Testing Education

I came across a story that paints a picture of how public policy, business, and technology should intersect but don't, at least yet.

With the Federal adoption of No Child Left Behind, an enormous testing industry has grown up. An additional 56 million standardized tests are given each year across the country. "It's not entirely a monopoly, but it is an oligopoly, with very little regulation," said Walter Haney, professor at the Center for the Study of Testing Evaluation and Educational Policy at Boston College.

The big 4 test manufacturers are all under the same pressures to deliver, score, and summarize the test scores with seasonal requirements mandated by the NCLB law. As the stakes rise each year cracks are beginning to appear. Illinois was the first to miss the mandated reporting deadlines due to problems in its vendor relationship. At least five other states have reported significant problems with their testing vendors. Most of these major vendors have taken on testing as an extension of their traditional textbook publishing business

For the students , schools, and local school districts errors with these standardized tests can cause intense problems.

Can technology be used to improve the speed and efficiency of this system? Well, one of the first rules for deploying technology is to make sure that the process requiring improvement is actually the right process. Speeding up a bad process simply results in poor results faster.

Getting five 9s of error free results on a standardized document in a timely manner does seem doable. It is obvious that the testing industry needs to be taken back to school.

Geni in a bottle

Here is a new site that caught my attention, www.geni.com
It is a family tree creation web application that has raised a ton of money from venture capitalists.
At this date, March 2007, there is no recognizable business model to be seen on the site. Is the site named geni because it will require the favor of three magical wishes to ever make a profit?
Probably. Will the owners and investors make a real return on their 10 million dollar investment? Probably. Are we entering the Dot- Bomb era again? Probably NOT.

The application that runs the site is slick in the best sense of the word. It is amazingly easy to use, intuitive, elegant, fast, FREE, and fun. The general media would refer to it as an example of a WEB 2.0 application. That term is fast becoming over used but regardless GENI is technology done well.

Most importantly from an investor's perspective, the simple act of filling out your family tree encourages you to virally encourage others in your family to sign up for geni.

This is viral marketing at its best. Geni is building a community family by family. It is amazing how quickly and effortlessly the brand of geni will spread. I'm sure, the folks at geni even have their own predictive equation that "proves" how fast and furiously their online community will be built. Within a year, I'm guessing they will have 10% of the 50 million broadband users identified as part of their community.

Now the pesky problem of creating a business model or at least a way to achieve ROI for this innovation becomes more obvious. We have the subscription model. What new features would I pay for annually and turn myself into a a paid subscriber? Improving nations' collective families connectedness and communications seems ripe for innovations.

Of course, for the non subscribers they also have the advertising model courtesy of Google, Yahoo, MySpace etc. I really hope advertising is not the primary business model.

The EXIT strategy is to sell the innovation/company to one of the big portals within a few years for ten or 20 times the amount invested. I can see it happening but I really hope it doesn't. The Dot Bomb era created many great new technologies. It did not create quite as many new businesses. In my mind, building a sustainable company should always be the end goal.

It will be interesting to follow the life cycle of geni. I am impressed with the technology and potential, but building a company to flip within 24 to 36 months is just hoping for magic. Let's hope they focus on building a sustainable company.

Lighter Technologies and lighter thoughts

I've noticed that my posts so far have been a bit heavy maybe not deep but kind of serious. Now,the ironic part is that my pseudo THINKER mode is being powered by some elegantly simple to use and light technology. I am in the process of migrating to using web applications and mobile devices entirely. This is a purposeful exchange of my current bag of professional tools for everything web and mobile.

To be honest, I am not and never will be mistaken for a Technologist with a capital T. I'm not even a true early adopter. At most, I am a super fan, popularizer, and critic of new technologies. I am a geek wannabe. Professionally, I am one part super networked sales guy, one part cat herder of geeks, and one part business wonk. And I will remain a small t, technologist.

Regardless of my limitations, this ongoing personal and professional evolution to the use of lighter devices, applications, and technologies has been simple, enjoyable, and for the most part free or inexpensive. Dare I say, it has been FUN.

Last month, I had the pleasure of meeting and listening to Frank Moss of the MIT Media Lab. His predictions and the projects he shared with us from the Media Lab are all about empowering users. Most importantly, the focus is not on the current one billion users of technology in this world but the last one BILLION users of technology. Light weight, web based and mobile technologies are prominent in their work.

So, the new tools that I am in the process of adopting are the same family of technologies that will empower billions of new minds across the world within a few years or one generation at most.

Lighter technologies and thinking that will enable new voices and talents around the world sounds familiar. With a little luck and hope we may have the pleasure of living through the modern equivalent of another Enlightenment with a capital E. Those are lighter thoughts that I can adopt.

Playing with Boards

Through a quirk of the calendar this week, I attended three unique Board meetings running for a total of 6 hours within a 16 hour time span. Other than myself there were no overlapping Board members. I drank a lot of coffee.

The organizations' missions,size and scope cover a range of concerns. One is a business community focused on economic development in a region including 600 businesses and 15,000 people. Another is the largest human services focused private fund raising entity covering Cape Cod's 250,000 residents. The third is Massachusett's 20th largest school district with 900 employees and 6000 students. These are all relatively high functioning Boards.

I came away from these, back to back to back sessions with a renewed appreciation for how easily individual members and entire Boards can move from being powerfully vital to entirely passive. One moment a discussion can move from tactically useless and the next it is strategically focused.

Is this ebb and flow of strong to passive roles for Board members a primary characteristic of high functioning Boards? Yes it is. I will leave it to others to identify and define these Boards roles. My sense is these organizational dynamics are really complex and equivalent to a well rehearsed string quartet switching instruments after every song. Each person needs to listen for their role yet play as a group.

More importantly, CEOs, Executive Directors, and Superintendents require a sophisticated level of interpersonal skills in order to build and maintain a high functioning Board.

In a world being driven by globalization's intensive competition this ability to listen locally but play globally becomes a defining skill set.

March 17th, 2007- Happy St. Patrick's Day

Here we go into the blogging world. St. Pat's Day seems like THE most appropriate day for me to post on my own blog for the first time. Lime most things. perseverance an consistency will make this happen.

Most of us know the story of the guy, Patrick, who showed up in Ireland, converted a few folks , got rid of some pests, and came up with an everlasting way to explain the unexplainable. Given he's my namesake, I've always been drawn to the idea of the shamrock and how it shows the simple interconnectedness of so much.

Obviously, there is the religious example of the Trinity in the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost (picked that up from a generation back).

Having just gone through birthday season in our family it is easy to see family links and connections going back and forward a generation.

However, what I tend to be interested in, both personally and professionally, is the requirement in today's world to view things wholistically. In order to move anything forward, a for profit business, non profit organizations, or governmental policies and instituitions we are not served by myopic or win/lose thinking.

For us to affect positive change we do need to look at the challenges and opportunities not with the current idea of two sides of a coin ( heads you win, tails I win). We really need to get more creative and use the really old idea of three parts of a shamrock, some for you,some for me, and some for generations to come.

You know, I've never actually found a four leaf clover. I'm sure they exist. The three-leaf kind is so common that I think Saint Padraig got it right and figured it was a symbol that we all could believe was possible to embrace in our daily lives.

Happy St. Patrick's Day