Stackmaps

Six months ago, customer prospects started mentioning a particular online learning platform to me. While this platform had been around much longer than that, something must have happened half a year ago to boost it into the spotlight. I listened to people tell me it was "very easy to use" and "very affordable". No one told me it created strong outcomes for the learner but I kept an open mind, listening for information. The same set of benefits kept coming up:

integrated payment options very easy to publish content customizable home page intuitive interface

The narrative around these features fascinates me. They make it sound as if the ease of publishing content will translate into a good experience for the end user. Is that always true?

In middle school, my 8th grade science teacher required us to build a webpage (out of plain HTML) in lieu of submitting a typewritten report. Reviewing one another's webpages, we learned that the fanciest web pages did not necessarily contain the clearest, most accurate scientific information.

A student whose page looked quite plain had done one of the most interesting science projects of the class.

A student whose page had the most animations and flare had not taken the time to explain the actual science project or label the diagrams properly.

Looking back, I wonder if this was the teacher's intent at the time: to show us that a strong project can stand on its own, with or without adornment.

In the educational software space, I see a lot of adornment. On the homepage of this particular unnamed competitor, the customers the company chooses to highlight do not look particularly diverse to my eye. The three customer spotlights all describe folks specialized in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and the ever-popular "how to build a personal brand" line of work. I know that many people value this type of work -- indeed, the ability for a single individual to reach a wide audience stands at the core of the internet's appeal as a democratizing and equalizing societal institution.

The choice to highlight such customers, however, leaves me wondering whether that is the only curriculum area in which that particular platform shines. If so, I would counsel them to rebuild their brand and double down on that use case instead of claiming to be one of the best learning platforms available.

There may be a fine line between "learning platforms" (platforms designed to help you learn) and "promotion platforms" (platforms designed to help you sell something, irrespective of the learning involved).

If so, I know for certain that my team will never build a promotion platform. We focus on learning.

And we are proud to adhere to this focus.