Products & Services

Recently, a blog post in the New York Times advanced the notion that text messaging is on a “steep decline.” Based on a purported decline in year-over-year SMS traffic for Christmas Day 2011, the Times extrapolated to find a declining trend in the popularity of text messaging worldwide, noting that alternative services, like Facebook and Twitter, or free messaging features like Blackberry Messenger and Apple’s iMessage, have attributed to the decline of text messages among cell phone users. Now, to be sure, like the telegraph or the telex before it, SMS will someday peak and then fade away. But at Blackboard Connect, we think reports of the death of texting are greatly exaggerated. Here’s why. When we cherry-pick the number of text messages sent on a single day, we have only the narrowest of data points.  If you step back and examines the broader trend, the evidence is clear: SMS traffic still enjoys double-digit growth every year.  According to Nielsen, mobile users in the US continue to drive significant growth in SMS usage. From 2009 to 2011, the number of SMS sent or received by women increased by 35 percent, and among men it increased 44 percent. Even in more “mature” markets like the UK, SMS grew 24 percent in 2010, the most recent year on record, according to telecoms regulator Ofcom. British mobile users sent 129 billion SMS that year – 5 messages a day for every man, woman and child in the country. That’s the experience we’ve found at Blackboard Connect too.  Our users continue to double their use of SMS every year. In 2011, our users increased the amount of text messages sent through our multi-modal service by roughly 124 percent compared to 2010.

At Blackboard Connect, we’re proud to announce that we’ve reached a new milestone. While our competitors sometimes boast of sending millions of messages annually, we’ve set a new standard: in 2011, our clients – across all sectors in education, government and the private sector – used our mass notification service to send more than 1 billion messages. Schools, universities, government agencies and businesses across the globe used Connect tools to warn of emergency situations, enhance teaching and learning, boost student engagement and retention, and increase employee awareness and efficiency. With our multilingual, multimodal platform, Blackboard Connect allows users to send messages faster and ensure relevancy to specific audiences. New features and services help users reach recipients via modes they are most likely to respond to including voice, text, social networks and more. In fact, Blackboard Connect now serves over 28 million recipients at more than 6,500 client institutions. Over the past three years, we’ve delivered a minimum of 99.99 percent service uptime, so it’s no wonder that our clients have reported overall satisfaction rates of 95 percent or better each year. Recently, the analyst firm Gartner issued its “Magic Quadrant” report for the emergency and mass notification service market. Gartner placed Blackboard Connect in the upper-left “Challenger” quadrant, and we’re pleased to have been rated highly for our ‘Ability to Execute’. Most importantly, we’re proud that Gartner recognized our exceptional speed of delivery, noting that our messages “came through faster than many other vendors.” At the same time, Gartner’s review process began over a year ago, and is primarily based on the previous version of our mass notification service.  Since then, we’ve released Blackboard Connect 5, which raises the bar for our industry even higher, with unmatched ease of use and powerful tools for matching the right audience with the right message. And with Connect 5 already receiving accolades, we’re confident that technology analysts and industry thought leaders alike will have plenty more positive comments to share in 2012.

For many towns and cities across the county, mass notification has become an indispensable tool during urgent situations. The ability to send a message out to a large number of people in a moment’s notice is especially useful in protecting citizens and ensuring the safety of local communities. Having received much success and positive feedback from residents as a result of timely notifications, emergency and city managers are also using mass notification tools to send out messages with relevant information and updates. Where it was once believed that non-emergency messages detracted from the effectiveness of mass notification, a recent survey of citizens has found that more regular, routine communication has many positive benefits. In particular, the survey, as conducted by Galain Solutions in conjunction with Blackboard Connect, found that 86 percent of respondents said non-emergency alerts and notifications help them feel more connected to their local leaders and surrounding neighbors. To help communities take advantage of mass notification in sending general outreach messages, we are hosting a free webinar on Thursday, March 8 at 2 p.m. ET. Register and join Lorin Bristow, editor of Emergency Management magazine’s Alert & Notifications blog and leading independent mass notification consultant; the Chief of Police from Palmer, MA, Robert Frydryk; and Peter Franzese, Public Affairs Manager from Concord, NC for an enlightening discussion that promises to include:

• Results from Galain Solution’s recent survey, Mass Notification: The Citizens’ Perspective – Understanding How Local Citizens View Mass Notification
• Ideas for Community Outreach including how Palmer, MA uses mass notification to supplement recovery after major weather events and to announce local events such as Town Council Meetings and road closures
• Best Practices for your messaging strategy – learn what Concord, NC does to ensure better targeted communications in order to avoid message fatigue

After the webinar, all attendees will receive a copy of Galain Solution’s White Paper containing their survey’s results as well as key conclusions that will surely inform community outreach communications strategy. Visit our website to learn more about how Blackboard Connect™ can help you increasing your effectiveness for emergency notifications and community outreach.

For the last three years, we have been proud to recognize exceptional school districts for their efforts in improving school communication by with the Leadership Through Communication Award. This year, in conjunction with the National School Public Relations Association (NSPRA) and the American Association of School Administrators (AASA), the Washoe County School District, a K-12 urban school district located in Reno, Nev., has been named as the 2012 award recipient. Superintendent Heath Morrison, Ph.D., and chief communications and community engagement officer Irene Payne have demonstrated leadership and innovation in enhancing communication within the district and between the schools and parents. The state of Nevada was hit hard as a result of the economic downtown, and its unemployment and foreclosure rates rank as some of the highest in the country. Many Nevada school districts have experienced budget restrictions, forcing many administrators and educators to make do with limited resources. Despite the recent turmoil, Dr. Morrison and the district’s Board of Trustees have made significant advances by instituting a strong communication program to support parent involvement and student achievement.

Last week, the U.S. Department of Education announced that they will be ramping up efforts to not only increase enrollment to colleges and universities, but also to encourage more students to graduate. The announcement comes only a few days after President Obama introduced a slew of policy proposals aimed to improve the current state of higher education. In the last five years, the cost of tuition has dramatically increased, which can certainly have a negative impact on enrollment and graduation rates as a result. Of course, in an economic downturn, it is easy to attribute enrollment challenges to increased financial uncertainty. However, in a recent publication by Public Agenda, With Their Whole Lives Ahead of Them, the study authors set out to better understand the challenges facing current university students by debunking a handful of myths and widely-held assumptions about those students that fail to complete college.