A Once In a Lifetime Story of Digital Transformation In Education

Digital transformation in education has been here for years, but the very same discussion is still going on.

Editor’s note: this is part one of a two part piece.

Will technology finally disrupt education?

Every other industry is facing remarkable and furious transformation, but in education, the notion of a classroom, a teacher, a lecture, an assignment, homework, exams and grades  has barely been transformed. I would even say that, most likely, we have just begun to replace the physical experience with some technology, very little extension of the experience to be called transformational. (MOOCs, Khan Academy, online learning, smartboards, etc.) Yet, this is certainly the beginning of something that, when it picks up speed, will massively transcend history, heritage, quality, geography or tradition. True disruptors have begun to appear.

I have been privileged to be exposed at the very forefront of these early days with some of the most transformational minds and I would like to share my personal journey. I have been a teacher for over 18 years, teaching at high school, college and post-graduate levels at five different institutions in four different countries. I also have been an executive and entrepreneur at some of the most relevant technology, telecommunications, consulting and marketing global firms, having a significant role in designing and executing digital transformations.

The convergence of these fields plus the deep knowledge of the Latin American marketplace, have been a fortunate opening for me.

It has inspired a vision, the will to integrate a multi-cultural, multi-disciplined, multi-generational and gender-diverse set of talented and dedicated collaborators for a once-in-a-lifetime journey to transform an old business model and to build a space to innovate, explore, define and pursue ideas for the future of education. After five years of leading this wonderful journey, I have some valuable lessons learnt, insights, accomplishments, failures and reflections of the education industry.

Let me start by setting the context:

Is education an Industry?

Over the past few years, education has begun to open up.

• The presence of venture capital investment, a massive play of for-profit organizations have entered the education space,
• The increased impetus for public-private partnerships (PPP) with education at is forefront,
• Education and internet have been identified as the true equalizers of our world,
• A Nobel price has been awarded to a female teenager from an emerging country for her inspiration to enable women to aspire for quality education,
• The real connection between education and work has been exposed, and the change of focus from average to personalized is about to hit publishing (http://www.toddrose.com/endofaverage)
• The need for English as a Global voice owned by no one and spoken more by non-natives than natives has introduced unforeseen elements,
• Access to quality content regardless of infrastructure, location or social status is becoming not only feasible but mandatory
• Education has a preponderant role in developing skills for the future that are the fundamental drivers of the Global Agenda (ONU objectives)

This ecosystem is finally coming together in balance, there are still strong voices opposing profit purposed organizations entering education but in my personal opinion, there is no way back. Purpose has to find profit and all stakeholders have a balanced perspective of education: students, teachers, institutions, governments, parents, countries and the Global community at large are building an exciting and thriving industry.

An old business model?

I was invited to lead the transformation of an established large publishing company.

As I learned about some of the digital products they were building and the vision of leading the transformation from print to digital, I felt this could only be and exciting opportunity, it resembled my times at HP when the personal computer was entering the massive market and a new massive industry was being conceived.

As I interviewed executives, employees, channel partners, customers and competitors, I begun to realize a few eye openers:

• The industry is slow. Building and educational solutions takes at least a year and it takes at least three before you know if it is fully successful or not in the market.
• The industry is local, not global. Education drivers are mainly established with a perspective from either the US, UK or at best from a well-developed country in Asia or Northern Europe.
• The industry knows best. As textbooks were developed from the most capable and talented authors, they are the ones that know how a particular subject should be taught, they decide on sequence, levels, exercises, duration, assessments etc. Their knowledge is always relevant, always accurate and always current, we keep bringing new versions every three yaers or so.
• Product is king. The industry cares very little (if anything at all) about their end users (teachers or students) they care even less about the outcomes, and most views are related to product performance and product characteristics rather than customer usage or achievement. “They should know that this is the best way to learn”
• Innovation happens within set boundaries. There are many egocentric views of innovation, most of them geared towards doing the same things a little different: “We have developed an innovative textbook, it has beautiful pictures, music and reference to modern companies and people”
• Technology will eventually come, but our customers still prefer paper.
• Adoption is paramount. Incentives and successes are driven by the wrong point of the sales effort. A teacher who “adopts” will drive end users to buy. Nobody identifies the need for customer application of the solution, metrics around benefits, gaps or capabilities to customize for better results.
• Units drive performance. We have all witnessed the mad drive for companies to say out loud: “For the first time digital units have surpassed print units, we are on the right track” another compelling incentive is “we have already put capital into this product, you better go out there and sell”

Yet, few question the real elements of these statements:

• How do you measure your digital units?
• Are you really hoping that these digital units replace the same profit margins?
• Were these digital solutions built to replace or to extend the learning experience?
• Are you tracking and measuring for better learning outcomes?
• Is your digital strategy allowing your company to become global faster or are you still US centric?

Returns and Days Sales Outstanding are the way this industry works. I decided to change this mindset, to conceive our company as a value creator not a transactional operator, owning the right to plan for usage, to change for what was sold, to balance transactional with strategical, volume with custom.

It is certainly not lack of vision at the top, we all know that many of these elements are totally meaningless, inefficient, obsolete and ever perverse, but leaving them behind would most likely mean that we have to endure a time of less revenues, different skills, risk taking and experimentation, too much for a big corporation to digest.

In part 2 we’ll cover A Cultural Shift, Innovation for Education and Accomplishments

Related content:

Education is Crucial for Hispanic Businesses to Succeed

Latin American Education Is Struggling, Israel May Have the Answer

Global Edupreneurship Movement Is Picking Up In the Right Places