Integrated business models are when you do everything yourself.
Orchestration is when you put all the people and pieces together and orchestrate the outcome of their work.
We are pursuing orchestration.
photo: D. Knisely**
We are busy trying to orchestrate very diverse pieces of this project.
We have a development team in Uzbekistan. A project manager in San Diego. College students all over the place. Tester in New York. Partners in Chicago. Advisors / Customers in colleges everywhere. Facebook on its own planet. And now we are reaching out to researchers in Academia.
Every one of these parts has its own world, culture, value sets, and etiquette.
An important part of orchestration is getting everyone on the same page. Communication and connection are critical.
That’s why language is so important. So is trust.
As the orchestrator, we are at the nexus. Or more accurately, we are at the center and it’s up to us to pull the pieces/people together so that they have some common overlap. Not long ago we were really excited about this position. We still are, but it’s pretty intense yoga – we’re doing some stretching to reach everyone. (This stretch, btw, is a huge part of the global, multi-disciplinary, tech-powered, 21st century education thing people keep talking about.)
I’m going to do a few postings about the gaps and their potential bridges. Starting with . . .
Business ——> Academia
The two arenas have different languages and different priorities. While tricky, the language is not as big a stretch as the trust. Academia does not trust capitalism. For profit is a dirty concept to many.
One of the major issues of trust comes from the expectation that capitalists are greedy. That money is the first priority for business, where “education” is the first priority for academia. This last sentiment is not wrong per se, but like most stereotypes, there’s just more to it.
It is tricky for us when we talk to researchers and they say “You need a theoretical framework for what you are doing.”
We would just prefer to try something and see if it works.
In the academic world of research, a theory is step one. The theory is the foundation. Researchers’ careers die when they are seen as sloppy or horrendously wrong – when their theories are killed off by other, better, theories. Research death means no theory or reputation.
In the business world (our home base and history) what matters is practice. Many businesses that sounded good (in theory) died in practice for various mistakes that left them with no money. Business death means no money.
Even if Red Rover works great in theory, we are still dead if it doesn’t work in practice.
We spend a decent amount of money every month developing (and huge amounts of time, which has a substantial opportunity cost). We know the base code will be free and open source. We hope to recoup our costs by building additional modules of functionality that will be worth something to the schools that use the free core. That’s our business model.
While it sounds dramatic, a business that is spending without making is bleeding. Trying to find papers that go back to 1960 to frame the theory of a Facebook app is hard to understand when, in the business mindset, we are bleeding.
Back to orchestration. Academia has its gatekeepers, its values, and its culture. If we refuse to learn the language (or respect the culture) we are tourists and won’t be welcome very long. We deserve the door we will be shown.
So we will be humble, open to learning, and as transparent as possible. Palms up. If we can find the common language – and a cogent theoretical framework is basically our idea said in academic speak – then we can work to build the crucial trust.
So far so good. Bridges are starting to form. We have the (appropriately) cautious interest of a number of folks who have been generous enough to talk about the project.
We will stretch to understand and work within their world. We will make etiquette mistakes and hopefully, they will be kind enough to help us correct them.
The exciting thing about orchestration (especially among diverse elements as in this project) is that success means a new community, a new network – new pathways and new possibilities.
