Metamedia

On Uncustomer Service

Recently, I argued against the use of the word 'customer' in educational contexts.

I concluded that that are many aspects of Service that can be of value, without bringing the baggage of the terms 'customer' and 'customer service' from a business environment.

For lack of a better term, I will call the opposite of that Uncustomer Service (on analogy with unconference.)

Rather than focus an a predefined relationship where one party is labelled the 'customer,' Uncustomer Service focuses instead on the qualities of the interactions that lead to positive results, whatever the relationship. Uncustomer Service is not about predefining a role or what someone else may say good service is, but rather learning from your own experience what those qualities are.

Here is a positive way to find out for yourself how to better your Uncustomer Service. It has only three simple steps. You can do this by yourself, but it will be even more effective if you do it as a group.

And I'm going to get Ben Franklin to help me out.

Collect

For one week, keep track of every single service interaction you have - shopping in a store, eating a restaurant, ordering something on the phone or online, asking for directions, trying to find out something, asking your roommate to bring you something, or any request you might have of someone else.

Just note down the date and time, what it was, and anything else of interest, including what you liked or didn't like about it.

But the most important thing is to collect every single one; not just some, but all. Write them down.

Analyze

Review the list of your service interactions. Go through them all and make of list of the qualities which made the service successful or not. Put them in two lists: Good and Bad.

For example: speediness, pleasant attitude, feedback, accuracy, one stop shopping, making alternate suggestions, and so forth might show up in the Good List.

Come up with a Good Service List of good aspects of service, about 7 to 10 items.

If you have trouble with the good ones, use the bad ones as a guide and then list the opposite. For example, if a salesperson was surly, then list its opposite, friendly or pleasant, in the Good list.

Implement

In his Autobiography, Ben Franklin (yes, that Ben Franklin) explains his system for helping himself improve.

He uses a chart with a list of his preferred thirteen virtues down one side, and the days of the weeks across the top. Franklin's method was to record his violations of these virtues for each day with a dot: the fewer dots, the better.

You should do the same.

Make a chart or borrow one but adapt it by putting your own list of the Good Service types down the left.

Then each day of the week, keep track of all of YOUR own service interactions for others. When you are are not friendly, timely, responsive, communicative, or whatever you have on your list, put a dot.

After a month of this, go back and do a review of the dots: Where are the patterns? What areas need improvement?

Then proceed as you think useful with any variations you think will help. Franklin's own system was to pick one virtue each week to concentrate one, then move on the next one the next week.

The most important goal has already been reached: you are doing your own version that is based on your situation, not just taking an off-the-shelf generic system and attempting to half-heartedly graft it.

The chart should be a way to see how you behave in comparison to the ways you wish to behave.

And that was exactly why Franklin devised it.

Links:

• Franklin virtue and blank DIY Planner Charts
• Flamebright explanation of Ben's system

"You Want Fries Widdat?" or Why Students and Faculty are Not Customers

In a strategic planning meeting recently, one of the questions asked was, "How do we improve processes and services for our customers?"

My swift and direct answer was, "Stop thinking of them as customers. They are faculty and students. They aren't customers." Here's the long version.

1. Customers Are Outsiders

Customers are outside the organization. McDonalds customers don't work for McDonalds. They come, they consume, they go. They don't know or need to know what goes on inside.

Faculty and Students are part of the organization: indeed, they are the bulk and primary fulfillers of the mission of any educational institution.

Calling them "customers" is a form of institutional arrogance because it elevates your group to central status - you are inside, special, central, the true heart of the organization, and they are peripheral outsiders.

True communities don't function well when bifurcated into insider and outsider. McDonalds does.

2. Relationships Are Commodified

There is no true relationship with a customer because the relationship itself is not the goal: the relationship is just a means to the true goal, to sell and buy something. In fact, the "relationship" is just that: an exchange of goods.

