XplanaZine

Alan Levine posted a notice about an article over at Learning Circuits Blog today. The post in question has, as its premise, the statement, “schools hate businesses, businesses hate schools.” I left a comment there about the article, but would like to explore the importance of business/education partnerships a bit further in this post. My premise, by the way, is that our dreams for educational technology cannot be realized without healthy partnerships and respect between the two communities.Over the years I have had the opportunity to be involved in numerous partnerships between educators and businesses. As a faculty member and administrator, I have entered into partnerships with large general technology companies, computer manufacturers, software vendors, consulting companies, and outsourcing companies. Some of these have been wonderful relationships in which both groups benefited through knowledge sharing and the improvement of our mutual bottom lines. Others have been horrible experiences in which I was either “held hostage” or taken advantage of by my partner. I have found that some business groups talk about partnership with educators but really don’t mean it (it’s just to sell me more stuff), while others are truly interested in meaningful, long-term relationships.

As a business person, I’ve had roughly the same experiences. I have worked with educators and educational institutions in successful and unsuccessful partnerships. I have encountered educators who grasped the significance of preparing people for successful careers and the importance of giving them tools for acquiring wisdom. I have met other who felt that the academic institution existed more to prevent them form having to interact with the real world and that students were an annoyance.

Interestingly, every bad experience I have encountered involving the intersection of business and education has been about selfish ego and a lack of real vision for a larger good. As a practicing businessman, I admire the selfish rationalism that drives a fair profit. On the other hand, as a human being, I recognize that there is more to life than selfishness — particularly if I want to participate in some kind of community — and that striving for a greater or communal good is not antithetical with my desire to make a profit. As an educator, I believed (and still do) that there is a special quality about “theory” and that it becomes less perfect when put into “practice.”

But, after three decades of living on both sides of the fence, I can state unequivocally that the unsuccessful partnerships and overly selfish attitudes have been the exception as opposed to the rule. And that’s a good thing because the Web 2.0, new learning frameworks, and better education for all learners in the world require meaningful partnerships that include both businesses and educators. Only by working together can we achieve the real potential of technology in education

I need Google and Yahoo to continue their work and work on bridges between search, information, and tagging. I want publishers to embrace RSS and work on real content partnerships with schools. I want faculty members to get serious about sharing content and testing the real value of their intellectual property by trying to sell it. My vision for education requires that everyone do the best they can on their own as well as working with different groups — with different cultures and visions — to further our work.

I need successful partnerships between educators and businesses, but I need them to be successful and positive. To that end, I am listing several components that I think are likely when it comes to linking the two cultures for joint projects.

1. Fair partnerships — Good partnerships between educators and businesses must be fair for both groups. If either benefits unduly at the expense of the other, the partnership will fail. When we establish partnerships between these groups we must think long and hard about what benefits each will receive. How can this partnership help students? How can it advance important research? How can it protect the individual rights and property of participants? How can it help the business increase their revenues (abstractly or concretely)?
2. Lasting partnerships — Good partnerships are build to last. Because big businesses and academic institutions move with approximately the same amount of haste — very slow — it is important to allow ample time for these relationships to grow over multiple years. Only in the third or fourth year, often, can the different participants really start mining the knowledge value of joint projects.
3. Partnerships of specialization — Establish partnerships in which each participant brings a unique level of expertise. Some of my catastrophic failures occurred with well-meaning people but there was too much overlap in expertise and, hence, too many people thinking they had the best solution. Successful partnerships are based on a clear understanding of strengths and a willing deference to the strengths of each partner.
4. It’s not always about the money — I have been involved in partnerships that were all about making a buck for my school, and some that were really good deals, but those haven’t necessarily been the most successful. Some of my most successful partnerships were about ideas and simple knowledge sharing.

Successful partnerships between business and academic cultures focus on the mutual benefits of the partnership and are based on mutual respect. It can take time to develop trust and to test a partner’s real intentions, but our work and mission require it. We need better technology in our schools. We need better information. We need better and cheaper computers. We need each other.