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Re: SchoolTool Brand Values

 

On Fri, Mar 11, 2011 at 6:24 AM, Ben Greenfield <ben@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I would add Community of Educators

Having given this a bit of thought, I'm going to offer a bit of
pushback about this as "brand value."

To be sure, this would have been on my list when we started the
project, and I would love for SchoolTool to really be based on a
community of educators, but it isn't, and is unlikely to be, and we
should probably be honest about that.

Teachers and principals don't want an SIS that comes with obligations
to a community.  They just want one that works.  They have too much
other, more interesting and immediate, stuff to do.

And the minority teachers and principals who *are* interested in
getting something specific out of their SIS aren't thinking "I need
this thing, I'd love to have a discussion with the community about
it."  They're thinking, "I want this thing, period."  We know this
from experience.

To the extent that a "SchoolTool Community" develops, it is going to
be one level up: our developers, integrators like Critical Links,
NGO's like OLE Nepal and the Open Institute, and government IT people.

Another example would be the community in Virginia around CanDo and
SchoolTool.  But I would argue it is more accurate in that case to say
that SchoolTool has been adapted to the community than those folks
have become part of the SchoolTool community.

In theory making them part of the SchoolTool community would be cool,
but in practice it is just as good or maybe better to just have
SchoolTool disappear into their community.

Hopefully my critique here does not discourage conversation in this
community.  ;-)

Thoughts?

--Tom



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