PILOTed

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.

 

Interview with Sharon Nichols on the Effects of NCLB

This issue of PILOTed interviews Sharon L. Nichols, Assistant Professor at the University of Texas, San Antonio. In 2005, Dr. Nichols and two associates examined data from 25 states on whether NCLB high stakes testing results in increases in learning. Further studies resulted in a book, Collateral Damage: How High-Stakes Testing Corrupts America’s Schools, which is published by Harvard Education Press.

MW: Can you give a 3 to 4 paragraph appraisal of the assessments prescribed by NCLB?

SN: Let me tell you how we talk about it in the book. Our message is that the use of tests as the only measure of effectiveness is causing serious damage to the education system at large. We are not anti-testing by any means. We are against testing if the only use of the test is to determine consequences; that is inappropriate.

There is a phenomena that we refer to as Campbell’s law described by eminent social scientist Donald Campbell which states, “The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor.” In short, high-stakes testing distorts human activity.

Guided by that general idea, we applied Campbell’s law to education. We looked at situations where the use of tests is the only indicator of effectiveness; we found hundreds of examples how the process of education becomes distorted.

MW: Can you provide an example? How does NCLB distort teaching? What should teaching be, and what is it becoming under NCLB?

SN: We document a lot of evidence of this distortion.

Basically, the test creates pressure to pass the test. The pressure varies widely from state to state: teachers can get bonuses, or they can get fired. Students can get denied promotion. And the goals, themselves, are impossible: how can there be one standard, and one set of competencies, that apply to everyone?

For teachers, this pressure becomes significant, especially in schools where students are starting off further behind. They are preoccupied by student test score performance. They get pressure from administrators to show that students are doing better on the test year after year. And, they want their students to be successful.

What happens is teachers abandon their own classroom decision-making in favor of any activity that will help students become successful on the test. One simple reaction is to replace “teaching” time with test preparation activities.  That severely undermines students’ capacities to learn.

Teachers are using fewer project based activities, interdisciplinary activities. Studies in Colorado note teachers have reduced the amount of time they spend on interdisciplinary activities and things like field trips because it takes too much time away from test prep. the problem is that if students spend all their time practicing taking tests, we become more uncertain about what the test score reflects. Are they learning the material? Or are they becoming test takers? 

Unfortunately what we see is that the people who are supposed to be helped the most by “No Child left Behind” and high-stakes testing are the very ones who are being hurt the most.  Children of poverty do not start at the same place their more advantaged peers do and yet they are expected to perform the same on the same tests. Our work suggests that a disproportionate number of students of poverty  are being harmed by the system.

MW: What research supports your appraisal, and what does it say?

SN: We have research from all over the country about this. there are thousands of anecdotal examples of the ways in which high-stakes testing is harming our children and our schools.  The empirical work has mostly focused on whether the policy actually causes learning increases. Our study suggests this is not true.

MW: You conducted a study and published a paper on this in 2005, what’s changed since then?

SN: You can view that report here (http://epsl.asu.edu/high-stakes-testing.htm). The problems of high-stakes testing seem to be more widespread, there are more stories, there is more evidence, but nothing fundamentally has changed. We are not in every community, but it appears that abuses are more extensive and it is getting worse.

MW: What do you think happens if we just continue along the NCLB assessment path that has been laid out?

We will have a major crisis.

The testing is causing a dumbing down of the curriculum. This will cause some long term economic consequences, both to the economy and students. Drill and kill curriculum for the sole purpose of the test causes students to be less inquisitive, it discourages students from working with others. The testing thus de-emphasizes the skills needed by business, and it stunts student innovation.

We also find that the pressure of testing is leading to higher dropouts. Many students are dropping out, and it appears more than before NCLB. Students drop out because they cannot pass the test, they can do many of the things required of them, but just cannot pass the test. Some dropouts are on the cusp, but are not good test takers, so they would be denied a diploma, so they just drop out, which has serious costs.

There is both an economic and a moral cost.

MW: Are these just issues of implementation that will get worked out over time?

That depends on what aspect we are talking about. High stakes testing should be stopped immediately. There is no good way of implementing high stakes testing, period. High stakes testing is problematic and the root cause of many problems as we describe in our book. 

The idea of accountability is not terrible. Because accountability emerges from the business community, and because their voices are pretty loud, most citizens, including educators, agree it is a good thing. But high stakes testing, the current mechanism used to accountability purposes is extremely problematic. We need to find alternatives.

Children are not commodities. Schools are not input output factories. We cannot directly transfer practices from business to schools. But, we could implement some other version of assessment. We still need to find out what schools are doing, what children are learning, and what we can do to improve.

Education is a complicated system; schools are embedded in communities, and communities impact schools. There is plenty of data, and many others have talked about inequities in communities, and the role poverty plays in where children are when they enter school.

It is not reasonable to compare a child who has been read to all her life to one without any books in her home. These two types of children do not start off equally.  We must acknowledge community-based differences, and as part of the effort to find out what schools do well and what they can improve on.

This requires will, time, money, and study.

Tests cannot be used as the only measure of how schools are doing. It distorts the process so much that the test scores are meaningless, we do not know what the test scores mean, does it just mean that students have learned to pass the test?

MW: Forget about consensus building or a process of figuring out what to do. Let’s say you became Secretary of Education and you were granted the ability to increase federal education funds by 15%. What would you hope to accomplish in your first year?

SN: I would talk to as many educators as I could. I’d send out teams of trusted advisors to hold town halls to speak with administrators, teachers, and students to understand what are the challenges facing children and teachers. I would get a comprehensive understanding of what it is like to teach, and what it is like to learn in this day and age.

Teachers voices are alarmingly absent from current policy.

I would start trying to brainstorm,

I would stop high stakes testing immediately. The end result is not to stop testing. People might still engage in a test once a year, but then we would look at the data and make decisions that are helpful.

We would do away with prep time for tests.

In England, they have a reporting system built around an inspectorate. An inspectorate is an independently body of people trained to asses the conditions of a school. They observe teachers. They talk to students. They interpret test data at that school. They interpret the contextual elements of that schools, like is there a computer for each student, are there any computers at all, are ceiling tiles falling down while students are trying to learn, are there enough books, what are the conditions facing students and teachers in that school.