One of the attractions of this way of thinking about people is its simplicity: it reduces a complex, organic relationship, often calling for judgement and decision making, into a simple, definable one governed by exceptionless policies and rules. This lends itself to simplistically quantifiable thinking as well (budgets, assessment.)

Communities, on the other hand, don't see themselves as groups made up of goods exchangers; they include that, but are much more. Membership means ownership: having a place, rights, and claims, as part of the community, not simply based on exchange.

"Customer" is the language of the commodification of a relationship into something which is primarily economic, where persons become objects. The customer relationship is fundamentally impersonal. And effective learning is not.

Reducing relationships into commodities in an educational context is tantamount to a denial of the essential personalness, and messiness, of learning.

3. Your Name is Your Function

The term 'customer' transforms the relationship from one which focuses on their function in the organization (student, faculty, staff) to their function only in relationship to you ('my customer').

Using the term 'customer' redefines the relationship purely from your own perspective and ignores - in fact, must ignore - how they see themselves and how others see them. If we do this long enough, often enough, they start to see themselves this way, too.

As a result your framework narrows to the exclusion of the larger perspective: if one of the trees is my customer, what do I care about the forest? And once again, (real) forests, like learning, are messy.

4. Effacing The Educational Mission

Adopting a term from retail business further erases that fact that we work in an educational environment.

Education has an economic component, but it's not central.

Education is the transference of culture - knowledge and skills - from one generation to another. This involves trial and error, mistakes, experimentation. There must be a protected place free from exploitation set aside for this to happen in.

For good reason, the relationship between teacher and pupil is so protected: like that of parent and child, mentor and protégée, doctor and patient, lawyer and client.

Educational staff, in particular basic business function and technology support staff, already have issues remembering this, partly because they simply do not participate in the fundamental daily activity of their organization: taking classes.

Adopting the language of retail business can only further estrange us from the basic mission of an educational institution.

The Two Counter Arguments

I usually hear one of two counter argument in favor of using the term customer.

1) The "It Doesn't Matter That I Work in a School" argument

This objection usually sounds like this:

"What I do (fill in the blank: vacuum floors, landscape, fix telephones, configure routers, balance the books, fulfill purchase orders) is a basic business function, the same wherever. It doesn't matter that I work in a school. I don't have to know anything about what really goes on here. It is just about money. What's wrong with the word customer?"

To me, this is little more than saying, "I've been commodified, so it's okay to commodify others." Or: "I have a basic skills job so I can treat everyone else that way." Or: "The school doesn't care about me, why should I care about it?"    

In the end, such an argument amounts to little more than a type of ressentiment.

One obvious answer to this is the golden rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." A positive practical way to do this is to get them involved in the educational process by having them take classes. It's amazing how therapeutic a little walking in someone else's shoes can be.

However, the more common alternative in educational institutions is "housecleaning" or, increasingly, outsourcing. After all, if these truly are basic business functions, then either of those should work.

But it won't solve the basic problem, because, in fact, I would suggest that such knowledge of insecurity about ones job is at the root of the fearful attitude itself.

And because this root fear is not addressed, we witness the periodic flip-flip of purges and "team building," in & out sourcing.

2) The "It's Better Than Nothing" Argument

The second objection goes something like this: in a defective organization with poor service and support, introducing the ideas and concepts from Customer Support in business can improve things.

I'm sure that's true - for a while.

But this is what I call the "Methadone Argument" - methadone may cure heroin addiction, but it doesn't cure addiction, it just replaces one with another, less nefarious.

Introducing the concepts and practices of "Customer Service" may very well temporarily improve certain services and support, but for all the reasons I have listed above, it is a bad strategy.

If you are a Defective Educational Institution whose goal is to rise to Mediocrity, treating faculty and students like customers may help you become functionally mediocre. If your goal is to rise to Excellence, it will not.

How About Just Good Service?

Moreover, none of the techniques used in "Customer Service" are really new or special.

Good service is perennial.

