The MediaTech2.006 event is in one heck of a venue. I am sat in the Imax 360 degree cinema in front of Doug Richard, the CEO of Library House and Dragon from the Den, who is leading some impressive proceedings. Since I only got on top of what’s happening today, well, today, I’ve only just discovered what a treat I am in for.
First up is Bob Young, CEO of Lulu, who has built his publishing business on the basis that anyone, anywhere should be able to publish a book. His first point – his publishing company, though it has a London office, should be based in London, not the US. Why isn’t it?
His RedHat company started when its smaller competitors were already doing multibillion dollar business in the software business. The bigger opportunities are the ones that everyone says can’t be done, though, says Young.
His story is based around small is beautiful. Where larger companies would not respond to the many user requests and ideas – turning the technical glitch into a ‘feature’. When you had the blue screen of death you would be told by cutomer support that you had to restart your machine once a week to avoid it – not possible if you’re Ebay or Amazon. This, claims Young, is where the open source ideologies took on a world of their own. Having the source code the engineers of my computer and your computer are able to collaborate and fix the problem without having to go to one main operator.
RedHat makes money out of this because of the healthy competition in serving customers well. And they can do that by being small and nimble. Google might have more money than most, but they are now having trouble innovating because they’re just too big. Lulu, though, and RedHat are based around customers’ needs. It’s not about publishing books, it’s about publisung their books. The market is as varied as its customers and is designed that way.
Wouldn’t it be great if we really saw education that way, and that a service as varied as its customers was built in to the design of what we do instead of being added at a later date? I think we can do this with the current initiatives but only if we use technology, and particularly social media, to make it happen. Otherwise our rather large organisation – Scotland – is not going to be able to be nimble enough to deliver such a varied service.
(For those who don't get the title, watch this)
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