An inspectorate could not only make improvement recommendations, but they could also share with the community all the things a school is doing right. What a refreshing change of pace it would be to receive a public accounting of a local school that starts off with, “here is what the school is doing well….” We don’t ever hear of what is going right. How hard teachers are working, the collaborative nature of adults, the time spent brainstorming ways to reach children. Nor do we hear the stories of students who are getting A’s even when they have to go home to abusive environments. 

I’d make this report available to the community, not just policy makers. We need to produce some good will, which will encourage the community members to become involved.

MW: What about the idea of national standards, will that help?

SN: It sort of depends on what they look like and how specific they are. We have to have standards like, “every school should have highly qualified teachers.”

I don’t like the idea of detailed national standards. Having 130 bullet points on what you have to learn in math is overkill.

Different communities require different skills. To say everyone has to know a certain amount at a certain time is too restricting.

I am guided by the question of, what function do standards serve? If they are guideposts, information to help administrators and teachers make decisions, they are appropriate. If they drive a robotic-like curriculum that is the same to everyone across the nation, then they water down education, undermine teacher professionalism, and inhibit student creativity and innovation.

What if students have a question that is interesting but not in the standard?  It could be an important question; and it could lead to learning, but it would be stopped because it is not in the standard. What if the standard was about the battle of Gettysburg, but a class became interested in the battle of Vicksburg? Is Gettysburg important? Yes. Could students learn more from a creative, innovative exploration of Vicksburg than from memorizing which general led which attack at Gettysburg?

There is some truth to this being an issue of power and control. If someone is determining what should be taught, and how, and when, the teacher population becomes reliant on someone else determining what to teach. This demotes teachers’ instincts; it is not celebrating the authentic interests of teachers.

My other research area is motivation. Everything in high stakes testing is completely against how to trigger motivation. When you rely solely on external motivations for schools, it demotivates students from learning. What you get are dependent, resentful learners.

Many students know on day 1 that they are going to pass the test. What do you think external motivation says to them? Get by with a b or c; just pass the test, and you go on to high school. They don’t do anything, or they do very little. Is that the environment we want? If you’re good enough, do as little as possible?

MW: Your book is titled, Collateral Damage: How High-Stakes Testing Corrupts America’s Schools. Who does the book appeal to?

SN: The book appeals to anyone who is interested and concerned about education, the future of education, and the next generation. It is accessibly written and provides a human face to what is going on in the classroom.

We wrote it for parents, educators, and we hope policy makers. We show what is happening, and we want to promote a dialog into what we should be thinking about in terms of accountability. We need accountability to evaluate effectiveness, but we should not rely on a single indicator for determining that.

You can view a description and purchase the book from Harvard Education Press, here (http://www.hepg.org/hep/Book/62).

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Interview with Bobbi Kurshan of Curriki

This issue of PILOTed is an interview with Bobbi Kursham, Executive Director of Curriki. Curriki’s goal is to make great educational content available to everyone, free. Bobbi is also the keynote speaker at the SIIA’s Ed Tech Industry Summit in San Francisco on April 15 to 17.

BK: Let me first give a little background on Curriki before you start with your questions. Curriki is a nonprofit and was originally created by the founders of Sun Microsystems in 2004. Our goal is to provide the best curriculum, free, just a click away. We have over 20,000 members and had 1 million page views in January.

MW: If you’re providing the best content free, what is the role of for profit educational publishers versus the role of Curriki?

BK: That’s getting right to a main issue. We are looking for a win/win. Publishers can provide services that wrap around our content. They will have access. They can make modifications. They can distribute it. They can be like Red Hat is to Linux or Sun is to java. We are in conversations with several publishers, and some of them really get it.

MW: What are the five year goals for Curriki, in terms of numbers of students using it, reputation, size of organization?

BK: We want to be like Wikipedia, but in curriculum: the first place people go to find curriculum. Whether it is top up or bottom down, if someone wants to teach something, we want them to look for it here first. They can make derivatives of it, teachers can make lesson plans from it, and they can post it back to the community for others to use. We are also in conversation with a number of countries, states, and ministries of education to set up local instances of Curriki.

A lot of material gets funded by ministries, foundations, or the US Department of Education. But when the funding runs out, what happens to that great material? Curriki is looking to be a home for that orphaned content.

MW: If I am a teacher, and I’ve created a great lesson plan for teaching, say, simple multiplication, what do I have to do to make it available to the world?

BK: Just go and upload it. We don’t require some homogenized version. To make it easier though, we are creating a series of templates that will be available in March. When you upload it, you create tags, so people can find it. Then when others create derivatives based on it, the derivatives will inherit your tags and those authors can add their own.

We’ve created a list of educational key words for tagging, to make it easier.

Also, you can take content that is already there and modify it for your own use. There are two types of modifications. You can assemble multiple resources and put them together; this would be then called a collection. It’s like a play list. Or you can take something and create your own version of it; this would be called a derivative.

When you post something, by default we use the Creative Commons Attribution license, which allows for sharing, modifying, and distribution with attribution. If you want a different set of rights, you can opt out, and we flag the work and limit what others can do with it.

A lot of teacher created great content is not digital; it’s on paper. We’re having a conversation with a large copying company, for them to offer free scanning and uploading of paper-based educational materials that will appear on Curriki.

MW: If I were a teacher and wanted to use something in my class, how could I know if it’s good without having to go through every item on my own?

BK: We have a review process, and when you look at an object, you can see what level of review it has received. Our initial review is to make sure it does not have anything inciteful or pornographic, before anyone can see it. We wouldn’t want a recipe for making a bomb, for example.

At the next level, we have subject matter experts review it, a teacher or one of our internal curriculum people. We are in partnership discussions with the National Association for Retired Teachers for them to become reviewers. As people retire, they still want to remain active. If you have subject matter expertise, becoming a Curriki reviewer will be an option on the AARP web site.

Moving forward, some materials will be research reviewed by a department of education or university. These will be labeled as premium content.

