I have been thinking a great deal about education reform and the best way to do it.  I am not a prophet, but I am an experienced strategist and former executive at Fortune 100 media companies,  not to mention a battle-tested entrepreneur.

While I have met many of the thought leaders in education reform, my particular area of interest is developing games that are fun, engaging and educational.  Research clearly demonstrates how games can lead to successful learning outcomes, and that it's time that this area be nurtured.  It is refreshng to hear educators talk about using learning tools that will "connect" with students.  We've also been saturated with talk about "21st Century Skills."  I too am guilty of using the term.  But how do you build an ecosystem of game-based learning products?  That is a topic I'd like to tee up peripherally today, and perhaps devote additional posts exploring a bit deeper.

A woman I met more than two years ago, Dr. Merrilea Mayo, is one of the smartest people I know.  She is also an avid gamer, and a PhD.  Her white papers on games and successful learning outcomes was one of the foundational pieces I absorbed when formulating my own vision for games and learning.  Recently, Merrilea asked me to peer review a white paper on Serious Games for K-12 and the challenges in scaling successful business models.  It got me thinking quite a bit - about a burgeoning area plagued by an increase in demand but little supply.  What does that mean?

According to various academic sources, including an interesting letter that Shirley Jackson, President of Renssalaer Polytechnic Institute, presented to the Detroit Economic Club just recently called "Expediting Serendipity:  Building an Innovation Ecosystem."  Many of the elements can be applied to game-based learning products.  An innovation ecosystem depends on, as Ms. Jackson put it, "strategic focus, idea generation, translational pathways and financial, infrastructural and human capital."  ALL of these elements must be abundant and effective if such an ecosystem will be sustainable.    And an intricate set of relationships must be cultivated.  These include academia, industry, labor, the financial sector and government.

With the current state of game-based learning, we have academia and in small part, industry working together.  But here's what's missing:

• a robust, diverse,  talent development system for game development
• a large number of existing and emerging suppliers of such content (industry)
• a financial sector that has not been actively investing in these companies due to legacy experiences with the challenging economics of investing in the education sector
• a government system that has, up until recently, been slow to encourage, incent and evangelize these types of pedagogical tools.  The SBIR grant process is cumbersome, tedious, with long lead times and arguably unqualified reviewers evaluating grant applications.

So to sum up, business models are challenging (as Merrilea correctly points out) because many critical elements remain unfavorable.  So how do you move forward?

Ms. Jackson at Renssalaer has some very salient points (I am referring to her points verbatim here) and I will add my comments in italics:

1. As the education system, like the health care system, is an expression of our basic values, the federal government can take on multiple roles that can drive or influence innovation.  While the "Race To The Top" Fund is a start, they must also provide tax credits or other incentives for private companies developing such products.  A simple criteria can be establised to ensure the products meet some level of educational standard, and "educational" can be loosely defined.
2. The government is the key decision-maker, policy-setter, investor, regulator, consumer, end-user and endorser across multiple fronts, and it must use both regulatory and incentive tools effectively. This is not meant to "overregulate," but to create a roadmap and put its full resources behind executing the roadmap.  The problem with the Education Stimulus bill is that the funds were allocated before a specific, actionable roadmap was made.  With all due respect to the honorable Education Secretary, the "four pillars" do not contain specifics about curriculum, assessment, teacher training, pedagogy, federal vs. state control, etc.
3. States should be incentivized to fund research labs and talent development programs to ensure that human capital is abundant, and diverse.  The only way to change an industry that has been notoriously homogeneous is to align incentives with various metrics, one of which can be diversity (but not the only metric as I do not want to raise affirmative action issues).
4. Not until venture capitalists see a path to signficant ROI will they begin to invest more than just a one-off experiment from time to time.  Perhaps in the short-term to spur investment and innovation, angel investors and venture capital firms can be offered subsidies or tax credits for investments in early-stage companies focusing on K-12 Education Technology, so this definition would be broader than simply game-based learning concepts.
5. A robust innovation ecosystem requires translational pathways that bring discoveries into commercial, or societal use. One area Ms. Jackson propses is possibly granting universities an automatic exemption to patent law for the use of proprietary intellectural property in noncommercial research. This does not dilute the importance of intellectual property, but in certain instances, it absolutely appropriate to spur open-source collaboration amongst researchers. Policy-makers must cultivate new kinds of partnerships between industry, universities and nonprofits.  This is one of major shortcomings of the lack of robust venture capital communities in much of the United States with the exception of CA, MA and NY, and to a lesser extent, TX.
6. Our innovation ecosystem may well require more early-stage government support for potentially transformative business concepts in this space.  We need Centers for Innovation Management which  which can offer expertise targeted by industry, and span across universities in any one geographic cluster. These centers, some of which are already established in various cities, must foster connections between inventors, entrepreneurs and research facilities, established companies and markets around the globe.

People are suggesting that the best approach for systemic change in education is to go straight to the student and disintermediate the other stakeholders.  I'm afraid this is only wishful thinking, not reality.  People are also saying that providing tax cuts for investment in areas such as education are just padding the pockets of the rich.  Again, this is naivite at its finest.  These tax cuts are not like capital gain tax cuts.  These are being steered towards innovation and job creation, two elements this country badly needs at this time.

"Next in importance to freedom and justice is popular education, without which neither freedom nor justice can be permanently maintained."  - former president James Garfield, July, 1880

A Georgia Tech professor, Dan Breznitz, last year released a study that sheds light on the root cause of Atlanta's inability to retain companies that were incubated inside its borders.  Many of the same ideas were echoed in his report.  He talks about entrepreneurs' lack of "deep-rooted networks" in Atlanta, which is the same thing as not having "translational pathways."

Education is the foundation of our democracy, but we must be courageous enough to admit that we don't know everything, and that it's ok to learn from other countries.  This humility would be a major step in ensuring that our children will be able to compete for the jobs that haven't even been created yet.  How timely is this statement, given the financial challenges taking place in school districts across the state of Georgia, including Fulton County and Dekalb County.  Critical programs are being threatened, most specifically arts and music programs, along with many, many teacher layoffs.

We must get innoative about how we educate our children, and learning from the President of Renssalaer is just one sensible approach to consider as soon as possible.