Bradley Wheeler and William McCartney just gave a talk that mattered. It’s what great organizations like EDUCAUSE should be for.
Their idea challenges our industry and certainly fits with the EDUCAUSE call for uncommon thinking. For me, there were two very important things about this talk:
- The message
- The call to action (oh yeah!)
The message was essentially that we source so many academic and administrative tools with private vendors. A very few companies roll up the startups and smaller businesses to reduce competition. They can charge colleges and universities exorbitant prices to use our money to sell our own educational services back to us. I must admit, as I walk through the exhibit hall of vendors, I sometimes feel like one of the cows trucked into the feedlot.
Are they evil? Absolutely not! In fact, this event and so much of what we do wouldn’t be possible without them. They are often caring partners. But we shouldn’t making the mistake of thinking our industries share the same values. They are doing exactly what great firms should do: delivering quality products a prices the market will bear and maximizing profit. We can’t whine about this; it is exactly how the system is supposed to work.
But we (colleges and universities) aren’t getting the best deal all the time because our relationships with these firms is so asymmetrical:
We are many and small; they are few and large
We are poor; they are rich
Now, here’s the point: Why are we letting this happen?
We could be reinvesting millions, no billions, in leveraging IT solutions and expertise in the classroom if we could get more competitive pricing on outsourced systems. So why not do something about it? There are examples (Internet 2) already. Why don’t we pool resources and governance and talent for non-profit enterprises that tailor services to higher education to compete in the same market space with for-profit Goliaths? It might work for systems like payroll and parking.
This brings me to thing two:
Here we are, at EDUCAUSE. The best thinking in higher ed IT. Together, we have the talent, the resources, and the collective bargaining power to make a difference. Bradley and William certainly “…laid bare the questions hidden by the answers” before us all. By the way, that is the James Baldwin quote bandied about all week. And they suggested we do something about it. I relish a challenging proposal, a moment when we talk about doing something together, as an industry.
Sure, it’s complicated, and sure, it’s already happening in a lot of cases. And sure, the fire in the blood feeling this gives me about the higher ed IT profession is sorta silly.
But for now, I’m gonna crank my old Pete Seeger records to full volume.