MW: How are you working with other open educational resources?

BK: No one knows what’s going to happen with open source in education. Will there be multiple sources? Will one be dominant, like a Google in Search or a Microsoft in desktop operating systems? It will take a lot of money and a lot of persistance for someone to become the Google of open source education.

Most funding is short term. What is MIT going to do when their Hewlett Foundation grant expires? How are they going to make OpenCoursWare sustainable? The organizations that can figure out the sustainability question will be successful.

Maybe the open source publishers will join together in an umbrella organization. Instead of each one raising $4 million, the central organization will raise the funds. Just like Pearson has many divisions.

I come from Venture Capital. I’m used to working with and collaborating with different publishers. We are going to work with the other providers. We are talking to many of the projects funded by the Hewlett foundation, although they are really in higher education. We are working with eduCommons in Utah. We are doing joint research with four different projects in Africa.

We are going to work with different people.

MW: So, what happens if a teacher wants to pull something from Curriki, something from some other source, and, maybe something from a for-profit publisher into a lesson?

BK: We don’t know yet. That’s one of the areas we are trying to find common ground and standards. We’re working on that. At this point, you can publish your content on Curriki, and then you can also publish it on X. A teacher could have multiple points to access it. That’s not the long term solution, though.

MW: Do you have capabilities for collaboration, on building content or for students?

BK: We know teachers want to share information. This is not just school curriculum, this is social networking.

For development, you can take materials that someone created and you can build derivatives or you can build collections. You can create a work group to work on your content. You can mark sections closed once they are approved.

We’re adding tools to help people build content. We have templates for lesson plans, textbooks, activities, assessments, and courses.

We will eventually add tools for students to collaborate, but we first need a critical mass of content.

MW: Do you have anything you want to close with?

BK: As Scott McNealy points out; there are 100 million kids that do not have access to primary educational materials. We want to change that. We want to help kids learn as much as they can as fast as they can. This is a transformative idea and it will happen quickly.

Where we’ll be

Over the next few weeks, we’re going to be busy at a few conferences. Please let us know if you are going to be there also. We hope to see you.

March 26 to 28: IIR’s Education Industry Investment Forum. This conference is designed for those who want to invest in K12 or Higher Ed companies, and for education companies interested in meeting investors. We are giving a pre-conference workshop on the 26^th on Developing Outside Investments to Help Drive Growth. We understand that if you use the code XU2253MW you will receive a 15% discount.

March 28 to 30: CoSN’s K12 School Networking Conference, in San Francisco. This conference is for K12 Tech coordinators at the district, state, and federal levels. You’ll hear how different school system use tech to solve problems and overcome the problems that tech creates.

April 15 to 17: SIIA’s Ed Tech Industry Summit, in San Francisco. This show offers how-to sessions and great networking for Ed Tech publishers.

On a personal note

Since this blog is on learning, here are three things I learned recently.

1. When your wife asks you how you like something she bought for the house (like drapes, or sheets, or whatever) the correct response is, “I really like them, they’re great.” This first one I actually knew; what I messed up on is part 2.

2. When you answer the question, you first need to look at whatever it was that was bought. Without looking at the item, even the correct answer is wrong.

3. This is just peripherally related to the first two. If you have a guest bedroom, it’s a good idea to make sure that the bed is comfortable.

Interview with Iwan Streichenberger

This issue of PILOTed features the first interview of and unfettered Iwan Strechenberger.

Iwan was president of Edusoft and a corporate vice president of Houghton Mifflin. Iwan joined Houghton Mifflin in 2001 as vice president of corporate development and technology initiatives. He has also served as corporate vice president of strategy and business development and as president of Houghton Mifflin Learning Technology. Prior to joining Houghton Mifflin, Iwan was COO at Flipside Europe, a division of Vivendi Universal Publishing, where he was responsible for the company’s operations in the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Hungary.

We debated splitting this interview into two newsletters, because it covers so many topics. But, on the other hand, they are all related. So instead of breaking it up, we decided to list the questions, and, if you have a particular interest, you can just click on the question to view Iwan’s answers.

Or, you can read the entire interview and get some great insights from someone who is a leader in educational publishing.

What do you think were the biggest challenges in education and in education publishing over the last 5 years?

Don't you think publishers share the blame for failures in the educational system?

Are there any parts of K12 education that should be attractive to investors?

Is being acquired the only viable strategy for a small education company?

Is $20 million in sales the ceiling for independent publishers?

How are Open Source and Open Content likely to shake out?

What's next for you?

One thing before starting the interview. If you are in the Education Technology Industry, I'd encourage you to attend the SIIA's Ed Tech Industry Summit in San Francisco, April 15 to 17. We are very active in the SIIA, and have found the ETIS a great opportunity to network and find out what is happening in the industry.

What do you think were the biggest challenges in education and in education publishing over the last 5 years? How did we meet the challenges? What should we learn from that?

The first challenge to me was the incredible inertia the prevailed in the education sector. When I came to the US 6 years ago, I saw a lot of great opportunities connecting instruction, assessment, and intervention. It was difficult to see how slow things move in education. Obviously, it was not something new but it was new to me :-)

The second challenge came from technology. While technology offers a great opportunity, it presents the challenge of having to create products and services that use it to its full potential as well as getting those products used. I have learnt that in education, simplicity matters more than the richness of the features.

The third challenge was the NCLB movement. Seeing the education world embrace accountability was very encouraging. Applying business standards to this world sounded great to me. Unfortunately, the implementation of NCLB has made educators focus only on emergencies; it has sometimes diverted them from their broader mission of teaching better by using technology. Instead, they have focused on meeting NCLB requirements and hitting numbers. I am worried that this could end up being a missed opportunity to change education deeply through the combination of accountability and technology tools

A larger question is whether we teach the right things to kids in schools. There is only so much time that kids spend in class. There is a general agreement that school is the place to teach basic skills. But, kids may never actually use a lot of the things that we teach; for example, some of the information we teach in science will not by used by the vast majority of students in the real world. But, there is also general agreement that it is important general culture for them to learn these things. Should we be teaching 21 st century skills? How important is test prep?

