Balancing Change and Being Smart

As I was helping a client with a presentation, I came across an interesting tidbit on how fast technology is changing. I don't live under a rock ... I know things are moving fast. I've got computers and televisions all around me. I Skype, Slingbox, Bluetooth, Crackberry, Facebook, LinkedIn, Wii, Playstation, teach online and all sorts of good stuff like that. The kicker for me comes from two contrasts 1) How fast Apple sold a million iPads (53 days with advance orders) as compared to how long it took for a million VCRs to be sold (See the chart, Source: Apple, Inc., Greystone Communication, The Yankee Group) and 2) Microsoft killing of Kin this week http://adage.com/article?article_id=144759.

The implication for higher education and marketing for me is how fast the rest of the world is moving in comparison to slower moving higher education. On the other hand, I blogged earlier about how the UT System was closing its centralized distance education operation in favor of decentralization. This I believe was too fast. However, wiping out Microsoft Kin after just a few months was probably a good idea, as rumour has it that it only sold 500 units.

While Apple probably did a lot of planning and we for sure know they did great marketing well in advance of its launch, the lesson to learn from all of this is that we need to move faster and smarter, not recklessly like Kin. For higher education marketing, we need action-oriented data and information that we can quickly and easily access, CRM systems that truly work, smart people who can do the job, a sustainable budget, support of strategy (as opposed to quickly diving into tactics and design) and a bit more for urgency. My soon-to-be released white paper on continuing and distance education websites shows many folks still in Web 1.0 formats.

Got to go ... my Commodore just finished booting up. :)