There is nothing special about the various techniques and tactics that have been bundled together and sold as a training plan for better serving customers - except that age old service skills have been salted with an attitude of commodification.

I say, skip the customer part altogether: go back to the source of what makes good Service anywhere at any time for any type of relationship and organization.

Do you have to work harder to do this? Yes.

Do you have to think about how to customize it for the culture of your institution? Yes.

Do you have to think about what is appropriate to the educational environment? Yes.

Do you have to go through some trial and error? Make judgements, take responsibility, delegate responsibility? Yes.

Do you have to resist the temptation to take a generic, off-the-shelf corporate customer service training program and simply overlay it on your current practices without altering your culture and way of doing things?

Yes.

Unless you are selling hamburgers.

In which case, repeat after me, "You want fries widdat?"

Having Tech is Not The Same As Using Tech

Link: Wired Campus: Colleges Bought Classroom Technology, but Are Enough Professors Using It? - Chronicle.com

Being in a room of technologists is often the most depressing of moments for me. A fundamental problem in the culture where I work is that many if not all the people I deal with in my department seem oblivious to the fact that they work for a college.

To judge from meetings I go to, you would have no idea this is a college, and our job is to support the work of the college, which is instruction.  To listen to them talk, we might as well be making widgets, plumbing supplies, or hamburgers, as training humans to live in the future.

Part of the cultural failure that allows this to happen is lack of proper assessment of tools: tech folk think they are doing their jobs if they just get the technology out there and it is "working" i.e. technically not broken. But there is little if any assessment of the actual value of these tools -- do they really help teaching and learning?

Accreditation time is here and we have trotted out the Information statistics once again as prove we are doing our job.

But really, it's rather like counting the raise in car sales to claim that drivers are driving better.

Cape Town Declaration on Open Education

The Cape Town Declaration on Open Education was recently formally released to the public (1, 2) after its initial release for comments to the educational community last fall in the wake of the Cape Town conference.

It is a formal declaration of basic principles for the future conduct of education and organized teaching using standards of open content and sharing of resources, information, and curriculum. In part, it says:

This emerging open education movement combines the established tradition of sharing good ideas with fellow educators and the collaborative, interactive culture of the Internet. It is built on the belief that everyone should have the freedom to use, customize, improve and redistribute educational resources without constraint…

However, open education is not limited to just open educational resources. It also draws upon open technologies that facilitate collaborative, flexible learning and the open sharing of teaching practices that empower educators to benefit from the best ideas of their colleagues.

Not all members of the chorus advocating various forms of open content in education are happy with some of the details of the declaration or the method by which it was arrived at.  Stephen Downes has criticized it at length, which has solicited many comments and a detailed response by David Wiley of COSL.

A primary bone of contention seems to be whether the declaration's "without constraint" clause would interfere with the right of content creators to control the commercial use of their content, in a way similar to what the Creative Commons "Non-Commercial" attribute does.

Or, to put it another way, does being a signatory to the declaration amount to a sort of radical public domain status for all resources? Would it preclude freely allowing all personal and educational use of content while excluding and/or retaining control over the right for commercial use?

Could colleges and individual faculty freely share their scholarly and curricular material with each other while retaining the right to contract (or not) individually with commercial publishers for that same content?  Or does the "without restraint" clause allow commercial interests equal right to the content so that they could commercially exploit it without payment to the creators.

The latter interpretation seems doubtful given the overall language and purpose of the declaration, but such is the fear of some; and though Wiley does address this issue in his analysis of Downes' criticism, it seems to me that a minor clarification in the wording of the declaration might be of great value in helping to prevent the apparent split in the open education movement.

For instance, new wording might declare that all signatories would pledge that all educational content and resources they create would be openly available in perpetuity under at least the equivalent of a Creative Commons Attribution, Share-Alike, Non-Commercial license.

This would leave any resource creator free to make a more open license if they wished, even approaching public domain status; and equally free to exclusively exploit their own content in the commercial sector.

