The Monster opportunity in eductaion is waiting.

I’m diving head long into the  elearning market with OpenStudy and it’s a fascinating space. More than anything it’s prime for massive disruption – Kevin Maney in his Business Week article, “Next: An Internet Revolution in Higher Education”, digs into this very well.

The essence of Manley’s analysis …

• “Currently there exists no higher-education version of MP3 music files—no way to get a “good-enough” BA or master’s degree that’s accepted by professional managers, yet obtain it in a way that’s cheap, easy, and convenient. This is a terrible imbalance. That’s like putting up a giant neon sign announcing: Monster Opportunity Inside”

Along with Manley’s “monster opportunity” is another skulking behemoth: the “socialization” of education. In much the same way that we’ve seen peer-to-peer interactions happen in personal relationships (Facebook), professional interactions (LinkedIN) and music (ilike), it has yet to visit the campus. Much of this is a result of establishment inertia agreed but much of it is also down to a lack of tools. There enter OpenStudy.

OpenStudy is a peer to peer study platform that allows students to study with each other in a new “social” way. By setting up virtual study rooms with friends or anyone from the network, students can collaborate on assignments, projects or answering questions.  It’s big point of difference, is the way in which it promotes the  “social” aspect to learning by matching those who want to GET help with those who want to GIVE help. With OpenStudy, students have a unique way to collaborate that is more engaging, fun and effective and is based on studying when and where the student wants. Try thinking, Webex-meets-Facebook-meets-match. com.  Further more, OpenStudy is content agnostic – it’s not about ‘what’ you learn or even ‘where’ you’re at school, instead,  it’s about the ‘who’ you learn with. OpenStudy’s emphasis is providing connections between the “people” and not on serving the content.

Fundamentally, the goal is to flatten – and disrupt-  education by distributing the responsibility of learning to the online crowd, making it accessible regardless of location, expertise or socioeconomic background. By “socializing” the collaborative learning process whether in study groups, lectures or tutoring, OpenStudy leverages peer validation as a motivator to drive student-to-student learning and create an environment where students teach each other.

Time will tell how the socialization of education will shape up.

Just got back from presenting at the IEI Entrepreneurial Forum in Atlanta. Here’s my presentation:

Something i touch on in the presentation is how important it is to drive your simple marketing message home at every opportunity – shout it loud. Take a look at the presentation by Steve Jobs and team at their last product conference. Count how many times Apple (AAPL) marketing chief Phil Schiller used the words “amazing” and “incredible” in his presentation at the “It’s only rock and roll event.” (Answer: an incredible 15 times each.)

Now someone who calls himself justanotherguy84 has taken the exercise one step further. He (or possibly she) has posted a 2-minute YouTube video of the entire Sept. 9 event stripped of just about everything but the adjectives.

Ever wonder how Steve Jobs and company leave the indelible impression that Apple’s products are really great, really easy and just plain awesome?

[the apple part of this posting is complements of Philip Elmer-DeWitt]

Being able to deliver a compelling pitch for your start up business, in whatever format, elevator, short or long is essential. Here’s an example how a pitch should be delivered. You can see other ones at the TechCrunch 50 competition. This presentation is from the runner up, Anyclip

Customers want to be heard

The traditional 5 P’s of marketing as every good student knows are Price, Product, Packaging, Promotion and Place (distribution). Well, there’s a new one in the mix and it’s called Participation. With the explosion of the social media revolution the whole marketing mix is shifting. Customers do not want information and advertising messages rammed down their throats, they want  to be engaged; they will respond if we listen and allow them to participate.

Here’s 3 ways to drive participation:

• Get Feedback – services like Uservoice or GetSatisfaction let you add a feedback tab to web site so customers can easily give you comments about ideas, complaints etc they may have. The Uservoice service manages the customer feedback experience, so you can respond, track and engage with your customer. There is a basic service for free or you can pay for more bells and whistles. Here’s an example of a site using it – Fizzbee (click the Feedback tab on the right side and you’ll get the idea). Set up is simple and quick, all you have to do is add a short piece of html code to your web site (it’s really easy to set up trust me).
• Set up a Customer Advisory Council – this is a group of your customers who have volunteered to act as a sounding board for ideas or changes you may want to introduce to your business. Kinda of like a beta group but less techy and more based around opinions e.g. “i want to add a back-up software service to my offering, will my customers buy it”. We all have customers who love to give you their opinion for free, so by grouping them into a more formal program they feel even more empowered. It’s as simple as inviting them to join and sending them emails now and again when you want feedback. Make sure you treat them well – small freebies are good – and dont abuse their time.
• Set up a text-based “Customer Comment Box” for offline feedback – if your business has a physical location where customers visit, like a restaurant or retail store, provide a way for them to give you real-time feedback via text. No body wants to fill in one of those comment forms and drop it in a box when the guy on the cash register is glaring at them – make it anonymous and easy for people and you’ll get responses. Use a service like PollEveryWhere to set up a text number for people to send comments to, print up some posters / tent cards for instore display showing the text number and off you go. All the text results can be read online.

