. I know that UPS is usually less expensive than Fed Ex.

But now, every time I hear the tagline, “What can brown do for you?” I really hear “What can brown screw up for you.” Every time I see the initials UPS, I think, “Pronounce that Oops.”

Well, hopefully, this time someone did guess correctly where the package was, and we get the passport, and we all get to go to Thailand.

8 Questions for Stan Collender

Early this month, at the AESA conference in Tampa, Florida, I heard Stan Collender speak. Stan made the US budget seem interesting and relevant to all of us in education. It was scary.

Stan has been called “the one-stop shopping center for budget-process analysis,” and amazingly, he follows the federal budget as a hobby. While he writes for The National Journal, and is often used as an expert by practically every large news organization, Stan is Managing Director at the DC office of Qorvis, one of the leading PR firms in the nation, www.qorvis.com.

My conclusions from listening to Stan’s presentation and talking with him on the phone:

• Don’t look for any new education initiatives to be funded in this coming election year.

• Expect that there will be no agreement on any education bills that need reauthorization this year.

• Look for moderate decreases in federal funding for education over the following year or two, no matter who wins the election or how much they say that education matters.

• Find ways to motivate parents to talk to and visit the local offices of their senators and representatives; it’s the best hope for education funding to improve our education system.

Stan, you gave a great talk at the AESA conference, why educators should care about the federal budget, and how it is likely that funding is going to be reduced. Can we start out by you giving us 4 reasons why the federal government is likely to decrease the amount they spend for education over the next three years?

Deficit: the deficit is rising, there aren’t too many places to look for saving; education is always an area that gets looked at for savings.

Other needs being perceived as higher priority: military, Iraq, Afghanistan, veteran’s health, energy. When you have troops being fired at, that takes about the highest priority.

Inertia: it is possible that in the 2008 elections that there will be a big enough Democratic win that Republicans can’t filibuster, but it is likely not enough to be big enough to stop filibusters. It is more likely that Republicans will have enough to filibuster, which will continue the lack of movement we are seeing today.

Economic slowdown: related to the deficit. If there is an economic slowdown, and congress needs a stimulus package, money for education does not provide immediate stimulus, like a tax cut, or a job bill.

Are there any countervailing arguments that the federal government might increase funding?

The big one is a Democratic takeover in 2008. There may be push from a Democratic White House for more dollars. But, Democrats can push back on an increase for education because they can get away with it more than Republicans can.

Currently the federal government is spending about 9% of total K12 education expenditures, a total of about $38 billion. Historically, it’s been somewhat between 4 and 6 percent. What do you think this 9% will be reduced to?

A flat percentage doesn’t relate to the need, and it doesn’t say where the money is going.

Why is education such a political football? Everyone has been educated. No one wants to see the US fall down on education. Business is a big proponent of education. But relative to everything else it is easiest to cut; education is 1/5 of everything in the budget after entitlements and military.

I’ve heard the president say that the budget deficit will be eliminated by 2011, why can’t we just continue doing what we are doing until then?

The deficit will not be eliminated by 2012 and President Bush won’t care because he won’t be in office anyhow. He won’t be around to see it. Even if he is right, the national debt is the real problem, it reached $9 trillion for the first time; interest payments are hitting records, and that puts pressure on all other spending, particularly education.

That statement about the budget being eliminated is just wrong. It is already going up. The statement is based on assumptions that are not true; none of the assumptions are based on us having a presence in Iraq. That’s about $250 billion a year to fight the war. And the president is saying there is likely to be a permanent presence in Iraq, that’s going to be around $10 billion a year.

One more example, this assumes that there is no fix to the AMT tax (Alternative Minimum Tax). After this year, it will be fixed, because 30 million Americans will be affected and they are going to demand that it be fixed. That’s another $50-60 billion a year.

Those are just two of many examples.

All politicians say they value education, but you’ve made the case that, despite all trends pointing to US education lagging other nations, they will be reducing, not increasing spending. Are they lying?

