October 30, 2009 • 7:01 pm
Michael Feldstein analyses a Blackbord response to the pilot study by the University of North Carolina for Sakai, which will lead to a further investigation of Sakai as a replacement for Blackboard. While it’s a long post (and it should be, for it is an excellent analysis), one thing that caught my attention was about Support Risks (quoted below)
Blackboard’s Response to Open Source: Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt: “If Blackboard can’t help you fix your problems, you’re out of luck, because nobody else understands their code or has the right to look at it. If your Moodle vendor can’t help you, you can go to another vendor, or find another adopting school that knows how to fix the problem. You can also fix it yourself. You don’t have to, but unlike with Blackboard, you can. Likewise, if Blackboard were to go out of business (ask WebCT or ANGEL customers if this sort of thing ever happens), you would’t be able to find somebody else to support and continue to develop your platform. Not true with open source support vendors.”
(Via e-Literate.)
This is a very interesting situation to be in, for almost all product companies, in a way, against their open-source alternatives. And I keep coming back to the iTunes App Store model for the iPhone (and therefore the proposed Google Wave/Android App Store). So, it may still work if the product company retains the core platform (Apple in this case), but does open up the platform — to an extent — to allow extensions to the core platform.
I suppose it’s really the confidence of the customer that is at play and at risk here than anything else. It is not necessarily open-source and the cost of free that is in play, but the experience of being locked to an obscure roadmap that’s making more folks consider open-source.
Your take?
Filed under: Business, Education, Open-Source, eLearning , Blackboard, Marketplace, North Carolina, Open-Source
October 12, 2009 • 6:30 am
I recently finished listening to the Audio Podcast: Inside the Mind of a Reluctant Entrepreneur [iTunes], by Jeff Hawkins in two trips to my office. This 57-minute podcast starts with Jeff’s talk on how he found his passion, how, just reading an article has consumed him and helped define his passion.
After I heard the podcast, I was a bit amused by the title. Jeff makes a good case for his reluctance – primarily from the point of view of how he wanted to really, really spend time on his passion – neuroscience, and how he was apparently sucked into running companies.
Towards the end of the podcast, he summarises what he has learnt over the years, and it is then, that I felt it was not so much reluctance as it was his unconventional way of being an entrepreneur. Today’s entrepreneur is fairly stereotype and is fairly recognisable. Jeff has chosen to do things differently – mostly on how he has guided and has been guided by his passion.
This is a very interesting podcast, and wherever and whenever you do have about an hour to spare, it is worth plugging into. It’s funny, straight and simple.
What are your thoughts of being an entrepreneur?
Filed under: Business , Convention, Entrepreneurship, Jeff Hawkins, Leadership Thinking, Numenta, Palm
October 3, 2009 • 1:33 pm
Education consultancy: In the know?: asks Gillian Evans. (Via Guardian Unlimited: Mortarboard.)
The remarks on the state of consulting in education are fairly on target. She is obviously an authority on the subject.
Management consultants are generally geared to solving problems in corporations, at times in government. This is not to say that they cannot help or work with educational institutions. There are obvious parallels and opportunities for idea cross-pollination. Education, however, has hardly been a focus of consulting. The traditional model of education has been fiercely independent and authoritative to need or request consulting.
But it is obvious that the education industry is changing – significantly. More so because how students learn, is changing. And that has changed because of the environment in which they live today.
Coming back to Gillian’s article, it is not surprising that no one asks for credentials or expertise in the education domain when engaging consulting organisations. No consulting organisation ever positions itself as such. In fact, even PA Consulting (the consultants linked to, in her article, do not list education as an industry that they have expertise in). Yet they have come up with a paper for the Higher Education Industry (which the article links to).
There is an obvious gap here and it will be a significant opportunity to address by whoever chooses to take it up. And Gillian’s article lists all the key skills that will be required by such a consulting organisation.
One extra skill I will add to the list of this hitherto unknown education consulting organisation is: technology. Not just technology, but the relevant application and sane implementation of educational technology in institutions; one that manages learning for students, resources for teachers and administration for the management of the institute.
Filed under: Business, Education , Consulting
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