Is there a middle road? These challenges make the education industry so interesting and also so complex.

Nader Darehshori asked a great question at this year's Ednet, and I'd like to paraphrase it. There is a lot of evidence pointing to failures of the US educational system. The publishers are making a lot of money providing goods and services into that system. Don't you think the publishers share blame for the failures? How? What should they do about it?

I worked for Nader; and that was indeed a very interesting question he asked. The one thing I don’t agree with is that there is a not so hidden bias that there is something wrong with making money. In the commercial sector, to attract investors and the best talents and have them work hard, your company has to make money.

For me, the question should be: are we delivering the value that schools should expect when they spend this money?

There is no doubt that education vendors could be more innovative. However, education is a very tight ecosystem with the typical “chicken and egg situation”. Everyone is dependent on each other; no one wants to be the first one to change.

Publishers are not sure that they will be able to convince schools that they should adopt innovative solutions. It is safer to go with the solutions that the educators have always purchased. When you talk to clients, they complain that publishers do not innovate, and make their life tougher.

Publishers can be more valuable to the districts, but will they be rewarded if they lead the way? I’ve seen a lot of innovation that didn’t get rewarded. Sometimes the money just was not available for that type of intervention. Sometimes the money was earmarked for those innovative applications, but was actually spent on others. The funding structure makes things very complex.

You could argue that there is a lack of vision and ambitious thinking on the part of the largest (textbook) publishers. There is so much at stake in the textbook business, and they have so much to lose in the short term with change.

It is interesting to look at the music industry and see what happened there: the traditional players tried to slow down the emergence of digital music, MP3, Napster… Who ended up winning: a new entrant, Apple! Can we learn something from this?

Even though I decided to leave Houghton Mifflin a couple of weeks ago to explore new challenges, I will keep an intrigued eye on its merger with Riverdeep. This is an exciting time and a courageous decision: this merger will force an established textbook publisher to rethink the value it delivers to its clients.

Structurally, the education market does not encourage innovation and value creation. The adoption model is a one time decision based on a lot of factors including many political ones… What is there to reward those that deliver value? What penalizes those that don’t? I strongly believe that the adoption business model hurts both the vendors and the districts.

Edusoft successfully used the subscription model. Is there anything healthier than allowing districts to stop paying if they don’t get value? Not after 9 years but every year! As a vendor, not only does it keep you on your toes but the financial benefit is very significant as long as you never stop increasing the value you deliver.

The subscription model is likely to be the future… I hope it will be! But it will be critical to train districts on this new model, help them realize the power they have in their hands and how best to use it. Districts’ administrators are under tremendous pressure and extremely busy. They don’t always have the time, nor the skills to analyze what is a good product. Now, they are buying more than a book: they are buying a solution with content, platform, and services. This is a lot to evaluate!

Are there any parts of K12 that should be attractive to investors?

My take on this, having done so much M&A, is that K12 education is an attractive segment for investors.

There is a general sense and societal consensus that education is doing the right thing. People have kids, and education is helping kids. No question here!

However, investors are struggling to understand education. It is not transparent and too often irrational. Education is the only place where 1+1 is 1.9999, not 2 like everywhere else: more art than science! Investors do not understand the adoptions or the decision making process. And to make things worse, they are sometimes nervous about investing in the govermental sector.

Adoption makes education very seasonal: another bad thing for Wall Street which loves steady growth and no surprises.

On the positive side, there is a lot of money out there to be made and to invest in innovative education activities. Companies can make money and individuals can make a difference, but you have to be aware that this is not a typical industry.

If the subscription model becomes more widespread, I am convinced that it will be great for the industry and will help attract investors. The subscription model is more transparent: You can track new subscribers; you can track churn.

One reason that Edusoft grew so fast is that we could measure and focus on retaining our users. Between 2004 and 2006 we had over 90% renewal rate. Frederic Reichheld, a Bain and Company partner, wrote a book in 1996 called The Loyalty Effect where he analyzed that it costs approximately 10 times less to retain a client than to attract a new one. And this was true across a wide variety of industries, including credit cards, cable television, and telephone… and now education!!! In his more recent book, "Loyalty Rules", he even claims that "a 5% improvement in customer retention rates will yield between a 25 to 100% increase in profits across a wide range of industries." Quite impressive and a great opportunity!

There are currently a lot of investors looking for opportunities in K12. They want to know where to invest, where to find both explosive growth and predictable revenue streams.

For those investors, my bet is that the next couple of years will be the ideal years for strong growth in intervention programs, both for students and for teachers. For the first time, we have data that shows how students are performing, and that analyzes precisely where they are doing well or poorly. This is already generating a huge demand for intervention platforms. This should be a very exciting time for intervention companies and Professional Development providers.

In the past, trying to help a child learn faster was as if a doctor tried to treat you without doing a diagnostic first. Like shooting in the dark. It sounds obvious now but the healthcare industry exploded because of the huge progress made in diagnostic tools. The same is happening in education.

"Treatments" become much more sophisticated: districts need solutions, not just tools… Companies providing basic tools will be penalized and won’t last. They will create more problems for the districts than they will resolve. The buyers know their problems: they now want the vendors to fix them, not to create new ones. This is the end of the era of the CD-Rom that you drop or the pallets of books you ship: you are expected to walk in, diagnose problems, propose solutions, implement them, support them for a while and be ready to be penalized if they don’t work.

As a result, investors will be much more aggressive in their due diligences: they will check the scalability of the platforms, the quality of the content, the performance and commitment of the support staff…

My guess is that Professional Development and intervention companies who score well on these dimensions will attract a lot of investors, whether they are financial investors or strategic ones.

Finally, the recent M&A activity (Houghton Mifflin – Riverdeep, Thomson Learning, and a lot of other rumors…) could be the perfect opportunity for new entrants to start playing a role. Are we finally going to see Microsoft, Google, Apple or Yahoo be active in this segment? It will be interesting and could bring some much needed fresh blood into the education market.

Is the only viable strategy for a small company to grow to a point where it is attractive to be acquired by a big publisher?

