Educational and Digital Technology Consultancy
From teenage coder to Tech Advisor with CITP status I’ve been in tech since I was a teenager. Of course, back then, things were very different to today. The web was still evolving. Social media platforms were still up and coming. Facebook? Twitter? Nope… none of that. My adventures in web development began with with […]
Agile doesn’t mean you take an 18 month project and break it down into month releases Why do startups fail? 🤔 Too many startups begin with the idea for a product that they think people want… and they actually don’t. When we talk about “Agile”, the Agile Manifesto, and some of the principles around Agile, […]
Leaders and teachers do not need to have all the answers As a teacher/mentor/advisor, I found “The Ignorant Maestro” by Itay Talgam quite a liberating read. Even though I know quite a lot about some subjects, I often have to respond to students’ questions with “I don’t know” and then follow it up with “let’s […]
EdTech VC investors are in a position of power and are able to influence the education agenda I recently attended a fascinating Digital Education session on the current trends in EdTech investment, and particularly Venture Capital. Essentially, VCs are investing in the future of education and therefore having a direct impact on what the future […]
“Why does all analysis of EdTech always focus on funding over revenue?” I was recently asked this question. Firstly, I wouldn’t say “all” and I wouldn’t say “always” but I believe I understand where the question was coming from. I think the EdTech space is inherently different to the B2C market, for example, because it […]
The tech giants don’t need to listen to your conversations. They have so much other data to work with. When I stumbled across the Twitter thread above, it reminded me of all those anecdotes I have heard over the years about adverts being targeted at people after they have (seemingly) related conversations. Essentially, the big […]
I am generally positive about the post-COVID readjustment of (higher) education to be more inclusive/flexible/accessible, enabled by tech. Future spend on EdTech is expected to grow significantly, as shown in the graph produced by HolonIQ below. I do, however, worry that there will be a LOT of spend on systems by executive teams that don’t […]
Guess what. Talking to people makes good things happen. I’ve written about this topic before but there are so many different angles to consider, one could probably write a book! Mental note: write a book. Networking might feel like a dirty word. What do you think of when you hear “networking”? Do you imagine a […]
When I use DuckDuckGo… I really miss Google I’ve been using DuckDuckGo for a while now on my Android phone as my default browser and homescreen search instead of Google Chrome. Obviously the privacy features are great but it has been interesting to see how much of Google I miss! Quite a lot, it turns […]
Would you like to work in this office environment? Looks somewhat anxiety-inducing, no? Perhaps it has a different feel at eye level. Worse or better? Hard to tell! It’s one of Facebook’s offices, apparently. Don’t know from when. I haven’t dug much deeper than the thread of replies on a tweet or two (so don’t […]