Higher Ed

No, not that type of visiting scholar who sets up residence at your campus for a short while.  We’ve been visiting campuses who are using Scholar by Blackboard.  Why?  Well, to see how people are using it.  The concept of sharing academic resources using a social bookmarking application may seem obvious to some who stay very current with new tools on the web.  However, we knew from earlier research that even students who use Facebook or play the latest games don’t necessarily have experience using this type of tool or with why they would use it.  There were two things that came out of the conversations that were particularly notable (and maybe surprising to those of you who subscribe to RSS feeds of blogs).

First, it seems that not everyone is using the bookmarklet.  This matters because it’s what makes bookmarking sites so easy.

I am always looking for new ways to approach things in life because doing something the same way each time does not always work or it can be boring.  I like to get different perspectives.  I seek unique ideas.  I want the New, New Thing – per Michael Lewis.  For instance, I don’t always follow the routine or the standard.  I mix it up – sometimes by design, sometimes by convenience and, of course, sometimes because the first chance was missed.

For instance, my fiancée and I took a different approach to the nationally celebrated Valentine’s Day.  Rather than adhere to the rules that Hallmark has bestowed upon the country that there’s only one true day for love and it should cost you an arm and leg just to celebrate it, we decided to wait a week and splurge at our leisure.  We ended up spending an amazing evening at a very nice restaurant here in DC.  In my mind, it is now one of the restaurants that I associate as a “must-go-back” place.

As I say these words “must go,” it makes me think: If this restaurant was that amazing, what are some other “must-go-back” venues?  What are the places I need to go back to more than just once in a lifetime?  And the answer hits me!

In less than a week, I know that I will be at another “must-go-back” place: Next Monday, March 10, I’ll be at BbWorld Commerce ’08, and I will be dining at A Different Pointe of View restaurant, sitting atop the North Mountain in Phoenix with some of the most stunning views available in the country.

I know very few places that give you this type of atmosphere – that combined with the food and service that all high-end restaurants are renowned for.  Plus, it’ll be dining with 300 friends and colleagues.  What’s even better is, this dinner is on us.  You don’t open your wallets for this meal.  Now, that alone would make this place a “must-go-back” place.

I am looking for people to join me at my table on the patio for what will be fantastic evening event.  Most events have great activities for their attendees to attend, yet very few have places that you must go back to . . . BbWorld Commerce does.

See you next weekend at the conference.

I recently had the pleasure of spending a day with colleagues talking in depth to a vice-chancellor from a well-known UK university about key challenges facing UK higher education.  This was in the context of the Blackboard Outcomes System and its role in supporting planning and assessment processes.

Before detailing those conversations with you, however, I’d like to briefly discuss a popular news story here in the UK which, after reading, I find myself contemplating questions similar to those in assessment processes.

As Andrew Lloyd Webber’s revival of the musical “The Sound of Music” nears the end of its run in London, swansong news articles published last week reflected on the performance of the show’s star, Connie Fisher.  Fans of reality TV, especially programmes with live audition eliminator formats, probably remember Ms. Fisher from “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria,” which ran in prime time on the BBC in 2006.  That show turned out to be the trailer for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s revival and produced a “West End Musical Star out of a call centre worker”: Connie Fisher.

The news stories I read played on the dramatic tension of an “amateur” playing the role of a professional, intimating:

• Could someone without a conventional formal theatrical training history ever achieve an acceptable level of performance?
• Now that the show is coming to an end, is it effectively the end of Fisher’s career?

That news coverage set me thinking again about what constitutes “acceptable performance,” by what criteria, and how that is measured.  In short, how do you know something is good?

While talking in-depth with colleagues and the vice-chancellor about key challenges facing UK higher education, we kept coming back to the same problem – the business techniques through which UK universities are increasingly managed boil down to the ability to:

Joining Blackboard and its Product Strategy team was a big professional change for me, which prompted a new habit of periodically reflecting on my work in this new role.  One of the more interesting reflections was trying to understand how my work is something more than earning my pay and increasing shareholder value for the company.

It all seems to be right on the surface – Product Strategy analyses current client pains and general trends to advise the rest of the company on how to optimize existing product offerings and/or come up with new products that would cover current and future client needs.  We are clients’ ambassadors in Blackboard – we translate client voices into plans and products.  Great, isn’t it? 

But I could not stop at this “mother love and apple pie” level.  Digging a little bit deeper, it becomes evident that there is a counterpoint.  Some view technological solutions to a wider range of pains only as increasing technology overhead, pushing the costs of education up and making it less affordable without giving much in return.  With the multitude of electronic tools available to academia today, it’s easy to make a point that if all these technological aids really worked, people who graduated a decade or two ago would be Neanderthals compared to current generation of students.  Apparently, this is not the case – so is this point valid? 

Did you watch this year’s Super Bowl?  The New York Giants vs. the undefeated New England Patriots in Arizona: what a game and what an amazing ending — a dramatic come from behind victory in the final minute of the biggest game (and sporting event) of the year.  What more could you ask for?  It was truly one of the most riveting spectacles I have witnessed in the past 30 years.

You have to love big events like that.  They bring people together from all across the country and even across the world.  And that one game is a special opportunity to share “water cooler” conversation with people you may not get to talk with very often around the office, campus, school . . . “Hey, did you see that game last night!  Wow!”

Well, the Super Bowl got me thinking . . . What other big events are there this year that will garner as much attention – sure, there’s the NASCAR championship series, maybe March Madness, the World Series . . . Ah, but before all of those events, there is another big event in Arizona, in just two weeks, that’s sure to receive a huge amount of attention from the hundreds of people in attendance and, when those participants return to their respective campuses across the country, will influence millions of people in schools, colleges and universities nationwide: yep, BbWorld Commerce ’08!