Maybe. Will these new (potential) entrants change things deeply? That’s a difficult question, and it probably depends on the time horizon. Is that the only viable exit strategy? The answer is probably yes in the short term. There are not many recent success stories of large IPOs in K12. It is very tough to get big enough to have an IPO.

If so, the underlying issue becomes how do you get big enough to attract large investments, go public, or get acquired?

For some reason, education companies struggle with the “20-40” bar ($20 million to $40 million of revenue). A lot of companies are very successful regional players with leading (local) positions in intervention, PD, or assessment. Few of them are or become national leaders.

Maybe I am more sensitive to this, coming from Europe, but, while the US is a big country, a lot of companies forget that you can’t sell the same way in Texas as you do in California. If you are trying to sell to a district in Texas, and you point out that you do “X” in California, they are not going to like this. When you move to a new region, it is starting from scratch and you need local representation; not easy to do in this industry.

When a company tries to become a national player, this is a make or break time for that company. A lot of them do not succeed with this step because they try to move too fast. They do not realize that they need to approach this new step as if they were building a new business in each state.

When I worked for Vivendi, we had all these great ideas for synergies between Europe and US, France, Spain, Italy and California… It was very interesting conceptually but much tougher in practice than we expected. We very quickly concluded that the education market is very much local.

A second barrier to fast growth is that companies think that if they can just partner with a big publisher, they have it made. Big publishers really like to do things internally. They feel that if they are putting their brand on a product, they need to be responsible for everything. Sometimes they probably push that too far.

Other industries believe in partnerships. They focus on what they do well and partner for the other things. The education industry has not completely embraced this concept.

Small companies looking for partnerships face a tough time with the discussions, terms, and integration, because they are not talking the same language as large publishers. For large publishers, the name of the game is to secure textbook adoption. If they have to give away everything else for free, they will. Quality is often less important than immediately perceived value: it is a checklist mentality with little premium for quality.

This model does not work for the smaller innovative companies who believe in their product and don’t want to discount its value by giving it for free.

This sales model has received negative response in the most progressive districts. Some of them have started to complain that there are too many products that they don’t need or use; there is so much stuff that doesn’t “talk” to one another other. If you give too many free products to districts without thinking of how they work together, it can become counterproductive for the districts.

A better solution would be switching from how much you can provide to:

• How can you make my life easier?
• How do you save time for educators?
• How do you help districts become more efficient?

The focus of the big publishers on adoptions and give-away products makes it difficult for them to partner with smaller companies. In my business development roles, I have often been the person brokering both sides. It is difficult to get the parties to agree on both the financial and the non-financial terms.

Large publishers want to pay a low price and then be allowed to do whatever they want with the technology. Technology companies want to maximize their dollars and continue to develop their product with their vision. It’s hard to find a common ground between different these business models.

The success of a deal comes down to communications, respect, and knowledge. You have to understand the mindset of the people on other side of the table and what they are looking for. Unfortunately, the education industry is not very good at this, maybe because it is vastly dominated by a handful of large textbook publishers. Lack of knowledge of the culture and thoughts of the other side kills far more deals than it should.

This leads to a lot of missed opportunities to do great things that would add real value to the education industry.

So, in the short term, yes, the most likely viable exit strategy for a small company is to be acquired by a large one. But, this may change; and as subscription models become more prevalent, the industry will become more attractive to investors.

One other point. I think that there could be a slowdown in acquisitions. The big education publishers have bought a lot of companies in the last year or so. In addition, some of them are for sale or going through significant restructuring and valuations have increased in these last few years. It will be harder to get their attention for the next couple of years. That doesn’t mean that if a publisher sees something exciting, that fits in their portfolio, they won’t pull the trigger. However, they will be more picky.

You have mentioned the $20 million barrier a few times. How would a small company grow beyond $20 million dollars?

Content remains king. Even if you have a great platform, if you don’t have content, you won’t sell. You need content to solve problems and bring value to clients; technology is not an answer in itself. This is one way that the big publishers control the market; they own a lot of content. This has been the largest barrier to entry that has stopped, until now, large software publishers that have successfully entered a lot of other industries.

Edusoft founders anticipated the emergence of testing, and realized that classrooms would not have a computer for every kid. They came up with the idea of generating paper tests, and then scanning them, and relying on technology to analyze the results. The company did extremely well because its product solved a big problem with a simple solution.

In order to succeed like this, a company needs to solve a real problem with a solution that is simple for schools to implement. Plus, they must position it in a way that the school or district can fund it. Plus, they need to solve the localized national distribution dilemma. Finally, they need the financial resources to carry out these strategies over the timeframes required.

How are open source and open content likely to shake out?

Open source has penetrated the K-12 market more slowly than the Post- Secondary. Things are changing faster in Higher-Education because professors have the skills to create content and put it together. Also, there is a lot of excitement from Post-Secondary professors for open source and open content, and more interest in peer-to-peer innovations.

K-12 is more difficult. Teachers are really busy, they are more closely monitored, and they are less sophisticated with technology.

Over the years, every time we have sold a tech product, and tried to add more flexibility and local control to it, we found that the teachers didn’t use the added features. If teachers have to choose between simplicity or spending time to assemble content, they will go with something simple and prepackaged. Teachers do not have the time, the skills, or the appetite to create things themselves. They want the program to give them their tests, provide them with reports and the right content so they can spend more time with the students.

Perhaps open source is a more visionary term, while in K12, a more interesting trend is open systems; the goal being to let users combine and connect multiple systems together seamlessly.

Is it reasonable to expect districts to use one system for PD, another for assessments, another for their social studies curriculum, and yet another for math? The challenge for publishers is to accept systems that allow content from different sources. Systems will need APIs that allow them to string together content and features from different sources.

One of the values of Salesforce.com is that it leverages off of other companies that have come up with solutions for specific segments. In education, we are starting to see more focus on open flexible platforms that talk to each other. SIF is one initiative that helps meet this need. There is an opportunity for innovative companies to help to make the process of using content from different sources easier. Maybe, a company could do for education what Apple did with the Ipod and Itunes. Apple made it elegant and simple. You put your content in a technology that makes it easy to find and easy to use.