Value education relative to what? In a perfect world with unlimited resources they would be spending a whole lot more than they are now. But this is an imperfect world and always will be.

Educators and companies in education are not making the type of money that financial, pharmaceutical, defense, and telecom companies are, so they don’t have the resources to influence politicians the same way. What can they do, and how effective can they be in advocating for education?

It’s not the educators; it’s the parents. Parents are the best grass roots in the world; every district has kids in school. Get the parents out. They cannot match the lobbying dollars, they need to use their votes. The problem is that they do not take advantage of what they’ve got. Organize at PTA meetings. No one has to come to DC, they just can go to town meetings, or the local offices of their representatives.

They don’t even need to organize, if tomorrow 10 parents show up at congressional local office that would have a substantial impact. If a congressman knows constituents are watching how he votes on education, he will be watching ed too.

What organizations do you see making the greatest impact on increasing, or at least holding the line on decreases, for federal support of education?

The ed community in DC is a strong lobbying presence; ASEA, SIIA, to whatever, they have the ability to get to members of congress, they have to get to the congress people.

Are there particular areas, either geographically or by type of aid, that you think will be likely less hit than others, or even likely to increase?

One group that tends to suffer are career colleges. They are not as appreciated. Also, there will be changes in student loans. 

US education compared to other developed nations

Education at a Glance 2007

This newsletter summarizes the US briefing paper for the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) Education 2007 at a Glance report.

The briefing paper for the US is available at the OECD website.

Quick summary

The data shows that the US education system substantially favors those who can afford the best schools and who can afford to go to college. Then, the US economy holds the largest rewards for those who have graduated from college, and the biggest penalties for those who do not complete high school, providing few outlets or second chances to cross that gap upon leaving school. Other developed countries appear to be rapidly expanding their university-educated, but without the education spending and income disparities of the US.

Data from the briefing paper

37% of the US population ages 55-64 have some higher education, which is substantially over the average of other developed countries, and is first out of the 30 countries surveyed. This figure is pretty stable in the US; the number of college graduates as a percentage of the population is basically flat, while most of the rest of the world is rapidly increasing their supply of college grads. Thus, if you look at 25-34 year-olds, the US is 10th.

In the US, people with college degrees earned 75% more than those with high school degrees. Ten years ago, this differential was 68%. There are only three countries with disparities that wide. The rate of return on a college degree is about 13.5%, slightly more for males and slightly lower for females. College graduates also have lower unemployment rates.

In 2005, the probability that a young person will enter higher ed at some point in his or her life was 64%, as opposed to 57% in 2000; it is 71% for women and 56% for men. This compares with 54% as an average in other developed countries. On the other hand, only 54% of entrants to higher education in the US obtain degrees, which is last.

While US universities are the most popular for international students, with 22% of all international students coming to the US in 2005 (the UK is second with 12%), this is 4.5 percentage points lower than it was in 2000. 63% of the foreign students in the US come from Asia.

The US has stabilized at about 87% of the population with high school degrees over the last 30 years. While this was first 30 years ago, it is now 10th. Only 76% of the US population graduate high school with their class, 20th among the developed countries, with 5 countries above 90%.

The US has the 3rd greatest income disparity between those without high school degrees and those without, a person without a high school degree earns 2/3 what someone with a degree earns. 42% of those without high school degrees have incomes at less than half of the US median, 31% of those men and 56% of those women are unemployed ( as compared with 27% and 51% in other countries).

Increasingly, then, the US has lower HS graduation rates than other developed nations along with a greater penalty for not graduating; and lower university completion rates, along with a greater financial incentive to graduate college.

Furthermore, 56% of those with higher education degrees also receive training at their jobs, as opposed to 32% of those with high school degrees and only 12% of those with no high school degrees.

Total educational spending in the US was at 7.4% of GDP in 2004, second highest among OECD countries. Spending is growing between 6% and 7% a year, while 1/3 of OECD countries are seeing declining dollars. 36.4% of US spending is going toward higher education, as opposed to 23.9% on average in other countries.

