Personalization at Scale

We have long talked about personalization as a trend influencing private education; indeed, it may be the value proposition most likely to win out in the competition to get parents to pay a premium for schools. As further evidence that this trend is bigger than just the education field (and therefore has "legs") is the news that Nike is launching the Nike Maker’s Experience, an invite-only program which opened this month in New York City’s SoHo district, allows visitors to create personalized Nikes in under an hour. Look at the site and imagine the concept at scale, not just limited to a single model or style. That's where this is headed.What makes this work is technology, in the same way that Uber or Lyft are more a tech companies than taxi services. Technology may also allow personalization to scale in education, as illustrated by Alt School's plans for the future. Alt doesn't plan to own or operate more schools--bricks and mortar are not part of their business plan--but they do plan to scale up the technology platform that allows for teachers to totally customize the classroom experience for every student.Paul Rennie, British Deputy High Commissioner for Malaysia and a governing council member at Alice Smith School in Kuala Lumpur, reminds me that it is the platform providers than ultimately win the day; Uber, Lyft, Amazon, and more are platforms, not content or product builders. Even Microsoft eschewed involvement in hardware until very recently.For those in education on the "hardware" side--think schools--the trick is going to be to use technology to do what Nike is doing for shoes; e.g., allow parents and students to build a totally customized education experience unique to the child's interests and personality. Anything else just isn't going to be worth the premium.