Open source is very attractive, and it is cheaper. But education customers, more than ever, need support. They still need to be held by the hand. One of the reasons Edusoft was successful, with high usage and low churn rates, is that a lot of money was spent on training and supporting users. That was more important than pricing. Open source providers could still provide this support but this is costly.

Moving forward, people are less likely to buy content or services. They will want solutions to their problems. They will be less concerned if it is a PD solution, or a technology solution, or a content solution. Of course, in education, the solution still has to find a way to match up with a funding source.

Education customers are increasingly more interested in solutions. They want a consultative approach to diagnose where the problem is. They want the flexibility to use things differently, and to use different things. This is true for high performing districts and low performing ones, it is true for wealthy districts and for poorer ones. But, you can’t approach the market with a cookie cutter solution; there is not just one solution. Districts are saying: “Solve my own individual problems. Thanks for the content and the freebies, but that’s not what I want. Solve my problem in a way I can fund it and I’ll give you a lot of money.”

The funding sources are not fully geared to this yet, but it is a trend I can see coming.

So is open source or open content a threat to publishers? The customer is looking for a way to solve a particular problem. Publishers need the vision to combine different assets, use systems and content from other sources, provide the support and possibly take a short term hit to achieve long term success. These “smartest” publishers will not be threatened by open source or open content if they put themselves in their customers’ shoes.

You’re currently a free agent. You're a person that everybody in the industry wants to have on their team. So, you've got your choice of virtually any job title, job function, or company in K12 education. What is the thing you'd most like to do now?

Well, thank you, but I think you may be going a little too far.

Last spring, I left Edusoft but remained at Houghton Mifflin until its merger with Riverdeep because I was excited to work on some exciting strategic challenges. The time has come for me to move on. The last 10 years were great but there couldn’t be a better transition than the birth of my daughter, four months ago!

I have not decided what I will do next but there is one thing I know. It will be an exciting challenge! That’s all I know :-)

I love challenges. I love to combine thinking and action to make a difference. I’d like to find a challenge that is very complex, a company with problems, but where there is a lot of potential and upside.

The issue in education is that it really has to come from the top. The governors, the large districts, they have to develop a vision and stick with it. If I can help to make this happen, I could work with either a small company or a large publisher, in my company or for someone else, a traditional player or an new entrant. I get energized by a challenge.

I have not been fully employed for roughly 2 weeks but am already working on various exciting projects, consulting for an exciting education company and advising and helping several smaller innovative companies in other industries! I realize now I much I was really looking forward to these new and exciting challenges, combining big picture thinking and practical execution challenges. It is very refreshing!

I recall a funny experience when I was working at Vivendi Universal. I was meeting with senior executives of the music and movies divisions and they were looking at our offerings and the question arose, “why can’t a kid learn a math formula, but can learn a rap song after hearing it just once?” There was a music exec in the room, and he suggested we just have some of Universal Music’s rap artists become the stars of our math textbook.

Needless to say that it may have been a little too extreme for a 170 year old publisher… Some of these artists had arrest records, their lyrics were highly controversial, their life styles clashed with the education culture. What never really was debated was, if they could help kids learn math faster. Or, if we could take a piece of that idea, modify it, and come up with something even better.

I have been very lucky. A lot of people get siloed in their professional life. Their work experiences are focused on just one task or just one area. I’ve been allowed to work in nearly every area of publishing, M&A, marketing and sales, operations, business development, assessment, you name it. I have been incredibly fortunate to live in multiple countries, from South Africa to France or the United States, and have occupied senior management positions in companies as prestigious and diverse as the Boston Consulting Group, L’Oreal, Vivendi Universal or Houghton Mifflin There is a lot of value to having a global view of business. You learn to think differently.

Now might be an interesting time for me to look at the overlaps between consumer gaming, what kids do, and how kids learn. All the big players in the tech youth consumer markets are looking for opportunities in education. That may be one great opportunity. But there are many others in education as well as outside of education too. I want to remain open to opportunities and go where I can make a difference, find the biggest challenges and opportunities.

I came from the business side and fell in love with this education sector. I’d love to make the sector more attractive to investors, so we can have education fulfill its potential in this country. I’d like to give back on what I’ve learned. I am glad to have the time to step back, look at a lot of things, and decide where the next challenges and opportunities lie. This is an exciting time for me…

Are US Schools better today?

Interesting trends from the 2001 Status of the American Public School Teacher that still have meaning today. The document can be viewed at
http://www.nea.org/edstats/images/status.pdf

There is a new study coming out in the next year.

The study shows 40 years of data, from 1961 through 2001. There is a lot in the report that indicates how much better our schools were in 2001 (and by extrapolation, today) than they were 45 years ago. By 2001:

• Teachers were substantially better educated,
• Teachers received more professional development during the school year
• There were more teachers in Math and Science
• Teachers prepared more for their classes, and spent more hours per week on their jobs.
• Classes were substantially smaller in Primary Schools
• Teachers saw fewer students per day in Secondary Schools
• Teachers were paid substantially more

But, fewer teachers say that if they had to do it all over again, they would definitely choose teaching.

Here are some of the details (of the 300+ page document).

The level of education of teachers is going up, most teachers now have a Masters degree or higher.

Year	No Bachelors	Bachelors	Masters	Doctors
1961	15	62	23	0
2001	0	43	56	1

Teaching experience has stayed flat through 40 years, the average teacher has a median of 11 to 14 years teaching experience.

Over 40 years, in Secondary Schools, English teachers have remained about 20%; math has grown from 11% to 18% of teachers. Science was flat at around 12% but jumped to 15% in 2001. Special Ed and “Other” (combined) have gone from nothing to 10%. The biggest drop-offs have been in Industrial Arts and Home Economics, going from 11% to 2%.

In Elementary Schools, class sizes have decreased from 29 in 1961 to 21 in 2001. Secondary classes have remained about the same size, but teachers were seeing an average of 132 students per day, decreasing to 89 per day by 2001.

Teachers are spending more hours per week, going from 47 in 1961 to 50 in 2001.

In 1966, nearly ¼ of all secondary teachers spent no time preparing for classes (70% spent 4 hours or more),. By 2006, only 3% spent no prep time and 83% spent 4 hours or more.