In primary and secondary schools, 55% of the spending in on compensation to teachers, while the average in other countries is 63.5%. 25.7% is devoted to compensation of other staff, while the average was 15.5%.

On the surface, this seems that the US is wasting money on non-teaching personnel. Does anyone have any data on where the US's other 10% more paid to “other staff” than other nations goes?

US teachers earn the 12th highest salaries. However, teachers earn just under the average salary in the US, while in the average OECD country they earn 28% more than the average.

Spending on primary and secondary education increase by 40% between 1995 and 2004, while enrollments increased by 7%. This resulted in a net increase per student of 30%, which is lower than the OECD average of 38% per student.

The US pays $8,800 per primary student  (2nd highest) and $9,900 per secondary student (4th highest) against averages of $5,800 and $7,300. In terms of percentage of GDP, the US is right in the middle.

Class sizes in the US are 23.1 in primary and 24.3 in secondary, which compare with OECD averages of 21.5 and 24.1.

12 Ways To Get Your Message Across

Whether you teach, manage, sell, or coach, there are times when you need to get a message across to someone else. I saw a great six and a half minute video by Seth Stevenson, on the twelve “master formats” of presenting information in commercials, that apply equally to any time one as to inform or convince.

The twelve are

1. The demo: showing or explaining the facts or features.
2. Show the need: demonstrate what is currently wrong, and then showing the way to fix the problem.
3. Symbol or analogy: use some metaphor or exaggeration to demonstrate your point.
4. Comparison: compare your point to something that is suboptimal.
5. Exemplary story: weave a tale (true or fictional) to demonstrate your point.
6. Benefit causes story: show some beneficial outcome (which could be an exaggeration), and then demonstrate how your point resulted in that outcome.
7. Tell it: use a testimonial, often an authoritative figure or a trusted friend.
8. Ongoing character: over time, create some character who becomes recognized; this might be a company founder or a fictional character like Smokey the Bear, who was used to instruct on preventing forest fires.
9. Exaggerated graphic: similar to #3, but use of images to drive the point instead of words.
10. Association or bandwagon: describe or show others who are following your point, especially others who your audience might want to emulate.
11. Unique property: highlight something unique about your point or solution, something that can be more easily remembered or that can cause someone to do a double take.
12. Parody: adapt something that is already familiar, like using a Jeopardy game instead of a quiz.

These twelve methods were first cataloged by Donald Gunn, former creative director for Leo Burnett. They were brought to my attention by Stephen Downes’s OLDaily.

Stevenson points out that an interesting activity is to catalog commercials while you watch television, to see which techniques they employ. This will make your recognition sharper in addition to providing some mental exercise as you otherwise veg out watching commercials. You’ll find that some commercials focus on one of these techniques, while others draw on more than one, but this list is all-encompassing.

Stevenson also mentions how the list of twelve can provide a handy inspiration point for presentations, papers, or articles. If you can’t come up with what to say, go over the list and try to visualize how you would present your points in each of the methods. He credits this as a great cure for writer’s block.

Should you be creating a community?

Discussion with Jenny Ambrozek and Mitch Weisburgh

This PILOTed is discussion with Jenny Ambrozek on communities. Jenny is lead consultant, SageNet LLC and blogs at 21^st Century Organization. She is co-author of the Online Communities Business 2004 Report. With colleagues, Jenny is testing using a wiki to collaboratively write an article on “Learning Through Connected Intelligence” and encourages your participation. Jenny has been involved in online communities since the early days of Prodigy (the early 1980s).

MW: We have three clients where a key element of their strategy is to create web-based communities. You’ve mentioned to me that the term “create a community” is an oxymoron. One does not create a community, a community is emergent. Emergent systems arise out of a cascade of simple interactions; they are decentralized, there is no guiding hand.

