How well do you understand the ecosystem in which you are working? What will happen next in this space? How will the forces shaping it affect your venture?
A good way to look into the crystal ball for your space is look at how things have unfolded in other similar ecosystems. If you’re in the water utility space, what can you learn from developments in the electrical utility space? Or from the water space in Israel or Australia, both of which have been suffering from the acute water shortages that are headed our way.
A Storm is coming…
How will a new technology affect your space? You can also learn valuable lessons from seeing how it has already impacted other industry spaces…
Imagine a storm moving in from the sea. It will hit the cities on the coast first, and then much later the cities on the interior.
Similarly, a new wave of technology will hit some industries before others - and we can learn from those. A case in point: digitisation of content. Some of the first “cities” to be hit were the music and newspaper industries. What lessons could we learn from those for the education and training industry, which is now belatedly being hit by the storm?
The bundle is shredded…
One clear trend that we’ve seen in those early cases is unbundling. For example the music industry was used to selling albums - but in a digitised world the concept of an album is fading - people just buy the tracks they want. But this unbundling has been far more stark in the newspaper industry - which naively believed that online newspapers would simply be copies of physical ones, with pixels replacing paper...
The reality has been far different. A physical newspaper bound together news, announcements, weather, comics, sports, classifieds alongside advertising in one package. In the digital world, all these things have become unbundled: we consume news on one site, get family announcements via Facebook, have a weather app on our phone, get sports results on Twitter, buy and sell items on eBay. The bundle has been shredded.
So, quo vadis education?
So what lessons could this hold for the education/training industry? The existing industry has players who deliver a “bundled” offering - they develop and market courses, register students, present the courses (often in their own training facilities), bill for these, and provide accreditation for their courses.
Will this be the same in a digital future? I doubt it. I think that the best universities in the world will license (or open source) their material, to local companies who will provide it as part of a blended offering, presented at rented training facilities, perhaps marketed through an ‘Amazon for courses’, with exams and accreditation being supplied by another company, and student financing being provided by yet another player. The day of monolithic educational institutes will probably come to an end.
Learning from other ecosystems will help us as we work...
Neil Hinrichsen is the founder of Koi. An entrepreneur all his life, Neil has cofounded two startups both of which were acquired, and is now working to develop the next generation of entrepreneurs in SA through his Koi platform, comprising a methodology for startups, classes, coffee sessions, mentoring, the KoiTips newsletters and a thriving online group. He loves working with young entrepreneurs who want to change the world. Neil also helps Microsoft with their BizSpark programme for top startups, provides mentoring at the Innovation Hub and other incubators, consults with corporates, advises the CSIR in South Africa on commercialising research, is an accredited specialist with the University of Pretoria and serves on the advisory board for Stellenbosch University's LaunchLab incubator. On the personal side he's involved in youth ministry and mentoring township teenagers. Learn more about Koi: KOI GUIDE | EMAIL neil@koistrategy.com
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