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São Paulo’s $2.73 Billion RFP (Yes, It’s a “B”) and Other Alluring Brazilian Educational ICT Numbers

Nelson B. Heller, President, The HellerResults Group — Friday, May 10, 2013

Floated about a year ago, São Paulo’s proposed R$ 5.5 billion ICT initiative, a ten-year program which converts to a remarkable US$273 million per year for equipment, teacher training, and content for schools throughout the state, drew preliminary proposals from 30 organizations and consortia. The number of competitors is now nine. You’ll recognize some of their names. The government is now eight months late announcing the winner of the tender, leading some to think it has quietly been withdrawn. During the uncertainty, one Brazilian vendor told me “the money’s still there” and saw the experience as a positive sign. That the education ministry of one of Brazil’s states—it wasn’t a federal initiative—was willing to structure a huge multi-billion-dollar tender, he said, says a good deal about a changing mind-set in LatAm. Then this past April 25, in an online PDF summarizing São Paulo government’s open tenders, there it was. (See Chamamento Público 003/2012 – PPP Aula Interativa.) Maybe a winner will actually be announced soon, or maybe it’s in indefinite limbo, but read on to see why Brazil is a growing force not to be ignored by education resource providers.

Top 5 Ways the British Are Winning the Ed Tech Export War

Nelson B. Heller, President, The HellerResults Group — Friday, March 15, 2013

If we want a bigger share of the fast-expanding global education markets, we’re going to have to make a fuss about getting UKTI-type support on this side of the pond. Here are the top 5 ways the British are besting us at this game.

ICT Export Advocacy
Our Trade Associations Are Only Tangentially Involved
Weak Support Connecting ICT Companies With International Partners
Weak Overseas Trade Show Support
We’re Not in the Commercial Service’s Education Sector!

Nelson in China – The Personal Side

Nelson B. Heller, President, The HellerResults Group — Friday, February 15, 2013

In my last column, A Week of “Gan Bei” Marketing Across China, I wrote about the drivers behind the dramatic growth in China’s preschool and elementary education markets. In December, I traveled with executives of First-Decision Education Group, an operator of private pre- and elementary schools, to Beijing, Kunming, Zhoushan, and Hangzhou, cities spread across China. My hosts, Mrs. Zou Jing, CEO and co-founder of First-Decision (with her husband, Brad Reinert, an American), and Mr. Reinert, are star examples of a new breed of China-based entrepreneurs. Their story is a foreshadowing of tomorrow's global education market shifts and opportunities. Through them and their team I had a remarkable inside view of the changes under way in Chinese education and the business opportunities they present to Western publishers, especially those with English-as-a-Second-Language materials. My previous column focused on the business side of the equation; this one looks at it from the personal side, recounting insights and experiences that stuck with me and, hopefully, may be of use to those drawn to explore this remarkable business frontier further. Read More »

A Week of "Gan Bei" Marketing Across China

Nelson B. Heller, President, The HellerResults Group — Friday, January 18, 2013

Market drivers behind the growth in China’s preschool and elementary education systems are, to my knowledge, unprecedented in the history of public and private education. Equally amazing, given the nation’s reputation for highly restricted and difficult to navigate markets, is that Chinese government and education executives, under increasing pressure to deliver on substantial expectations, are expressing what appears to be a genuine desire to explore partnerships, resources, and curricula from outside China. In fact, they feel they are just now able to start overcoming a self-imposed isolation that meant ignorance of educational development in the rest of the world and are anxious to advance their pedagogy and productivity. For any firm not already in this market, finding the right Chinese partner and getting government support are critical—but increasingly do-able. How First-Decision Education Group, head quartered in Beijing, is thriving offers a window into how to succeed in this remarkable market. Read More »

Big Data in K-12 (Part III): Getting From Sunrise to Noon

Nelson B. Heller, President, The HellerResults Group — Friday, December 07, 2012

Previous columns—“Big Data in K-12: Attack of the Recommendation Engines” and “Big Data in K-12: Is Voice Technology Talking to You Yet?”—have explored the big ideas and market drivers behind the surge of recent entrepreneurial initiatives seeing big data technology and, to a lesser extent, voice recognition technology, as vehicles for markedly enhanced intelligent educational products. The articles triggered reader feedback with interesting examples of innovative products and services, several of which are discussed here in this concluding piece that also pulls together the hurdles and business implications for education resource providers. Language acquisition products are the low-hanging fruit, but a growing community of entrepreneurs sees a host of other K-12 applications on the horizon. Read More »

Big Data in K-12: Is Voice Technology Talking to You Yet? (Part II)

