Teach a man how to learn to fish
I have more good things to say about our new pitch deck! Alex reached an interesting conclusion as he thought about our work from the perspectives of both learners (those who use our products) and funders (those who pay for our products): Because our end users are not paying for the content, we are freer to design solutions that actually meet their needs.
I’m struggling with this assertion. I have texted and emailed Alex to make sure I’m saying it right more than a couple of times. I still don’t fully understand it, and I’m resisting the urge to text Alex about it yet again! Why do I care so much? Because it feels like true and helpful. I’m excited to see how this plays out in my work.
It doesn’t mean that we can ignore the interests and requirements of our funders. Thanks to the Accelerator, we had a call with some leaders at OpenStax, an organization that has thrived in pursuit of the same goal we have — to make high quality education materials available to everyone — by publishing free online textbooks.
In our conversation with OpenStax’s Managing Director, Daniel Williamson, and Director of Development, Kate Brennan, they pushed us to think about revenue stability. Specifically, they pointed out that philanthropies interested in open education resources are less attracted to content development and more excited about the creation of new models for teaching and learning.
My first reaction was, Oh man, sounds like a lot more work. But then I realized that perhaps we were already on that path. We’d already decided it wouldn’t be enough to just write really good lessons. If we settled for that as our goal, we’d be missing the chance to help our learners do something bigger and more meaningful: learn how to learn. After all, learning is not some alchemical process that randomly happens automatically for some people and not for others. If you can teach a man to fish, you can also teach him to learn how to fish.
I doubt we’ll always be able to serve both the potential funders of our work and the users. But it’s nice to think we have a shot at it this time.
