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by Ken
Freed The
surest way to grow the global market for
educational media is to grow the global audience of
educated people. Predicting
the future market for educational media is like
trying to drive down the road by looking in the
rearview mirror. We're liable to run into some
unforeseen realities. Hidden curves await
ahead. A case in point was cited
during a PBS interview with American money manager
Michael Milken. Few market watchers ten years ago,
Milken told Charlie Rose, ever believed that 15
percent of the "Fortune 500" companies for FY 1997
would be integrated health care providers. Over the
next decade, similar market forces will drive the
growth of educational media companies toward
similar prominence. Taking a longer view of the
global economy, Milken says, "The best use of
private capital is creating value to society."
How can the production and
delivery of educational media content and services
prove as profitable as any health care enterprises?
Do the markets share the same foundational factors?
Yes and no. Both provide essential community
services and accrue value with every service
rendered. In both markets, shiny whiz-bang
apparatus increases demand. What's the key difference?
For good health care companies, the healthier each
generation becomes, the less people need health
care provisions, the less they demand access to the
latest technologies. Medical services with
integrity are seeking to put themselves out of
business by keeping people healthy. In the educational
marketplace, however, the demand for educational
products and services renews itself in every
generation. If the young are educated more openly
than their parents, they tend to become lifelong
learners. The more we learn, the more we want
access to learning sources, from books to online
tutors. People value goods and
services that improve their quality of life.
Accounting for the daily appreciation in market
value enjoyed by any local, regional, national, or
world venture deemed a "community asset,"
educational media companies now are learning how to
prosper by cooperating with the self-renewing
nature of the education marketplace in every
generation. Could the entire educational media
industry one day surpass the health care industry
as a segment of GNP? Will every media company one
day want in the game? Choosing
Lanes on the We've always had to adapt
ourselves to each media content display platform,
like how to operate the VCR, or forcing ourselves
to master Windows on a PC. But in a generation or
two, we will be able to tell any media platform to
adapt itself to us. Not only will our automated
"personal agents" filter out unwanted content, we
will direct our content display apparatus (TV or
PC) to configure itself to our own personal
preferences. Given the various shapes
and sizes of the media boxes and screens used
inside our homes, schools, workplaces, and
community centers, the potential reach for
universalized and individualized education
are breathtaking. Regardless of debates over
educational access policies and world testing
standards, today's educational technologies already
enable students to explore their capacity for
learning more fully than ever before in history.
The direction taken by
educational television today and tomorrow depends
in large part on the choices made today by media
investors. While educators and governments will
exert a powerful influence, the flow of capital
will be the final arbiter of change. Where and how
we invest our resources makes a difference.
Therefore, we need to
adopt a business strategy appropriate to the
conditions at hand, a plan that stands an honest
chance of helping us achieve our highest ambitions.
Each choice we make affects the options that appear
to us. Low Road or
High Road? Instead of taking the low
road to profits on the "Information Superhighway,"
instead of playing to the lowest common
denominator, consider the business case for taking
the high road Media psychologist and
distance education pioneer Dr. Bernard Luskin
doesn't mince words. "Poorly designed material
lacks quality. The idea that you can 'get by' by
giving low quality for a low price is a
rationalization. "One can scavenge on the
bottom with thoughtless products, cater to our
weaknesses like some of the video games, but such
products belong on the junk heap. When products
play to our weak side, they do more harm then a
lack of clarity about their intent. "When we are not willing
to put in the tremendous intellectual effort
required for developing a quality product, when we
are not addressing the heart with the head, we end
up with lame communication. Why shrivel up our own
evolution? Bad video can't fake quality, and we
reject it, the same goes for bad audio, or bad
multimedia. People do not tolerate low quality. But
people respond to high-quality content with
positive emotions. We love material that appeals to
the best part of ourselves." What if we lack the means
to deliver megabuck production values? Replies
Luskin, "When you don't have the best equipment, as
any brilliant chef will tell you, if you have to
use lesser ingredients, you must use a higher level
of culinary skill, a higher level knowledge and
experience to make a quality product from the
materials at hand. "The future of educational
media is with products that have a lot of
intelligence built into them. Look at how the
publishers of quality textbooks attracted
investment capital just by announcing they were
looking into new media venues for their content.
