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Our ed tech community should offer our full support to both Chuck Severance and Blackboard on his ascension to Blackboard's Sakai Strategist. In his role at Blackboard, Chuck will maintain his faculty appointment at the University of Michigan as a Clinical Associate Professor of Information in the School of Information. Blackboard will support his consulting, research, and summer salary - but my understanding of the relationship is that Chuck will retain a high degree of autonomy and discretion.

My Grandma Katie used to send out weekly postcards to my family. She would type them on her typewriter and tell us about her week. When dial-up internet became available, my Grandma, then in her mid-70s was able to get online via the slowest computer I have ever had the pleasure of using. She would send out regular emails to her grandchildren. Her connection was as slow as her computer, but she thoroughly loved being able to connect using what was at the time -- super fast, super new technology.

Marketing is everywhere and everyone is a marketer. Each encounter with others – the way people answer the phone, the tone of your website, what the school tweets, the ease of doing business with the registrar’s office, how faculty interact with students, how you speak with the press, or how the institution hosts a reunion -- is a marketing encounter. And every encounter is an opportunity to reinforce what the institution stands for.

According to a recent study by the city of Copenhagen, Denmark, if you ride your bike for a mile you contribute about 42 cents to the overall economy. By contrast, each mile you drive your car costs society about 20 cents. Combine the two, and driving has a net social cost of about 62 cents per mile compared to bicycling.

A new correspondent writes: "I work at a comprehensive community college. The president has announced his retirement and a search committee is being formed. Several of the faculty and staff have mentioned nominating a candidate who might be a great fit for the position, but he has no graduate degree and limited direct experience in higher education."

It's time for a collective counter-narrative to how we are typically portrayed in the media to the general public.

I am writing this blog piece on March 8th, Women’s Day. I started the day by a very meaningful message which was sent by the President of my University. In her message, Prof. Dr. Elif Çepni of Doğuş University stated how proud she was to be at a University where the majority of high administrative positions were held by women: The President of the University is a woman, there are 5 faculties and 4 of them are led by Deans that are women. There are also 4 women Vice Deans in the University, since in 4 of the 5 Faculties, one of the 2 Vice Deans is also a woman. Moreover, the Dean of Students is also a woman. The head of the Foreign Languages School, the Secretary General, the Director of Student Affairs, the Director of the IT department and the Director of Purchasing department are also all women. There is a considerable number of Department Chairs or Academic Unit Heads who are female as well. In my faculty, which is the Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, 62% of all faculty members are women.

I predict that within one year that Blackboard will not be called Blackboard any longer. My money on this re-branding will be something that invokes another company that made the transition from products to services, IBM. Maybe something like EAS (Educational Academic Services), or BES (Blackboard Educational Services) - something like that.