Related sites:

• The Budapest Open Access Initiative
• A “ha-ha only serious” spoof called the Swansea Declaration on Open Edutainment

Web 2.0 Threats Loom Large for IT

Link: Campus Technology Mag: Web 2.0 Threats Loom Large for IT.

IT professionals in education--and all other sectors, for that matter--face new challenges as control over technology slips away and moves into the hands of users.

As control over technology slips away <gasp> into the hands of <horror> users ?

Sounds scary doesn't it?  The language of such scare tactics in Big IT reminds me of humanities courses I used to teach.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, such language was about the control over knowledge. Similar remarks were made against those who advocated a new-fangled thing called "science" because it challenged the centralization of power over what could be called authoritative knowledge; and also against the principle technological invention which made such knowledge accessible to "the users" -- the printing press.

In the 18th century, such language appeared in opposition to those advocating "user" participation in the political process, another dangerous idea which you may have heard of: democracy.

The printing press is arguably the most important disruptive technology of the last millenium (gunpowder is up there, too.)  Science and democracy turned out to be pretty good ideas, as well.

Letting "users" have some control does work.

In fact, I seem to remember scary language from Big IT about 25 years ago when this whole "personal computer" thing came along. Imagine "users" having their own computers! I wonder how that turned out?

Alumns Don't Need A "CRM Solution"

"Boosting enrollment and developing better relationships with your key constituents-students, prospects and alumni-begins with choosing the right CRM solution." (some webinar ad)

I don't think so.

I think it begins with a relationship with a teacher: one that inspired them, taught them, changed them, challenged them, and they still remember long after they are out of college and into life. It begins with values not on paper or mission statement, but livingly demonstrated in the lives of the teachers that made a difference in the lives of their students.

And no amount of nostalgic after-the-fact marketing can change that if it didn't happen. Want to invest in the future of the college through alumni support? Make them love the experience they have with their teachers today.

Just look at the recent example of Antioch.

If you want to spend money on software, ask the faculty what software helps them teach better, educate better, connect and stay connected better.

Like, a simply blog and a faculty member who cares and is dedicated to his students, past and present?

Antioch College's Stay of Execution

Good news today that the attempted closure of Antioch College by the Board of Antioch University will be stayed for the time being and the college remain open.

This is  due almost exclusively to the college Alumni board, which has raised over $18 million dollars from alumni and other donors since the University board decision in June to close the college.

Of course, a stay of execution is not a pardon: the college is not independent, and still at the beck and call of a board the runs a "University" founded with the intent of actually strengthening the college, but once profitable, attempted to jettison the unprofitable college.

In other words, the "University" sees the College as a cost center, and not as a partner or stakeholder.

The College is suffering a fate familiar to many founders of a business: that business grew beyond them and took on a life of its own, then turned on them.

Perhaps, like Shelley's creature, the board could learn something both from the handful of books the creature read and from those peasants in the village. The Antioch alumni sure did when they were students.

Making SENS - Facebook as a Secondary Emergency Notification System

In the wake of the incidents at Virginia Tech, colleges have revamped -- or creating -- ways to manage information during a local crisis, including notification of students, faculty, staff and parents.

While there are numerous primary methods of communicating, there is also an important secondary one that should not be overlooked: Facebook.

Facebook has many advantages as system for communicating to students during a localized emergency. Here are a few.

• Everyone is already in it. Why build or extend another database system ? Students are already in Facebook, know how to use it, and do use it every day for communicating with one another.
• You can text message any friend through it. Students can enter in the cell phone numbers and have control over the privacy of that info in FB. Unless your college already collects (and updates?) cell phone numbers from students, you will have to invest in doing that. FB already does it, and in a way that gives users the privacy control they need.  And you can bet this is one place that will have the correct number, too.
• Campus wide messages can easily be posted. Facebook makes each college its own "network" in FB, and users can and do post all sorts of notices to the whole network.
• Post info and get feedback. The FB Groups feature can be used to post ancillary information about policies and procedures, and is a great way to get student feedback on them.
• Viral communication spreads. FB's many ways of communicating allows information to be spread rapidly in viral style. You don't have to worry your news getting stuck on one channel - everyone will get the word through at least one of many channels.
  