Total number of teaching days has remained a constant 180 to 181, but professional development has grown from 5 to 7 days a year.

Interestingly, lunch “hour” has decreased from 40 minutes down to 32 minutes.

In 1961, 50% of all teachers said they would definitely choose teaching as a career if they had the opportunity to do it all over again. In 2001, only 32% said that.

In today’s dollars (assuming 4% inflation), the average teacher made $25,000 a year in 1961, as opposed to $44,000 today.

Note: Farimah Schuerman, Rita Ferrandino, and I will be conducting a pre-conference workshop at IIR’s Education Industry Investment Forum. The Forum is being held from March 26 to 28 at the Trump International Sonesta Beach Resort. Our workshop will be on Developing Outside Investments to Drive Growth. There is a 15% discount off of registration if you use the code XU2253MW or if you click this link:
http://iirusa.com/edu?registration=XU2253MW

2007 PreK-12 Educational Publishing Outlook

Simba Information (http://www.simbanet.com/webinars/index.htm) sponsored a webinar today featuring Kathy Mickey (Simba), Gail Pierson (Riverdeep) Steven Ritter (Carnegie Learning), and Leslie Wilson (Michigan’s One to One Institute).

Below are interesting highlights from each of the presenters.

Kathy Mickey

Supplemental publishing is changing rapidly. It is about 18% of the educational publishing market. Tech products are stealing market share from print. Five years ago, the focus was aligning supplemental products with textbooks, now the products have to be aligned to state standards.

US school enrollments in the South(+10.3%) and West (+6.2%) are growing, while those in the Northeast (-3.8%) and Midwest (-0.3%) are shrinking over the last 10 years.

Federal funds are expected to remain flat over the next year, with moderate increases in state spending for education.

Simba forecasts a 5% growth in textbook sales, 6% in electronic media, and an overall growth of 4% in all instructional materials for the next year. The fastest growing segment will be comprehensive software.

Gail Pierson

Increasingly, the district is making curriculum and purchasing decisions, leaving less flexibility to teachers and individual schools.

Nearly every district has, is installing, or is evaluating district-wide portals and LMS systems. The goal is to provide both internal access and community access 24 x 7.

The Riverdeep/Houghton-Mifflin vision is that adoptions and larger contracts are requiring the winner to provide a solution that integrates both core curriculum and supplemental content, while also providing pacing calendars, curriculum and lesson planners (with content accessible from the planner), differentiated instruction, single sign-on, flexible print/online content with capabilities to change the lesson sequence and to fragment content, and content accessible from the district portal.

One could say that they are betting the company on that vision.

Steven Ritter

One unanticipated problem with differentiated instruction is that it is easier to differentiate online content than classroom time. Pacing flexibility is limited in the classroom.

For K12 software, quality is measured by higher test scores.

Leslie Wilson

There is a three year learning curve in instituting one to one computing into schools. Teachers start assigning work based on the textbook, but by the third year, they are looking for the best resources available to teach a topic.

Michigan had Memphis University analyze the changes resulting from the one-to-one initiative:

• Students feel more effective, they enjoy schoolwork more, and they feel they are better students with better job prospects.

• There is more parental/caregiver involvement.

• Students are doing more collaborative activities, more problem solving, they debate and question more, they integrate subjects areas better, and they discuss schoolwork with other students more.

• Test scores are significantly higher.

One anecdotal difference is what happens in the classroom when a substitute teacher shows up. The students get right to work; they know what they have to do, and they provide their own support for each other. This is an indication that students, being more empowered, take more ownership of their learning when they have the tools they need.

One anomaly is that technical support costs have actually dropped. With daily use of the computers, teachers and students are able to help each other over most technical problems.

The PowerPoint slides, while not up as of this posting, are supposed to be available from the Simba website, along with a schedule of additional webcasts.

Why would anyone purchase online learning?

Why would anyone buy or use any product?

That’s not a rhetorical or an easy question. If you ask the purchaser or user of a particular product, you might be able to get a very specific reason. But, the more interesting questions are,

• Is there one generic need that a product has to meet?
• If I were creating a product, is there some formula I could follow to ensure that my product met the market’s sweet spot?

Here is my proposal.

No, there is not one generic need that a product can meet and therefore be successful. But, yes, there is a hierarchy of needs, depending on the market cycle. If you know your audience, and you know the market cycle, you can engineer your product for success.

The concept of a hierarchy of buyer’s needs was most recently brought to my attention in an article from the Creating Passionate Users blog, by Kathy Sierra.

Kathy’s hierarchy, for successful tech products (not necessarily in education) is below:

   

She encouraged readers to mix, rip, and burn their own versions. Here’s mine (click on the image to expand it).

Each level is a gate, if only one product meets the needs at that level, that is the one that will be purchased and/or used. As more products enter a marketplace, buyers and users have more choices, so it becomes more important for products to meet higher level needs.

For a first mover product, if it meets some need, if the need is great enough, and if buyers can afford it, the product will be purchased and used.

Where there are already many players, a product not only has to meet a need, but it has to be a safe choice, it has to work well, it has to solve related problems as well, be easy to implement and learn, and be enjoyable to use.

Of course, in education, the hierarchy is further complicated by the fact that there may be multiple roles involved in purchasing, as well as multiple roles involved with use. Interested parties include students, instructors, administrators, managers, organizations, and the actual purchaser. The same person or group may have multiple roles as they touch any individual product.

How will this model help you? That depends on whether your are introducing or purchasing a product.

How would you apply the model if you were introducing a new product?

Here is what we do when we are working with clients. First, look at alternative uses for the funds that a purchaser would use for your product. Second, based on the market, determine the level of need you need to meet for purchase and use. And third, map out your product against the needs of the stakeholders your product touches.

How would you apply the model if you were purchasing a product?

Place the different products against the grid of needs. Rate how the products meet the different levels of needs. If there is only one product that meets your needs, consider if you can afford it and if it really does meet your requirements.

We are always interested in hearing from you, so let us know how this model meets with your own experiences.