On the other hand, no one can deny the power of what some call the network effect or Metcalfe’s rule: the value of a network increases exponentially with size. So, there is a tremendous incentive if someone can figure out a way to create a community and then tap into its value.

Are there certain ingredients or precursors that would indicate that an issue is ripe for a network to form around it?

Are there things that a company could do to help seed a network?

JA: Yes on all counts Mitch but before we proceed, may I please ask you a question:

 WHY do your clients want to create “web-based communities”?

What are their business drivers?

A seminal moment for my thinking about doing business online came in 1997 hearing pioneering venture capitalist Anne Winblad speaking to Women in New Media in New York say

“Community was a comfort word of 1996”.

Winblad explained that Hummer Winblad  didn’t invest in companies creating “communities”. Their interest was in companies that engaged and served customers. Is that what your clients want to accomplish?

MW: Each client is coming from a very different space. Each client has identified a problem faced by a fairly large constituency. The problems are primarily solved by information, and they intend to create communities as a forum for people to share that information. In one sense, their customers will be the members of the community. These customers may or may not end up paying our clients. But it’s become clear, since 1996, that if you get a critical mass of people regularly frequenting a web site, you can then figure out how to make a business, or at least a living.

What they would love is a checklist: if they do the following ten things, it will maximize their chances of getting a sticky community.

Do you have any advice for them?

JA: Mitch, my advice begins with your observation that:

“… since 1996, if you get a critical mass of people regularly frequenting a web site, you can then figure out how to make a business, or at least a living.”

It’s my experience working with failed start-ups during the late 90’s Web boom that you understate how easy it is to make a business out of frequent site visitors. I’d already watched AOL overtake the PRODIGY service where I worked and in 2003 see that brand disappear in the U.S. when the fourth owner, SBC closed the PRODIGY bulletin boards to focus on its ISP deal with Yahoo.

Consider both why Amazon, eBay and Yahoo are the three successful consumer brands and businesses to emerge from the Internet boom then bust, and the challenges they confront to keep innovating as new competitors emerge. Think about why other Internet boom darlings like iVillage are now part of NBC; or post-2000 high fliers MySpace and YouTube were acquired by Newscorp and Google respectively.

MW: My assumptions are

1. While you never know what is going to attract a crowd, there are some things you can do, or avoid doing, that will maximize the chances that you will.
2. That if you have enough users, you can come up with a way to monetize that, and make a good living through things like eCommerce, advertising, fees, or selling the company. 

Your point is that number 2 shouldn’t just be assumed. First, you may not be able to monetize, and second, the usage numbers might be evanescent. So you may have to spend more time up-front considering how you want to profit. I hope that’s an accurate portrayal, and that’s great advice.

For assumption number 1, is that totally wrong?

JA: Couple of points. Of course we have learned a LOT since McKinsey consultants Hagel and Armstrong published Net Gain in 1997 and inspired an army of Web entrepreneurs to create business plans with “ambitious” financial projections based on their model of how the “dynamics of increasing returns drive revenue growth”. Interestingly a decade on, a lot of what we’ve learned is encompassed in the new McKinsey book, Mobilizing Minds that I’ve just reviewed for World Business Magazine.  

The book opens:

“We believe that the centerpiece of corporate strategy for most large companies should become the redesign of their organizations.” Lowell Bryan & Claudia Joyce 2006 p1 

The message for your clients, whether large or small, is that engaging customers to share knowledge absolutely may provide a business opportunity if it solves their problems. However, you wrote:

“So you may have to spend more time up-front considering
how you want to profit.”

 Yes, you have to invest time considering the business model, and effective organizational structures to support customer engagement. But just as essential is paying attention to where the value is for the participants? How will they benefit to ensure their ongoing participation and contributions so the online group sustains?

MW: I think I understand the concern with a business model. There is a huge risk when it costs 10s of millions of dollars to set up a social network. But, it’s entirely different when it costs less than $100,000. Guy Kawasaki says he set up a social networking site for less than $50,000, and that included legal and incorporation fees. Even a small business can afford that, if there is a chance of gaining customer loyalty or learning more about customers. 

