Tag Archives: London

BETTer Future

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I’ll be visiting London and BETT at the end of March (probably 22nd -24th).  As for so many of us this will be my first trade fair since the pandemic and I’m really looking forward to joining in real life again (never expected to be this enthusiastic about a trade fair, not even BETT 😊). It does feel like we are now emerging from the restrictions of the last couple of years and I’m excited to get out there again.

I’m especially interested to meet people from companies with strong market positions, from scale-ups and from investors in the education, edtech, science and healthtech spaces during my trip to London.

As of March I have some availability for advisory and interim work and have extensive skills and experience in leadership/leading change, digital/transformation and commercial/strategy work.  I have deep knowledge and networks across the European education sector.

I’m also open to become a Non-Executive Director of such an organisation, as long as this doesn’t conflict with existing work. Very flexible in terms of location.

Feel free to send me a message at johnmartin@contentconnected.com or DM me on social media if you would like to meet up in London!

Looking forward >>

#OpenForWork #Leadership #Education #Edtech #Science #Digital #Transformation

Scaling up edtech in Europe

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edtecheurope

Last week I visited the EdTechEurope conference in London. Congratulations to the team for putting together a rich program and high quality of production!

I love meeting the entrepreneurs and sensing their passion. It’s great to hear their vision and see the innovation. They trigger my curiosity. How could we put this to work for better learning impact for our customers? What could this mean for the educational ecosystem we serve? Could this company disrupt our business?

CEO Talks

 

I’m a member of the Advisory Board of EdTechEurope and spoke on the panel “CEO Talks on Digital Transformation” together with Rob Grimshaw (CEO at TES Global) and Karine Allouche Salanon (CEO at Pearson English Business Solutions). There was a lot of talk about the role of the teacher in this session which I liked since I believe the teacher is the killer app in education.

Scaling up?

I wonder if this conference tells us something about a wave of investment (and disruption) in edtech in Europe.

Is there more action?

This is the third time the meeting was held and each time participation has doubled, this time to 650 people. Is this simply because it’s a well-run and well-timed initiative? Or is the series tapping into an underlying trend of growing investment into edtech? At this rate, we’ll need to hire Wembley Stadium for EdTechEurope-2022!

Going global?

This year we had many more visitors from outside Europe. There was a particularly interesting session from SWSWedu – great to see Zaption and Cerego there, re-connecting after our recent trip to Silicon Valley! Also, the session on “Edtech Opportunities in Asia” was very worthwhile, especially for the useful advice from Prof Ping-Cheng Yeh on China. Are these signals of a growing global market for services and technology in education?

Who are the Champions?

It’s thrilling to see so much innovation taking place in edtech; IBIS Capital estimates that there are more than 3000 e-learning start-ups in Europe alone. Is this typical for a wave of disruptive innovation? Or an expression of the (sometimes hyper-) local nature of education? From an investment and partnering perspective however, it’s increasingly difficult to see the wood for the trees. Is there a risk that our industry is spreading talent and resources too thinly?

Looking forward >> Time for a Champions League?

Champions LeagueThese questions around scale trigger my interest in the idea of a “Champions League” of edtech companies, to lead the growth and transformation opportunity for education in Europe. These companies could act as magnets for talent, ideas and capital and help to bring scale to the industry. TES Global probably has such ambitions and is backed by the deep pockets of TPG. Pearson is the World’s biggest learning company and has extensive size and international reach. Sanoma Learning has a great reputation for excellence in education and digital transformation. Who are the other players who could help bring scale to the industry? Learn Capital (London)? Google?

I’m interested to hear your views on this.

Welsh Rarebits

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Caernarfon

Emboldened by last year’s Scottish heatwave we ventured back to Blighty for our Summer holiday. Again sunshine galore! Having emigrated to Holland for the better weather, I wonder if this is an omen that it’s time to return? Two weeks of sunshine in Northern Ireland next year would complete the miracle and confirm the omen.

I will spare you all the details, but wanted to share with you Eight Things That Made Me Happy on Holiday (must kick that twitter addiction …).