Remember, creating an effective customer Participation using social media requires no single approach but use of a basket of tools and different approaches.

More entertaining than anything but it shows where your business should be looking

No matter how large or small or how new or established you are with your business, you need a plan to work with. Call it a play-book, a road map, a blue print; call it what ever you want but make sure you have one. I’m developing a go-to-market strategy for openStudy, a new technology start-up i’m working with and here’s an outline i’ll be using for a day strategy session.

Shut your team away  in a room for a day with a white board, flip chart (plus those post-it style sticky sheets) and a pile of bagels. Plaster the walls with all your ideas. Try to stay on time (see below). Ideally, it’s good to have an outsider to act as facilitator.

1. Situation Analysis (30 minutes) - why are you in business? What’s the gap in the market and the market opportunity that makes all this work for you?
2. SWOT (30 minutes)- create 4 quadrants, one each for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. List 5 in each quadrant.
3. Positioning statements (15 minutes) - “we ARE the following” ; “we are NOT the following”. Do not get sucked into the “naming” vortex or get hung up on word smithing, you can do that another day. Gag any trouble makers.
4. High Level Goals (30 minutes) - use what you’ve created in 1 , 2 & 3 to create 5 top level goals about your business e.g. “we will get 1 million users of our product within 12 months”
5. Strategies (3 hours) – This is the “How you are going to do it” section. A strategy is a group of techniques and actions with a goal in mind. See below for the different type of strategies you should address.
6. Plans & Timings (60 mins) – What’s the nitty gritty of what’s going to happen and when are things going to happen. Like a to-do list for each strategy.
7. Wrap Up  (30 minutes) – make sure the bagels are finished and address any follow up items. Volunteer someone to right up all of this good stuff in a document so that  you can actually use it. Take digital pictures of each chart you have on the wall. They are great to come back to – either when you’ve made millions and you can tell everyone “hey we did have a plan” or something to throw darts at when you’ve burned through all your cash and mortgaged the cat.

Here’s a break down of the strategies. You can have multiple under each – please please keep them simple and easy to remember so people can relate to them. Give them a catchy name. They are just meant to be strategy statements

• Product Strategies – address why people will want to use your product / have a strategy for user experience or for uniqueness.
• Distribution Strategies – what’s your route to market –  partnerships, grass roots, direct, indirect etc.
• Pricing Strategies – how are you going to make a profit? Good section for the soul.
• Launch Strategy – what’s going to happen in the first 6 months to get people buying / using your product? See my previous blog for some case studies by the likes of Facebook, Youtube etc.
• Promotion Strategy – how do you get your product out there? 92% of people purchase because of  good Word of Mouth (WOM). How are you going to create it?
• Participation Strategy – this is one of the new “P’s of marketing”. How do you engage your customer? Maria talks about all this is her blog which may be worth a gander.

Good luck. Let me know how you do.

The Big Bang

While much controversy exists around the big bang theory of life, looking at the genesis of life for a business is slightly less contentious.

Creating a successful new business is all about addressing needs, having good timing and rapidly leveraging successes when they come. Above all, one common strain in the success DNA of businesses that hit it big is that when they started they addressed a very specific niche market; got it right here and then moved onwards and upwards. This should serve as good advise to anyone starting out on their own.

The case studies listed below are all very interesting in their own right. Thanks goes to the blog Start-Up Review.com

MySpace: Not a purely viral start

Facebook: Offline behavior drives online usage

Newegg: Sense of community amongst users

Digg: Why techies are an important audience

Craigslist: Culture of trust

iStockphoto: How to evolve from a free community site to successful business

YouTube: Widget marketing comes of age

Here’s a new look to my site, let me know what you think