Let’s say you’ve identified some needs for the potential members of the community: 1) there is a need for some information, and 2) there is interest in becoming part of a group of individuals with similar needs or interests, as long as it’s easy and doesn’t cost anything. You’ve talked to potential members, and they are interested. They say there is nothing out there that offers them this information and the opportunity to interact with others.

You’ve picked your business model; and it is dependent on you getting 100,000 people coming to your site and interacting on a somewhat regular basis. Part of the model is that you will not charge to be part of the group.

· Are there any guidelines for setting up the software or seeding content? Do we know anything about software systems that make things more attractive for groups?

· Are there any known ways of encouraging involvement?

· Are there ways of attracting people?

JA:  Refining the scope is very helpful. Thanks, Mitch. The following is a shorthand response but hopefully offers some direction.

 

1. Regarding software.

Obviously there is a plethora of platforms and new tools that proliferate and surprise. For example on my list is signing up for Twitter and Dopplr that incorporate the latest trend: mobility, connecting and sharing on the move. (Twitter allows publishing minute-by-minute personal observations using cell phone text messaging, and seeing what others in your network are doing. Dopplr, in beta, allows sharing your location and focuses on travel information.)

a. Good starting questions are:

 What do you want your members to be able to do?

     How do you want them to interact?

The answers point you in the direction of the functionality requirements that can be checked against the platform alternatives provided.

b. A wise practice is forming an Advisory Group of potential members to engage in the development process. People who will also be your core content and hosting team when the online space launches. Your advisors may tell you there is an online collaboration platform your target interest group already favors.

c. Three further considerations.

i. Looking at the software backend for both administration and reporting:

· Administration tools to satisfy your member permissioning and management requirements, and

· Reporting capabilities so you can closely track activity.

ii. Paying attention to the profiling features

A 2004 Forrester Report by Charlene Li called Profiles: The Real Value Of Social Networks describes the importance of ensuring members can create, expand and control their profiles to foster connection and retention.

iii. Take into account available level of technical support to determine choice of a packaged, supported platform versus one that needs to be customized.

 2. Encouraging Involvement 

a. This is an art and a topic in itself but the summary starts with paying attention to Ross Mayfield’s Power Law of Participation. (It describes a low threshold, and many participants, for activities requiring little engagement, such as reading and tagging. Likewise, there is a higher threshold and fewer participants who will actively contribute, for example in leading or facilitating conversations. )

Developing and maintaining a successful online group demands planning for that range of levels of engagement

b. Essential is finding a host, or hosts, with excellent communication skills, subject matter expertise, and time to be an active participant and facilitator.

c. Set clear expectations and post house rules. Describing the group’s purpose, and what is expected from participants, ensures a common understanding for managing participation. 

3. Attracting People

Activity encourages activity. The host role is all about providing reasons for people to participate, recognizing valuable contributions to encourage more, and ensuring rich content that provides reasons for people to come.

Members are your best marketing tool so create an environment that encourages existing participants to spread the word.  

Creating a successful online space is an emergent process. Use content members contribute as fuel to encourage more content. Produce regular newsletters featuring the interesting discussions to promote the space and reach new members. A newsletter also provides a vehicle for recognizing valued contributors. The open source movement provides tremendous lessons in creating and managing successful online groups.

MW: Wow! 

You’ve directed people to areas where they can find information about successful communities, to two of the latest hottest communities, possibly as models, and provided tips on software, involvement, and attracting users.

I remember hearing that one can’t actually plan a community, it evolves on its own. Perhaps you can set up a community-friendly environment, but then it either evolves or it does not. Even if one sets up a great environment, finds some good hosts, has the systems in place to monitor and adjust to what members are doing, what do you think a company’s chances are at successfully aggregating 50,000–100,000 regular community members? What are some of the services you offer surrounding community and network development? 

