Audio: Pearson CEO Marjorie Scardino On The Digital Challenge

scardino1.jpgAt the SIIA Content Forum, Pearson CEO Marjorie Scardino was the star keynote…the much bigger Ed Tech Summit was also going on, so she spoke mainly about her company’s role in the education market and how the company’s making moves into digital/online education market.

A side fact: She has the complete works of Shakespeare in audio form on her iPod, so at least she understands the mojo.

Anyway, she talked about the continuing penetration of broadband and technology into schools, and made the point that no one has yet found the killer app for the teachers and students to use the network. “The hardware and connectivity have not been matched by the content and applications,” she said.

Scardino, who also sits on the board of Nokia, said that things like iPod and Blackberry are very alluring for a company like hers. These devices underscore the importance of great and simple design, as as technologists and content providers, companies have to learn from that.

She talked about blogs, and how they underscore the fact that customer is in control now. But she also stressed the role of filters in this world: from editors/journalists to teachers, parents and everything else.

She was all ga-ga over the new book by Steven Johnson, “Everything Bad Is Good for You“, and Malcolm Gladwell’s review of it in the New Yorker (the book is published by her company’s Riverhead Hardcover, a division of Penguin). She quoted extensively from the book, and made the point about how the world’s changing much faster than we think, and the challenges it presents for a company like hers..

() The audio of her speech is here…turn the audio up a bit.

The SIIA Content Forum coverage is sponsored by HighBeamTM Research

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