• It is off-site. If an emergency effects your servers or network, FB can still be reached and still send messages to other computers and mobile devices.
• It is widely accessible. FB is now open to parents, faculty, staff, and others. One more reason for them to join FB is emergency information.
• It's free. The cost is basically some administrative attention to setting up and monitoring a emergency notification account in FB.  But then, you were going to have to do something like that anyway.
• It's easy. FB has an interface designed to be used without any training at all. All a college needs to do is create a FB SENS account and make itself popular.

Back To The Future

Bravo for Walt Mossberg ! Tell it like it is -- and will be.

Link: The Chronicle: Daily news: 06/12/2007 -- 02: Flashing an iPhone, Technology Columnist Tells College Presidents That the Personal Computer Has Peaked.

The usefulness of the personal computer has peaked, kitchen appliances will one day be online, and large technology departments are slowing down the progress of mankind.

It has. They will. And they are.

But he began his speech by calling the information-technology departments of large organizations, including colleges, "the most regressive and poisonous force in technology today." They make decisions based on keeping technology centralized, he said. Although lesser-known software may be better, he said, technology departments are likely to use big-name products for their own convenience.

Tell me more about my daily life, Walt. 

Yes, that is what it is to struggle against an entire platoon of people who seem entirely divorced from the fact that a college is here to do one thing: teach.

Such is the power of Eduministration and its co-opting of technology.

That is why I have faculty use wikis out in the world, blogs out in the world, Flickr, YouTube, Facebook, video sites, geo sites, portals, calendars, anything and everything.

Do it out there, do it online, do it now.

(If only I could find a good LMS free and online to do this... How soon till there's an EduMoodle site along the lines of James Farmer's wonderful Edublogs project?)

[Addition: There is at least one edumoodle, in Austria. Fantastic.]

I say color outside the lines.

$tudent Textbook$ ... Told Ya So

and for all the reasons I mentioned in my post about my own experiences with textbooks.

Link: The Chronicle: Daily news: 06/06/2007 -- 05: At Hearing, Experts Cast Doubt on Feasibility of Federal Panel's Solution to High Textbook Costs.

The panelists at the hearing represented publishers, bookstores, colleges, and students. [...] But the panelists expressed varying degrees of skepticism about how feasible a comprehensive, effective tool like the national digital marketplace really was.

Notice who "the experts" are: exactly those whose way of doing business, which pressures faculty and exploits students, will be outmoded by a better more customer focused way which helps both faculty and students.

But even more fascinating is this attitude expressed by John Sargent, chief executive of Holtzbrinck Publishers:

And the philosophy behind the digital marketplace equates learning materials with basic commodities, which is unfair, he said.

Unfair ? Unfair to whom ?

Unfair to those who don't share the assumption that learning materials are and should be a basic commodity available to every human who wants to learn ?

Unfair to those who don't share America's fundamental commitment to an educated citizenhood and its two centuries old project of universal public education ?

Unfair to those who don't share the goal of education as a universal human right ? cf. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 26.1:

Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages.

So, yes, learning materials are and ought to be basic commodities available widely and cheaply to anyone who wants to learn; just like any other basic commodity.

And the Net is helping to make that happen.

Like the traditional library (and record and video companies), bookstores are designed to deal with physical objects. 

And college bookstores are designed to deal with those physical objects only in the captive market of a protected monopoly.

Once, that may have been a good way -- in a world of scarce information, relatively costly physical object manufacturing processes, and an educated elite. But that world is gone, gone the way of the buggywhip.

I'd sure like to help make the exploitive college textbook business the best damn buggywhip ever.