JA: The attitude you’ve described, putting in place the conditions under which an online group or network will thrive but without making assumptions about it becoming a “community”, is certainly my approach. I’ve always taken the view that whether or not a “community” exists is absolutely the judgment of members. I discourage clients from using the term “Community” to label the interactive part of their sites. I’d rather they describe what site visitors can expect when they select a tab, for example, “Discussions”, “Forums”, “Blogs”, “Networking”.

Increasing Chances for Success 

You asked about potential for success assuming a site owner does create a “community-friendly environment”. I look forward to seeing reader insights on this question but meantime some thoughts.

In pre-Web online service days, at PRODIGY, we assumed a 10% level of participation. If you had 100,000 site visitors you could hope for 10,000 participating in a bulletin board. With the Web came an explosion of information sharing opportunities, and more recently social networking platforms. The real challenge is getting “attention” from the people you want to engage in your online space.  

In his “Wealth of Networks”, author Yochai Benkler, includes a table showing the number of contributors to Wikipedia. I’d say this is required reading for anyone aiming to engage stakeholders in an online space. (See Chapter 3.) Today, I believe most people operate on a 1% rule for the number of readers that will become contributors. This is important because activity and fresh content is key to repeat visits, member loyalty, and growth.

The bottom line on chances of success is providing unique value. In my experience chances for success increase when you pay attention to the following:

1. Shared purpose

2. Respecting and listening to members

3. Involving thought leaders

4. Facilitating interesting, timely conversations

5. Creating a supportive environment that fosters trust among participants and enacts the house rules.

6. Ensuring a quality member experience, including seamless collaboration tools.

 What you want to hear from members is:  

“We want to meet and share knowledge here because we all ….?”

“Here I have access to industry leaders and people from whom I can learn.”

“You have to belong here to know exactly what is going on in my field and especially at the edges.” 

“I’m comfortable contributing here as I trust the site hosts will not share my personal information, and it is a place where people are respected and respectful of different points of view.”

“The collaboration platform has the functionality I need, is fast and easy to use. It doesn’t get in the way of my participating.”  

Mindset Requirements

Recently I participated in an online conversation that included Andrew McAfee, the Harvard Business School  professor credit with the term  "Enterprise 2.0".

It was a rich exchange but especially interesting to me was the discussion about executive discomfort with the “messiness” of social media. That is the final point I would like to highlight for your clients considering hosting online groups. If you like orderliness, to plan and control outcomes, then you might want to think twice. 

Just as Mitch and I didn’t know where this conversation was going to take us when we began, the joy and challenge of hosting online groups and people networks is uncertainty and the unexpected.

You will use proven practices to facilitate the space but at the end of the day:

• Who will participate?
• Who will contribute what?
• Where will the conversations lead?

.. are all unknown. Remarkably though, it is through this emergent process and learning to see and support opportunities in unexpected chance encounters—connecting disparate pieces of information, making new connections—new ideas will emerge and value will be created.

MW: That figure of 1% becoming active contributors is a little daunting, but 50,000 members would still yield 500 active participants, so it’s not completely off the charts.  

I loved the list of quotes. They remind me of a story of a friend of mine who worked as a shoe designer for a licensee of Ralph Lauren. He was showing Lauren his designs, and Lauren jumped up and said, “No, no, no. That’s not it. Close your eyes. Imagine you’re a Lord in your castle in the English countryside. You just woke up. You look out the window and you see the hills through the morning mist and decide to go for a walk through the woods. Your manservant comes in and you tell him your plans. He brings you your the perfect clothes for your walk through the hills and bogs of your country manor and helps you dress. The last things you put on are your shoes. Those are the shoes I want you to design.” And sure enough, those shoes were the ones that Lauren approved.

As companies create plans for communities, they should keep in mind the comments they want from the members. 

You mentioned that you’d be interested in seeing comments from our readers, as would I.

Jenny, thank you so much. I learned a lot.