{"id":3391,"date":"2011-04-29T06:28:22","date_gmt":"2011-04-29T10:28:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/shermandorn.com\/wordpress\/?p=3391"},"modified":"2011-04-27T11:52:00","modified_gmt":"2011-04-27T15:52:00","slug":"why-im-buying-blackboard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/?p=3391","title":{"rendered":"Why I’m buying Blackboard"},"content":{"rendered":"

Okay, I'll admit it: I'm buying Blackboard<\/a>, the fabulous Learning Management System company that has totally wowed faculty during its agile-minded development over more than a decade. Four weeks ago, to the day, my lawyers forwarded an unsolicited offer to Blackboard's lawyers, and while the talks are still in process, and I have a few competitors, I am confident that my bid will win out. That's why I'm going public today: to explain why I'm buying Blackboard.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Blackboard is quality. Like Trump Towers or the new Sands Casino hotel opening next month, there is simply nothing that says gold-plated enterprise LMS software like Blackboard. Nothing. <\/li>\n
  2. Leveraging corporate cash. Want to know what happened to all that cash corporations are not spending in this too-slow recovery? I'll give you a hint: I've got 0.2%. They need to do something with that money, and I gave them an offer they couldn't refuse. (And the deal I got! My leveraging ratio is now a record in world history, except for Bernie M.) It's just a deal that tickles, and that's good enough for me. <\/li>\n
  3. The new model for higher ed. If you're investing in for-profits, you're gambling. What you really<\/strong> want is to own the infrastructure, the stuff universities can't do without. And today, that's an LMS. Sure, some places are going to use open-source, but a bunch of CIOs see that as requiring more human capital than hardware, and now many of them report to financial officers rather than presidents. Blackboard is hardware and a contract. (Please ignore the IT guys behind the curtain.)<\/li>\n
  4. Center of attention. Praise, criticism, who cares? As long as they're talking about what I do, and Blackboard certainly gets attention. <\/li>\n
  5. Nimbleness. Blackboard brings out new updates and versions on a lightning-fast timetable, responding to market needs so faculty and students have the best systems and options available every week. <\/li>\n
  6. Outreach. I have never seen a company that responds to user feedback the way Blackboard does. <\/li>\n
  7. Speed. Blackboard is an LMS that responds quickly to user needs and requests when faculty or students are working.<\/li>\n
  8. Ease of administration. Blackboard provides no headaches for sysadmins. None. <\/li>\n
  9. Low-cost. Blackboard provides almost no stress on hardware. Hardware replacement costs dive when universities adopt Blackboard.<\/li>\n
  10. Friendly and social. Students and faculty alike adore Blackboard's new avatar system that instantly connects social identities to class contributions. As a result of having student pictures right next to discussion-board contributions, which Blackboard implemented the same year that Facebook got started, colleges and universities using Blackboard see far less anti-social contributions and more substantive interactions.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    I know you are all so envious. Why do you wish you<\/strong><\/u><\/em> were buying Blackboard?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Okay, I'll admit it: I'm buying Blackboard, the fabulous Learning Management System company that has totally wowed faculty during its agile-minded development over more than a decade. Four weeks ago, to the day, my lawyers forwarded an unsolicited offer to Blackboard's lawyers, and while the talks are still in process, and I have a few […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[12,19,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-higher-education","category-out-of-left-field-friday","category-the-academic-life"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pag0MB-SH","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3391"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3391\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3395,"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3391\/revisions\/3395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}