Bloomberg recently announced that Pearson is buying eCollege for $538 million. Skillsoft acquired Netg from Thompson for $270 million. I’m sure you have read the news. Around the year 2000 when I was CEO for Synergistics, Inc. - an educational consulting firm - I remember advising small liberal arts colleges that the greatest threat to their existence was not State institutions or even the dreaded for-profit universities, but it was publishers.

During the 1990’s a paradigm shift occurred through technology. Textbook authors, who are often faculty themselves, bought in to the idea of expanding their capabilities through web tools provided by major publishers. This in combination with the drive to have updated texts every two years instead of every five increased the amount of dependence the authors had on their publisher. The shift completed its cycle by the end of the 1990’s when dependence was secured and the intellectual capital really belonged to the publishers.

By early 2000 publishers were attempting to get a hold of a delivery technology as a distribution channel for this intellectual capital. Why not? It would help them sell their chief asset - textbooks. After several failed attempts including the purchase of some Distance Education and Training Council (DETC) accredited schools, they found success. In a massive strategy to control both the intellectual capital and the distribution channels of the Internet, they found unparalleled growth.

Today the threat to traditional higher education is even greater. With these recent transactions including the narrowing gap between training and education as noted by the popularity of Skillsoft within the business climate, traditional higher education is even more on the run.

I have to believe that much of this is due to the lack of agility and monofocus within higher education. It is definitely not because of a lack of market, or years ago a lack of market share. What went wrong? Where were the forecasters of seachange?

Some of us were on the cutting edge of prediction, but only a few institutions heeded the call. Central to leading organizations within today’s environment is the ability to listen to the sea, predict change and ultimately enact change within learning organizations. This does not begin nor end with higher education institutions, but has its place within all of our organizations.

Change is no longer something that occurs in seasons - it is a constant. Lewin’s typology of freezing - unfreezing - refreezing now needs to be replaced with a modality of living effectively in the unfrozen state. That requires an entirely new set of assumptions, models and processes, which once attained will launch a new future.