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The Tipping Point in Distance Education May Be Closer Than You Think

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Over my past 15 years in online higher education, most related industry research came from the Sloan Consortium (now Online Learning Consortium, or OLC). Many higher education institutions did not offer online courses earlier on and many whose experience was limited to traditional classroom instruction were skeptical of the new format. As a result, OLC […]

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Artificial Intelligence – Choosing to Be a Victim or a Victor

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Last week, serial entrepreneur Mark Cuban created a stir with his statement at the SXSW (South by Southwest) conference that the world’s first trillionaire will be someone who masters artificial intelligence (AI). In the past, Cuban has been an avowed proponent of the value of a liberal arts degree for its ability to teach critical thinking. However, at SXSW, he advocated the study of computer science, stating, “Whatever you are studying right now, if you are not getting up to speed on deep learning, neural networks, etc., you lose.”

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The 2017 NMC Horizon Report

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The New Media Consortium Horizon Report: 2017 Higher Education Edition was recently published. A 15-plus year collaboration between the New Media Consortium and the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative, the annual report attempts to predict trends in education, as shaped by technology.

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Lifelong Learning

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The January 14-20, 2017 issue of The Economist includes a special report on the topic of lifelong learning.  The writers note that lifelong learning today mainly benefits high achievers and likely leads to increased inequality.  The classic model of education that provides many years of learning during youth, supplemented by training at work, is breaking down.  In fact, on-the-job training in the U.S. is shrinking, and more and more people doubt that a four-year degree is worth the cost.  During the 19th and 20th centuries, countries worldwide saw major improvements in education. The Economist argues that we should seek similar breakthroughs today.

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The Content Trap, Part IV: Everyone’s a Media Company

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If I value a book section based on the number of pages I have highlighted, the winner would be Part IV of the Content Trap, which rightfully advances and supports the points made  previously with both evidence and conclusions.

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The Content Trap, Part III: Context – Functional Connections

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Dr. Bharat Anand compares the success of media company Schibsted’s digital transformation (from text-heavy to picture-intensive, from careful editing to rapid publishing, and from daily publishing to real-time updating) to that of The Economist. The latter doubled its print circulation from 2000-2015 while integrating its digital and print content, without changing the speed and manner in which digital offerings were updated. 

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The Content Trap, Part II: Concerts – Product Connections

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Dr. Bharat Anand writes about Mark McCormack, the legendary founder of International Management Group (IMG), who recognized that athletes could earn as much or more off the playing field, as on it. In signing Arnold Palmer as its first client, IMG grew to become the largest talent agency in golf and from there expanded to tennis, motor sports racing, track and field, baseball, football, fashion models, authors and musicians.  The reason for IMG’s success was its ability to manage connections across products.

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The Content Trap, Part I: Classifieds – User Connections

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Harvard’s Graduate School of Business Administration is known for its case study methodology. In the Content Trap, Dr. Bharat Anand describes several corporate users, their industries, and the ways in which these companies improved their connections to enhance their growth and success.

We have witnessed declining newspaper readership over the past few decades, and many believe that the culprit is digital alternatives. Dr. Anand notes that this decline has been underway for more than 60 years, caused by multiple technologies from radio and TV networks to cable TV and 24/7 news channels.  The impact of the Internet is no greater on readership than the technologies that preceded it.  The other two sources of newspaper revenues are classified and retail ads.  Classified ad revenues declined precipitously during the past decade (2000-2010) and the reason is that sellers and buyers favor products with more connections.

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The Content Trap: A Strategist’s Guide to Digital Change

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Bharat Anand, Henry R. Byers professor of business administration at Harvard Business School and author of The Content Trap, states in his afterword, “I knew that many things around us would change by the time I had finished it [and they did].”  He recognizes, in an era of massive digital content generation, that content has not changed as much as the art of managing it, thanks to technology and the way in which connections are created.  He sets the stage by explaining how content is valued and consumed by billions of people daily.  As a result, businesses try to produce the best and most relevant content.  The proliferation of content — five exabytes (five billion billion bytes) are generated every two days — creates “the problem of getting noticed.”  The extremely low cost of digital content distribution, in turn, creates “the problem of getting paid.”  The combination of the two problems is deadly.  

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Subjects of Interest

Artificial Intelligence/AI

EdTech

Higher Education

Independent Schools

K-12

Science

Student Persistence

The Future of Work

Workforce

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