Pearson's Scardino: New educational publishing opportunities "across the board"

Pearson CEO Marjorie Scardino pointed to opportunities, whether in information or software, for new services and products that: are aligned with changing behaviors, new technologies, and the needs of teachers; help to train new workforce needs for the 21^st century, including “jobs we haven’t thought of yet”; and reflect the “more mature ideas” emerging 10 years after the bubble. 

New learning offerings, Scardino asserted, will be enabled by mobile devices (in, for example, foreign language and music applications); smart objects (e.g., equipped with sensors); semantically enabled software (such as Pearson Education is already using to grade essay exams in the US); geo-tagging of media; and cloud computing.  She also mentioned the new ultra-thin and flexible “electrophoretic” screen technology just reported on in the Economist.

One other comment drew some amused attention and comparison with Ralph Lauren among the Twitterati:  when the subscription price of the Financial Times was raised recently (by 20-30%), the result was to send circulation UP “in every market.” [ Warning: unless you serve an elite audience, you may not want to try this right away in your own business…]