Practice

Why don’t business people practice?

Sports and business are always compared. There are an endless number of analogies used every day – teams, winning and losing, star players, competitors, etc. The comparison holds, for the most part. Except for practice. Why?

Athletes at all levels know that they will need to practice their ass off to compete at the highest level. Daily images of athletes toiling away in the anonymity of the empty practice field or gym stream over the airwaves to us. Continue reading “Practice” →

Unbundled Consumers in Education

Education is a tough market to crack. One of the big reasons that it is such a difficult market is the unbundled consumer.

Typically, a consumer does one of three things. They decide to buy something, they then buy that thing, and they then consume that thing. Many things go into each one of those steps, but they are pretty universal. A customer will take them, in whatever form, and the result will drive a business forward.

Not in education. The consumer is unbundled.

In the example of textbooks, in particular. The professor decides what is bought. Financial aid (i.e. the government) or parents then pay for the book. Finally, the student is the one who consumes the book.

This is one of the big reasons why trade books have reached majority market share, while textbooks have lagged dramatically in the transition. Tech savvy entrepreneurs have pursued lots of the digital efforts, but all have ended in a resounding thud (at least so far), in large part because they have not understood this unique characteristic of the higher ed market. They generally targeted ‘consumers,’ not making the nuanced distinction to target just the decision making part of the ‘consumer.’

Maybe this is arrogance of technologists who believe that technology will ultimately rule the day and win in all markets. I don’t disagree with that notion, but it will take a lot more time in higher ed given the inertia of the sector and the unbundling of the decision making, payment, and consumption of the product.

A Matter of Time

There’s been a lot of consternation lately about the cost of higher education, skyrocketing student loans and the unfortunate masses of recent grads who only seem to be finding unemployment and financial dependency. The complexity of the entire situation is sufficient to have me writing non-stop for years to come. Everyone has their own opinion and only a small subset have bothered to try and provide a solution. A recent article on Inside Higher Ed, normally a good source of opinion in the higher ed space, caught my attention. It was written by the President of Drake University, David Maxwell.

The basic premise of the article is that college administrators need to play a good offensive attack in order to defend themselves against the negative onslaught brought upon them by the media with respect to college affordability, student outcomes and the true value of a college, specifically, liberal arts, degree. Administrators need to re-shape the argument about college being excessively expensive and “making an increasingly broad sector of the public suspicious of our relevance, quality and integrity.”

Maxwell then calls for his colleagues to “find ways to collectively guide the national discourse back to a position of truth — of fact-based information that is relevant to the needs and aspirations of prospective students and their families — and then ensure that our institutions communicate our individual values, strengths and demonstrable outcomes in the context of an accurate and nuanced narrative.”

YES! FINALLY! Someone wants to bring fact-based information to the table to help the families and students find the best, most effective schools that enable the best outcomes. I can’t believe a school administrator has said something like this. In print, no less. For people to see! No hiding from it now, Mr. Maxwell.

Continue reading “A Matter of Time” →