Every 2-3 months I share the new (to me) tunes that have been getting heavy rotation on my iPod.
This mix has a bit of everything – Dylanesque folk from Old Crow Medicine Show, the tube amplifier hum of Eels, Guy Forsyth grinding out blues, Linkin Park speaking out, Johnny Cash on the book of Revalations, Regina Spektor singing from the heart, Ozomatli with their Mexi-Rap, and Lyle Lovett swinging it.
Enjoy.
Barbara Russell asserted that we are not producing new entrepreneurs in the education market at her acceptance speech last week at the AEP Awards.
I respectfully disagree with her on this. Today the entrepreneurs are not in the traditional supplemental print business that Options was in, they are all in the technology arena. Some examples:
Bill Kelly – Learning.com
Barbara Russell, founder of Options Publishing, was honored at the Association of Education Publishers (AEP) awards breakfast this week in New York. She spoke about entrepreneurship in the education market and why it matters to those of us who care deeply about providing schools with innovative high quality instructional products.
When multi-billion dollar companies like Pearson, Houghton / Riverdeep / Harcourt, and McGraw-Hill consolidate much of the business we need entrepreneurs driving change at the margins. Without pressure from this dynamic source our industry will collapse under its own weight.
She began by outlining the four characteristics that she believes entrepreneurs share.
Open Source culture in K12 Education will have a profound impact on our industry over the next 10-15 years. Open source already touches instructional content, classroom management, student information systems, and IT services. Where else will it find a purchase?
Ironically, the attempts by the old guard industries to protect their traditional interests in a digital age are accelerating the change. The more restrictive copyright and trademark laws become the more incentive there is to create open source content. Many education publishers are going to find themselves in a Chinese Finger Trap – the more they struggle the worse the problem will become.
The music industry is proving that no one ever “wins” an argument with their customers – the question for education is whether publishers can remain relevant in this new era by learning from other’s mistakes.
I’m thankful that I get to work in a business that actually means something in this world. When we do our jobs well good things happen for teachers and kids. Thanks to my friend and mentor Peter Lycurgus for giving me the nudge in this direction 18 years ago.
I’m grateful for boundless curiosity, mans drive to overcome ignorance. It is the engine that drives learning. I’m also thankful for the endless pool of ignorance out there – without it we wouldn’t have a market.
With gratitude I think of all the wonderful people I’ve met over the years in education. From the pinnacle of power in DC to a 1 building district in rural Washington state it has been a privilege to know people who care passionately about our children and their future.
Busking teaches fundamental business concepts. As a young man I saw the world by tossing open my banjo case and belting out a few tunes. I played in Boston, Montreal, Tokyo, New York, Paris, San Francisco, Seville, New Orleans, and Amsterdam to name just a few spots.
Along the way I absorbed some interesting lessons that have helped me be more effective in the business world.
1 – Make people feel something. People respond to musicians who make an emotional investment in their performance. Laugh, sigh, get that ache in your voice, and share your joy.
Information Overload is a serious problem in our culture today. People are frustrated and overwhelmed by the fire hose of information they are trying to absorb. But, as the American Philosopher Ann Landers was fond of saying:
“No one can take advantage of you without your permission.”In summary:
Marketing and selling in the era of infinite input feels like howling into a gale. The average urban dweller is subject to 4,000 ads a day, 1 every 14 seconds. The only sane defense is to tune it all out, to turn it into wallpaper for your world.
Earlier in this series on Information Overload we looked at our broken paradigms of information management, a new personal productivity paradigm, and 10 ways to build instructional products for today’s learners. Today we look at what this means for those of us in the persuasive professions. The suggestions here are not just for education publishers – they are what I consider best practices for all marketers.
The fundamental problem is that the signal to noise ratio has gotten completely out of whack. I have an email account that I’ve been using for several years. Spammers have gotten their grubby little mitts on it and I now get over 3,000 spam emails a week at this address. I have great filtering – less than 100 make through so that isn’t the problem. The issue is that I no longer bother looking for false positives – I just delete it all and hope/pray that if it is important the person will find another way to reach me.
How should we design textbooks and education technology for a world where information is no longer scarce or hard to find? It is time to rethink how we build education products based on new paradigms of information management.
In Part 1 of this series we explored the broken paradigms about information that are driving most of batty. In Part 2 we explored strategies for adopting a new information paradigm to help us survive and thrive in the new climate.
Today we take a look at ten ideas for how we can build products that tap into the new zeitgeist. These are nuts and bolts tactics publishers can use to rethink product development.
“Time without attention is worthless, so value attention over time.” Tim Ferris
In Part 1 I talked about how our old paradigm of consuming information is at the root of our information overload problems. Today I present some practical ideas you can use to experiment with changing your paradigm.
I suggest starting with your personal experience with the new paradigm because until you have tried it and seen the results for yourself it will be difficult for you to think about how it applies to building products and services for your customers.