Nelson B. Heller, President, The HellerResults Group — Friday, November 02, 2012

Education Technology’s “Next Big Thing?” My last column, “Big Data in K-12: Attack of the Recommendation Engines,” explored the big ideas and market drivers behind the surge of entrepreneurial initiatives seeing advances in big data technology as key to empowering intelligent real-time differentiated instruction. While not immediately obvious, voice recognition technology, which has advanced considerably alongside data science, relies on specialized recommendation engines to navigate the speech-to-text hurdle and then derive meaning and reasoning. We’re far closer to speech as a universal computer interface than many realize and examples of educational products are beginning to surface. Last spring Stanford University’s Prof. Patrick Suppes threw down a gauntlet for the ed tech industry by identifying machine recognition of “emotional speech” as the final challenge to realizing educational technology’s vast potential. Read on to learn more about where we stand and some interesting examples of voice-powered educational products. Read More »

Big Data in K-12: Attack of the Recommendation Engines – Part I

Nelson B. Heller, President, The HellerResults Group — Friday, October 12, 2012

Big Data Meets Education: A wave of K-12 entrepreneurial initiatives sees the application of “big data” as the key to instructional technology’s Holy Grail—intelligent real-time differentiated instruction akin to working one-on-one with a brilliant personal instructor. Investors, aware of the powerful strides made in recommendation engines by Internet giants Google, Amazon, LinkedIn, Netflix, and Zynga, as well as for a host of military and commercial applications, see in big data education’s “next big thing.” Read More »

K-12 China: In-The-Trenches

Nelson B. Heller, President, The HellerResults Group — Friday, August 31, 2012

This final article on China brings together the experience of almost a dozen organizations doing business in this fast-growing and exotic K-12 education market frontier. It follows two previous columns on the increasing globalization of the world’s K-12 markets, Around the World in a Day: Business Models There Lend Insight Here and California and Texas Flagging? Why Some Are Targeting China, inspired by the recent International Markets Forum (IMF). To put this in a more realistic perspective, I reached out for in-the-trenches feedback from 11 industry executives with solid global credentials: Abhinav Mital of The Parthenon Group (India), Zou Jing of First Decision Education Group (China), Charles Callis of Waterford Research Institute (U.S.), Alexander Kondakov of Izdatelstvo Prosveshchenie (Russia), Simmy Ziv-el of ETS (U.S.), David Langridge of Microsoft (U.K.), Rafal Romejko of Young Digital Planet (Poland), Peter Schneider of ict Maven Group (U.S.), Emma Rogers of Little Bridge World (U.K.), Michael Patterson of Avant Assessment (U.S.), and Charlene Gaynor of The Association of Educational Publishers (U.S.). See if your preconceptions aren’t swayed by what they have to say. Read More »

California and Texas Flagging? Why Some Are Targeting China

Nelson B. Heller, President, The HellerResults Group — Friday, August 03, 2012

How real are today’s international marketing opportunities for education publishers and school operators? At the recent International Markets Forum (IMF), Karan Khemka, Head, International Education Practice, The Parthenon Group, made the case that for education markets, “The profit pool is moving from making content for developed markets to delivery of content in emerging markets.” Because China has garnered considerable attention of late, I spoke to six industry executives about why China is getting their attention. This article relates insights from three of them: Trace A. Urdan, Equity Research, Wells Fargo Securities; Din Heiman, COO and General Manager, BrainPOP; and Karan Khemka. “It may seem counterintuitive,” Trace Urdan told me, “but China offers a more favorable business and regulatory climate for educational content and service providers.” With so many market drivers signaling “up,” public stocks of two bellwether Chinese education market firms have recently taken a tumble. For a further perspective on why, I connected with Joseph R. V. Romano, President, Romano Wealth Management. Next month I’ll share more in-the-trenches feedback from Abhinav Mital, Senior Principal, The Parthenon Group; Zou Jing, Chairman and CEO, First Decision Education Group; and Charles Callis, VP Business Development/International, Waterford Research Institute. And that’s just the start of it. I’ll be highlighting more of these markets and their relative appetites for international partners in future articles. I think you’ll be surprised by what these folks have to say. Read More »

Around the World in a Day: Business Models There Lend Insight Here (Part I)

Nelson B. Heller, President, The HellerResults Group — Friday, June 29, 2012

Being a K-12 market futurist can be lonely work. When readers focus on this quarter’s or month’s sales, pointing out that the stars are aligned for big changes down the road loses luster fast. Readers of this column know I’ve been highlighting a trail of bread crumbs pointing toward a significant uptick in the globalization of the K-12 market. For one marvelous day earlier this month, my futurist loneliness evaporated at the June 3 International Markets Forum (IMF) pre-conference day for the Content in Context (CIC) Conference, co-organized by AEP and AAP. I chaired the IMF. Some 123 registrants from around the world, whose numbers blew past the event’s goals of 80 and then 100, shared their insights into this globalization, what business strategies are working, and the opportunities and challenges of cross-border educational commerce. In terms of shear theater, given CIC’s mainly domestic draw, participants came from—or talked firsthand about doing business in—Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Columbia, England, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Latin America, New Zealand, Poland, Russia, Thailand, and the U.S. What was even more powerful was the realization, which grew throughout the event, that we’re of one community, confronting remarkably similar problems and opportunities. And yes, Virginia, there’s globalization out there. Read More »