I was recently intrigued by this article declaring Amazon to be the next technology giant, a fairly amazing claim in a market dominated by such players as Google, Apple, Microsoft and others. I mean, yes, we all know Amazon as the gorilla in the web commerce front, but THE tech giant for all enterprise computing?
The argument for Amazon as tech kingpin goes like this. In order to meet its own technology needs, Amazon developed a technology infrastructure (cloud services) that they have been able to re-purpose as a service to be sold to others. Netflix is an ideal example.
How significant is that? One of Amazon’s customers for whom they provide cloud computing services is Netflix, a company whose content accounts for a third of all web traffic in the North America. Impressive. Amazon has hundreds of other similar customers.
What is Amazon doing right?
An answer from one interesting source, a former Amazon employee who now works for Google, is that Amazon successfully transitioned from a company that sold products to a dynamic provider of a platform. We all know what a product is, but let’s take a minute to define “platform” because it’s got a technology basis, but really applies to anything – including education (thus this blog!)
A product has a function(s) that people decide they want and they buy it for that purpose. The simplest example is a book. A consumer wants content that a book provides. Amazon sells the book. Simple, but this is a commodity sale. Anyone could sell that book, as Amazon knew from its own rise as they vanquished Borders. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos didn’t want to be “Amazoned” himself so he sought an opportunity.
Since Amazon sells book (and thousands of other things) to millions and millions of people with diverse interests, they had built this immense amount of computing capacity. By making that capacity available to third parties who, as an example, see a market opportunity to stream video content over the Internet (Netflix) Amazon successfully transitioned to a platform provider from a product seller.
See the trend elsewhere? It’s subtle, but pervasive:
- Apple could have sold the iPhone a product that plays music, makes phone calls and connects to the Internet. Instead they established a platform from which third party developers sell thousands of applications (via the App Store) and music (with musicians seen as third party developers) selling songs (via the iTunes). And these are just two of many examples from Apple as platform.
- Facebook is a platform that allows third party developers to deliver applications (e.g. Farmville, Mafia Wars, etc.) and content (e.g. any and every Facebook user who shares their own or third party content). Oh by the way, Facebook has nearly three-quarters of a BILLION users. Platforms enable immense scale.
- Microsoft, from its inception, is a platform (i.e. an operating system, OS) that allows their own developers (e.g. Microsoft Office) and third party developers (e.g. Quickbooks) to build applications that run on desktop and servers that run on the Microsoft OS.
So let’s stop there for a minute – Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft. Think they’ve been successful? Maybe just a little? I submit the essence of their value is that each allows for the needs of individuals to be met and their platforms provide the means to do so. They recognized that allowing others to leverage and contribute to their platform enhanced their value and relevance by meeting the diverse needs of millions of customers. Each has successfully delivered mass customization in the greatest scale.
Does education as an industry see this trend? The smart players do, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) is a pretty smart one. They made news recently by making all their coursework available online to anyone – free of charge. Notice the language of M.I.T. spokesman Anant Agarwal:
“Creating an open learning infrastructure will enable other communities of developers to contribute to it, thereby making it self-sustaining,” he says. “An open infrastructure will facilitate research on learning technologies and also enable learning content to be easily portable to other educational platforms that will develop. In this way the infrastructure will improve continuously as it is used and adapted.
The pattern could not be more clear.
M.I.T. smartly views educational content as their infrastructure in the same way Amazon saw its computing capacity. M.I.T. recognizes researchers and professors as developers the way Amazon did Netflix (and Apple, Facebook and Microsoft see their legions of third party developers). M.I.T. sees themselves as a platform provider and thus the ability to make open learning content “to other educational platforms [that term again] that WILL [my emphasis] develop.”
Now, before anyone interprets this blog as advocacy for cyber schools – STOP. That’s not the point – nor is it M.I.T’s point, I’m sure. This is all about the individualization and improvement of education as a service in an industry where consumers naturally need customization and content never stops evolving. It’s the natural migration for an industry (K-12 education) that generally sells a product – be it a course credit in Biology or even a high school diploma itself – to a services platform that promotes innovation and collaboration.
We need to see our teachers as developers and establish a culture that promotes this innovation and development. Teachers need to then embrace that responsibility while also recognizing we live in a hyper-connected world where educational practices and content from thousands of other sources is an asset to be utilized by our students and themselves to allow for further innovation and, in the vision of M.I.T. “improve continuously as it is used and adapted.”
Our platform needs to mesh with the fabric of other platforms, be they other K-12 institutions or higher education, such as M.I.T.’s., or the social media fabric that is pervasive in the lives of our students.
M.I.T. is right. One way or another, education as a platform “will develop.” It’s an industry tidal wave that will cause some institutions to drown and others to surf.
The choice that the traditional K-12 education industry must contemplate is what business model they wish to emulate – Borders or Amazon?
2 responses to “Will K-12 emulate Borders or Amazon?”
Nice thinking, Brendan. I did read all of the pieces, including a Wiki explanation of Hawkins’ meme concept; I posted the link to the m.i.t.x article on the GPEA Facebook page.
If we start the concept locally, then providing our students with the means to connect with the platforms, helps them to be able to use the cloud in order to better educate themselves in the real world.
I’m wrestling with the Amazon/Borders analogy being analogous to K12 education. Both Amazon and Borders are for-profit corporations that sell products. If public education is “free” as in consumable without a direct price tag to the students themselves, what role does K12 public education play in that analogy? If we are against rampant corporate takeover of public entities because we want to see tax dollars invested in providing more face to face services for students, does that mean we are more like Amazon or Borders?
What is APEX (as just one example of many vendors in the virtual ed community salivating at the compelling opportunity to capitalize on public monies as one of few sources of profit in the current economy) in this analogy? Are they the Amazon or Borders? If APEX is a for-profit corporation that sells course ware to bean counters (much more efficient than employing face to face teachers) and then leaves town without actually educating students, is that more analogous to Borders or Amazon?
As we move to the new normal in K12 education where standardized multiple choice tests are the metric for quality, it’s easy to see that corporations like APEX might be able to produce an “educated” citizen.
Speaking as a technophile and as both a consumer and creator of virtual learning environments, we have a long way to go before learning on line will completely replace face to face learning for a variety of reasons, but particularly because of the social aspects in young learning. With adult learners, when creating courses, there are compromises and advantages in both online learning environments and face to face environments.
It certainly is exciting to be in a world where all of these things are evolving in education, and agreeably, there is a challenge in considering the techno-revolution’s impact on the current educational system.
Hi Ranae,
Thanks for the though but a couple things to clarify.
This post isn’t intended to be a call for online learning at all. It’s about viewing what we do in education the way Amazon is a platform (and Apple, Facebook, Microsoft and MIT). Our teachers and those all across the world are the developers. Educational content is the infrastructure.
In this respect in the analogy education had better be more like Amazon (and MIT) not a product peddler (like Borders). It’s not about corporatism at all. Sound business practices need not translate to profit motive. Non-profits, like Goodwill Industries, are already at full trot viewing themselves and acting as “social enterprises” and clearly they don’t have a profit motive.
Opportunities abound as far as ways we can use MANY other metrics other than standardized tests as well. See my “Moneyball” post for thoughts along those lines.
If I were one of your members, I’d read this post and be encouraged. I’d read it and see at least someone on the board is interested in viewing me as a content contributor, a creator who needs to be given license to create, but also integrate and interface our educational platform (yes, we are our own) but inter-networked with others.
The big idea though is that education must also evolve, and in my opinion do so faster. We are not immune to social change in all respects, good and bad.
Brendan