1. Family Fun in London

View of well-lit Tower Bridge on returning to hotel

At the beginning of the holiday we met up with my family in London (we are from the Heart of England, so this feels a bit like a visit to New York). Amongst others, we visited The Shard, The Tower of London, the London Dungeons and a musical. What fun and great to see my family again! Thank you!

london

View of London from atop the Shard

2. Peace in Chester

The water of life – an inner spring always welling. Cloister Gardens at Chester Cathedral

After the Big Smoke we moved on to the more tranquil Chester. The Cathedral was beautiful and I loved the peaceful Cloister Gardens. It felt really good there.

3. Hiking in Snowdonia

The ascent at Snowdon

View from the summit at Snowdon

I love hiking, especially in the National Parks of North America. We’ve previously hiked two of the Three Peaks in Great Britain, but not yet Snowdon. We stayed in pretty Caernarfon and perfectly timed the hike up the mountain before the storm. It was by far the easiest of the Three Peaks yet a most enjoyable hike with great views of the area. Glad we did it.

Caernarfon – a lovely place to stay to explore Snowdonia

4. Biking at St David’s

By the time we arrived in St David’s the weather was radiant and we found a beautiful ‘Welsh Rarebits‘ Hotel (Warpool Court Hotel). We took a relaxing walk along the Pembrokeshire coast in the evening and a much more strenuous (hilly) 70 km bike ride along the coast the next day ending with a couple of pints and fish & chips in the sun at The Bishop in sight of St David’s Cathedral. Heaven on Earth.

St David’s Cathedral

A couple of pints and fish & chips at The Bishops after a strenuous day biking

5. Waterside Walks in the Brecon Beacons

Between the hustle of Cardiff and bookish Hay-on-Wye we stopped off at another lovely Welsh Rarebits hotel (The Bear) in Crickhowell and did a pretty and relaxing walk along the canal and riverside. It was fairly flat hiking terrain too, which made it an extra relaxed experience; this was remedied by a quick run up Table Mountain the following day …

Lovely waterside walk in the Brecon Beacons

6. Learning about Oxford

It wasn’t in our original plan but we decided to visit Oxford on the way back to Dover-Dunkirk. With my passion for learning I always get excited when I go to one of the great University cities. We visited some of the colleges in the glorious sun and then spent a couple of hours in the gigantic Blackwell’s bookshop. I bought as many books as I could carry and felt no shame that they were paper and would not be read on my Kindle. I need to do this more often!

Christ Church, Oxford

All Souls, Oxford

Bodleian Library, Oxford

Trinity, Oxford

7. Books on the Beach

When I was a child, our family typically went to the Devon, Cornwall or the Welsh coasts on holiday and spent most days on the beach. I’ve got happy memories of playing tennis with Dad in the sun and of playing in the sea surf with Grandad. These days I can’t take too much sun, but like to spend a few hours on the beach every now and then. On a beach in Pembrokeshire I read the laugh-out-loud funny ‘The Rosie Project‘ by Graeme Simsion about a scientist looking for a wife, and on Brighton beach I read ‘The Glass Closet‘ by former BP CEO John Browne about improving LGBT rights being good for business. I rarely have the time to read a book cover-to-cover these days and it was liberating to immerse myself into their stories. I can recommend them both.

8. English delicacies

A typical day nowadays might start with a muesli breakfast with soya milk. Lunch: a low fat cheese sandwich on multigrain bread without butter. Dinner: fish with no desert. Well, I was born in England in the 1970’s. For the last two weeks I have indulged heavily in the fine English delicacies of my youth. Full English breakfasts. Fish & Chips. Chicken Tikka Curry. Sunday Roast. Walker’s Crisps. Cadbury’s Dairy Milk chocolate (I still have a Pavlovian response  to purple wrappers to this day …). Every bite savoured.

Full English Breakfast: protein and fibre galore!

Fish, chips and mushy peas: well-rounded nutrition!

Cadbury’s Dairy Milk: rich in calcium and iron!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So those were a few of the things I especially enjoyed. Feeling good and energized and ready to go again!