What I Learned Buying a Rug in Turkey

I had no intention of buying a rug on our trip to Turkey in December 2006. Certainly, not on the first day. I’d already purchased a rug; when my son and I had been abducted in Tunis, Tunisia in 1999. But, that’s a different story.

Yet, there I was, just 4 hours after arriving in Istanbul, shaking hands with a rug merchant as he packed up our newly purchased kilin carpet. How did this happen?

Educators, business people, publishers, we all seek to influence others, and we are all influenced by others. Perhaps my experience in Turkey, seen through the prism of an expert in the principles of influence and persuasion can help us all.

First, let me describe the events leading up to the purchase. Then, I’ll relate those events to principles contained in the book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini.

Our hotel, the Mavi Ev, or Blue House Hotel, was just across the street from the famous Blue Mosque in Turkey. As soon as we stepped out to go visit the mosque, the first person approached us,

Salesman: “Do you want to buy a rug?”

Me: “No thank you.”

Salesman: “Where are you from?”

Me: “No thank you, we’re on our way to view the mosque.”

In the 50 yards between the hotel and the entrance to the mosque, we were approached at least 5 times, in similar ways. The sales people were pleasant, often humorous, never hostile. But always persistent, asking at least 5 to 6 questions to try to engage us.

“How long are you staying in Turkey?”

“How do you like Turkey so far?”

“Are you thirsty or hungry?”

“Would you like some apple tea?”

“Do you know where you are going?”

After the Blue Mosque, we walked across the park to the Hagia Sophia, and were approached another 5 to 6 times. But, as we walked up to the Hagia Sophia, we found out that it had just closed, and someone came up to us.

Person: “It’s a shame that the Hagia Sophia closes so early. Have you seen the Cisterna Basilica, yet? It’s still open.”

Me: “Yes, that’s one of the things I’ve wanted to see.”

Person: “Let me show you where the entrance is, it’s just a block from here.”

Me: “We can probably find it.”

Person: “I know, but it is really no trouble and will save you some time. How long are you in Turkey for?”

Me: “We’re staying for 9 days.”

Person: “The entrance is just here, make sure that you walk through all of the passages. Some people just go into the Cisterna, take a look, and then come back up. There is a whole passage to follow, and you’ll see the pillars of Minerva and eventually come out about a block down the street.”

Me: “Thank you.”

Person: “I’ll wait for you at the exit. In case you’d like to have a glass of tea and see our showroom. There won’t be any pressure for you to buy anything, but as long as you’re in Istanbul, you should get to know what types of things are on sale.”

Me: “Thank you, but we’re not buying anything today. If we buy anything, it will be on our last day.”

Person: “I didn’t say anything about buying anything. After all, no one needs to buy a rug. But, this will just give you a chance to get educated, and no museums or mosques will be open at that time, anyhow, and it will be too early for dinner.”

We entered the Cisterna. And, sure enough, at first it seemed that we should just go in and take a look, but we walked around the whole path, and it was definitely worth the extra time. By the way, if you do end up in Turkey and visit the Cisterna, bring a tripod. It’s large and dark, and you can get striking pictures with a 2 to 3 second exposure. As we emerged from the exit, who do you think we saw?

Person: “How did you like it?”

Me: “It was pretty extraordinary.”

Person: “Did you get to take any pictures? Can I see them?”

Me: “Sure, take a look.”

Person: “And, now, maybe you would honor me by taking some time to have a glass of tea, relax, and learn about Turkish carpets. My shop is just 20 meters this way.”

And so, on our first day, we ended up in a Turkish rug merchant. But still, we had no intention of actually buying anything. The job of the first person was to bring people to the shop; he was the shill. This was actually the end of our interaction with him. Once in the shop, we primarily interacted with one of the owners.

Owner: “Come, sit down. Let me explain the different types of rugs to you, and educate you so you’ll know a good rug from a cheap one. Here, have some tea.”

Owner: “You know, no one comes to Turkey to buy a rug. It’s not something that you need. Yet, most people end up buying one. Why? Because, it’s art. It’s something they decide that they like. And, it’s something that they will have and enjoy for the rest of their lives. A good rug will last for over 100 years.”

Then, he proceeded to explain the five different types of rugs, the different materials, the different types of knots, and how rugs changed colors as you looked at them from different angles. And also, how December is their slowest season, how they would never be able to devote this much time to someone in the summer season, how to tell real wool and natural dyes from synthetics, and how the prices of rugs are usually 25% less in December than in the summer.

After about 45 minutes, with the education winding down, he asked us which, if any, of the rugs we liked, and if we wanted to see more of that type of rug. Rightly or wrongly, at this point, I felt a little guilty. We’d used up 45 minutes of his time, along with three assistants, we’d drunk his apple tea, we’d learned a lot about rugs. I was still not willing to purchase a rug, but we were at least willing to let him know which of the rugs, we liked.

Once the family had picked one of the rugs, he then proceeded to show us about 20 rugs of the same type.

Next, he asked us which three of those rugs we liked the best.

It was then that my wife said, “you know, we really do need to replace the rug in the dining room sometime, as well as the rug in Rosie’s (our daughter) room. But, we do not need to purchase a rug at this time.”

The owner then asked my daughter, “if you could have one of these rugs, and if you didn’t have to pay for it, can you see any of them working in your room?”

And she pointed to one of the rugs. “I really like that one.”

Owner to Rosie: “You have very good taste. That rug is 100% wool. Look here, that’s how you can tell that they dyes are natural and not artificial. Look at the weave, this is how you can tell it is not machine made. It takes someone three to four months working full time to make a rug like this.”

Owner to me: “I know that you are not looking to purchase a rug. In the summer, I would start off with a price of around $3,000 for this rug, and we would easily sell it for more than $2,500. But, if you were interested at all, I’d offer you this rug at $1,800.”

Me: “Thank you, but we really are not interested in purchasing a rug right now.”

Owner: “Nearly everyone who comes to Turkey is not interested in buying a rug. But, you know, nearly everyone who comes ends up buying one. Because they find something that they really like, something that is going to last them the rest of their lives, and something that they will forever remember their trip to Turkey with.”