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You are an educator. You work for an edtech company. What should you do?
My advice is to not disappear.
It can be difficult to make yourself visible to the larger higher ed community, but don’t let that challenge stop you from trying.
There are three reasons to strive for community visibility:
1. Help Your Company
Edtech companies all too often make the classic tech company mistake in believing that product equals success. They think that if they can produce the best service at the best price, then market success will follow.
The reality is that best product/service/platform in the market does not always win. There are many other non-product factors that drive market success. In higher ed, the biggest non-market factor is mindshare. Colleges and universities are conservative and risk-adverse. Most of us don’t like to stray too far from the pack. The most convincing reason for us to think about adopting your company’s product/service/platform is if other schools have already jumped on board.
This is why smart edtech companies invest lots of resources into figuring out how to cultivate individual relationships. Mindshare is not built by marketing campaigns (although they help), but by conversations between people at peer institutions.
When higher ed people talk to each other about technology companies and their products, we also talk about the people who work for those companies. We want to do business with people that we know and respect -- people who have a track record with us and who have delivered on promises made.
I want to be very clear on this point. Colleges and universities don’t buy technology from companies -- they buy from people. Campus technology agreements are not like purchases from Amazon. They are built on human interactions, on trust and on reputation. The more that we know about the people who work at tech companies, and the more that we are connected with those folks through our networks, the greater the likelihood we will invest time and attention with a particular company.
2. Improve Your Contribution and Value to Your Company
How do you improve your value to your company? How do you put yourself in a position to get promoted? How do you navigate your career within your edtech company?
There are many ways to answer these questions. We need a space where educators who find themselves working at for-profit companies can have this discussion.
One way I’d answer these questions would be to come back to the value of gaining visibility within the larger higher ed community. The more that you are known outside your company, the more valuable you will be inside your company.
The reality is that we all are replaceable. We could stop going to our jobs tomorrow, and our places of employment would go on fine without us. What should be more disturbing is that there are most likely many people who can do our jobs better than we can.
In an environment with an oversupply of talented professionals, one of the few ways that you can differentiate yourself is by the value of your network. The more people you know, the more effective you can be. Your network will be the mechanism in which you learn about the edtech environment, and make sense of what you are learning. The strong and weak ties in your first- and second-tier networks will mediate your ability to gain the attention of higher ed decision makers.
The only way to grow your network is to increase your community visibility. Community visibility does not mean having lots of Twitter followers or that you have been asked to keynote conferences. Don’t confuse visibility with fame -- or even status. Visibility is about being known by a critical mass of people across the postsecondary ecosystem.
In the age of social media, your network is more than a digital Rolodex. Don’t confuse having hundreds (or thousands) of LinkedIn contacts as having strong network ties. It is better to think in terms of conversations and relationships rather than contacts.
The challenge is to put yourself into as many discussions as possible, and to find a way to integrate yourself into the larger community of edtech practitioners.
There is no one way to meet the challenge of community integration. Rather, you should recognize that the edtech world is small, connected and built on information sharing and conversations.
3. Get You Your Next Job
Finally, think about your community visibility in another way -- you might at some point want to (or need) to find another job. The best way to get your next job is through your network. Maybe you will end up working at another company or perhaps you will go to work for a school or a nonprofit.
The work that educators do in technology is similar, no matter what the tax status of your employer. We are all trying to figure out how to use technology to improve learning and access, while lowering costs. We need all the players in the postsecondary ecosystem working together towards untangling the knot of higher ed productivity.
Even if you don’t find out about your next job from your network, or secure the job on the basis of a recommendation from someone outside your company, there are other good career reasons to increase your community visibility. The more that you are embedded in the larger edtech community, the more you will learn about other potential opportunities. It is important to keep a finger on the pulse of established and startup companies in the industry.
There is a missing discussion amongst and between educators who work at for-profit companies. This absent conversation extends to educators across the company/school divide.
The careers of educators within for-profit companies are just as important, consequential and interesting as those of us working at colleges and universities. We need to know who you are.
