EduTone Ecosystems

"We plan to deliver hundreds of thousands of software applications in our ecosystem", said KB Chandrasekhar, Founder & CEO of JamCracker, (www.jamcracker.com) a leading provider of On-Demand Software as a Service (SaaS) Delivery Infrastructure, as we were having lunch together today. Chandra's ecosystem is a new world of connected services, whereby telecommunication companies and service providers are able to package a subset of this ecosystem and offer it as an on-demand service to their customers - both enterprises and consumers.

By searching the word "ecosystem" on Google, you will encounter 104,000,000 results! A bit over-used you may say. However, I was specially entrigued by one search result at the bottom of the sponsored links sections: Learn All About Ecosystem Teach Yourself Biology in 24 Hours.Rapid eLearning w/Visual Tutorials www.Biology24.com/Ecosystem, which had a very interesting article on Community Ecology and Ecosystem. The article links ecosystems with communities. I found this very entriguing. Whenever we create an ecosystem, we are actually catalyzing the formation of a community that strives and survives within this ecosystem.

Chandra's dream of an ecosystem of hundreds of thousand of on-demand software application services would eventually create a very large community of online subscribers who would aggregate, support, market, integrate, consume, and evolve these services. This community should include consumers (individuals) and various size businesses (subscribers and providers).

The EduTone World is an ecosystem of services that would serve both individual learners and teaching organizations. The EduTone ecosystem will eventually catalyze the creation of a global community of learners and teaching organizations. This ecosystem includes content providers, software as a service providers, sales/marketing resources and professional service companies.

The EduTone world connects these web services tightly together and enables delivering this as a single solution to each of the stakeholders in any education enterprise.

Olivia's EduTone World

After setting up the EduTone World blog yesterday, I decided to dedicate it to my new born daughter Olivia who is 12-weeks old today.

As I think of Olivia's own journey in life, and her learning expedition, that started from the first minute she was born, I can't help but wonder about her own perceptions of the things she sees around her. She will grow up in a world that is completely different than the one I grew up in, or even the world that my son Johnny, who is 19-years old, grew up in. She will probably have her own blog at the age of 4, as soon as she learns how to type. Amazing! Her own blog!! I just started my first blog yesterday, at the age of 44!

So what does that mean? Well, I hate to admit it, but Olivia will be a much better Blogger than her own Dad. To her, blogging will be as natural as writing a letter is to me, and so will be the use of the various devices that we can't survive without today like mobile phones, PDA's, i-Pods, , DVD players, etc... She will also find it very strange to use the traditional phone to make a call, or a desktop PC to access the Web, when she could use her wireless all-in-one micro gadgets that are built-in her jewelry, accessories and clothes, including her latest Bebe Sport top.

Olivia will have 24X7 access to all kinds of services that are at her finger tips. Soon we will all be using our own biometrics, including finger prints, to securely access services and uniquely identify ourselves, instead of using passwords. So by touching a device, we make it our own! When we identify ourselves, we are giving permission to a service provider to serve us through that specific device. Olivia will really enjoy this new world she is born in, where she can be served instantaneously with the touch of her finger tips! I wish I were Olivia! I wish I was starting all over again today in this new world of services.

How about learning? Will learning also be delivered as a service?

Who will be the learning service providers? schools? teachers? publishers? Disney?

How will Olivia track her own learning outcomes? Will she still need diplomas, certificates, degrees, and the like? Will she need a "proof" of her learning experience?

When will she start her "official" learning? pre-K? Kindergarten? already started?

I find all of these questions overwhelming and, of course, very difficult to predict.

However I do know one thing ... and that is Olivia will be able to subscribe to various learning services offered by various types of service providers. She will grow-up in a service-oriented world accessing a service-oriented Web. She will have a unique learning path, that differs from everyone else's. She will have her own Webtop, that delivers to her these customized set of services. Olivia's unique identity will allow her to access, order, manage, track, sustain and consume all of the services that she will encounter in her lifelong learning journey.

These learning services will enable her to learn interactively, collaboratively, and experientially. She will not be limited to the classroom experience. She will move at her own pace, fast or slow, in any subject matter at any age.

I wish I had been born in the EduTone World like Olivia!

EduTone ... connecting all the dots!

Welcome to my new Blog!

As the CEO of an education technology company, I intend to share with you my journey that will take us together to a new frontier in technology, and possibly in education as we know it today!

The title: EduTone ... connecting all the dots, summarizes the destination of our journey!

So first what is EduTone? Edu: short for Education, and Tone: short for web-tone, similar to dial-tone in the telephony network, the indicator of availability of the web services network infrastructure utility, that should always be on!

So ... EduTone is the utility computing infrastructure for the Education vertical market.

Connecting all the dots is a slogan that I had originally picked for VIP Tone, which I founded in April 2000 (http://www.viptone.com), and it means exactly what it says! We need to connect all of the dot com's of the education world, i.e. the web services, into a single web-based delivery infrastructure.

I like to use the Cable Companies as a metaphor for EduTone ... the cable company delivers to us a single service delivery infrastructure, that consists of the set-top box that is connected to our TV's through a fiber network, which aggregates (or syndicates) 100's of content channels (like HBO, MTV, Comedy Channel, etc...) from various content sources. The cable company provides one service delivery infrastructure for all of these channels, a unified billing system, and a single customer call-center and a customer service infrastructure. Could you imagine a similar model for aggregating (and integrating) web services for our schools? well ... that is EduTone.

Welcome to an EduTone World! I look forward to our journey together.

To get started, please take a tour of the new EduTone Xchange website: http://www.viptone.com/prod_edu.html As we continue our journey together, I will update my Blog with any new developments in our EduTone World. I hope to hear back your feedback, thoughts and comments.

Thanks for joining me!