Always invest in quality products that play to our
good side. And those who are not yet investing
themselves in this way are way back behind the
power curve." Short Trip or
Long Haul? Another related
fundamental strategic question is whether to plan
for the immediate situation or else concentrate
attention on the long-term vision. The choice ought
to be affected by an appreciation for the depth of
our interactivity on network earth. Luskin again: "Think about
the old-time moralist maxim of, 'Spare the rod,
spoil the child,' how it's allowed us to batter
away at generations of students, trying to force
them into learning. But intelligently designed
educational materials in the 21st Century will
enable us to interact with growing technical
skills. Educational products will be constructed on
the basis of a well-researched understanding of
communication theory and media psychology.
"Consider the new term
'forensic media,' a modern behavioral science in
which forensic experts apply a knowledge of media
to settle questions of evidence in civil or
criminal cases, such as if a videotape has been
altered. As soon as we hear this new term, it's
obvious to us. The same goes for applying advanced
knowledge of educational media to the development
of educational media productions. Creating better
quality educational content will help create better
people and a better world." Playing to our highest and
best natures in creating educational media,
essentially, helps set off a chain reaction
throughout society. The more people get accustomed
to high-quality educational content, the more they
expect high quality product. This attitude about
learning soon washes over into other areas of
culture, influencing our business and government
affairs. In our interactive world, therefore, it
makes global sense to see the big picture and take
the long view in our strategic choices. In more practical terms,
of course, we still need to account for lag time.
The patterns set in motion by long-range thinking
take time to mature. In the case of educational
media, just as the merger of the TV and PC will not
happen overnight, so development of educational
media psychology expertise will take time to
evolve. Just as those producing
DVD products schedule their launch for when the
installed base of video disk players merits the
product's release, so one may want to wait on the
production of wide-screen interactive educational
content designed for plasma HDTV display; let the
installed base of HDTV sets grow before you act.
Abstracted to a core principle, plan for the
future, but spend for the present. The value of each venture
varies with the clarity of the vision, yet invest
in current realities. Aim for a balanced
diversification among general educational media
ventures and those targeting niche markets. Developing
Markets by Developing Minds Recognizing educational
media opportunities is a lot easier after defining
educational media in terms that embrace the
broadest spectrum of personal and group learning
efforts within schools, homes, workplaces, and
community media centers. Knowledge is innately free
and rightly belongs in the public domain. Yet
whenever we want or need to learn anything, the
market opens for access to useful educational
content. We feel willing to pay education providers
making knowledge easier to learn, easier to act
upon in our lives. Whether any educational
media company's revenues flow directly from
learners themselves or from the educational content
providers, notable profits look likely for
companies maintaining high quality, maintaining an
attitude of service. In an information economy
where knowledge is power, educational media
companies are positioned in a central role.
Tomorrow's educational market will belong to media
ventures producing and distributing the educational
content most valued by students, educators,
parents, employers, and even politicians. Shifting
to digital media opens up opportunities for
visionary ventures to establish themselves as
providers of content for lifelong learners at any
age. Prosperity hangs on
fulfilling latent potentials in educational media.
A little bit of "enlightened self-interest" goes a
long way. The surest way to grow the market for
educational media is to grow the audience of
educated people. (c)
1999
by
Ken
Freed.
Based upon the book, Financial
Opportunities in Educational
Television, by Judah Ken Freed. .
New
in the CASTING
THE NET OVER GLOBAL
LEARNING An
comprehensive overview of critical advances in k-12
and higher education along with corporate training
and lifelong learning.
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