Build Momentum - Thought Leadership for Education, Global Workforce Edition

Interview with EdSurge Founder Betsy Corcoran | Betsy Corcoran

June 24, 2021 Sarah Williamson Season 1 Episode 37
Build Momentum - Thought Leadership for Education, Global Workforce Edition
Interview with EdSurge Founder Betsy Corcoran | Betsy Corcoran
Show Notes Transcript

In this episode of Build Momentum, We are joined by Betsy Corcoran. She is the co-founder of EdSurge. Her company has rapidly become a leading information hub for teachers, entrepreneurs, and school leaders with a commitment to edtech. She has also led the development of an award-winning news team, a robust conference program, and in-depth research. 

Betsy has been a staff writer and editor for Scientific American magazine, The Washington Post, and Forbes media, and a fellow in the night science journalism program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Aspen Institute's  Fahara fellowship and a featured commentator on television programs, including NBC’s, Press Here.

Some Questions I Ask:

  • What’s happening in education right now and what should we expect this fall? (1:38)
  • Where does technology play a part in this and do you think SEL can be addressed through technology? (4:01)
  • What do you think is going to be the long-term education plans? Do you think parents are going to demand that kind of flexibility moving forward? Do you think that's going to be part of education moving for what are your thoughts? (5:54)
  • What is the story about how you founded EdSurge?  (10:11)
  • What have you been up to after you sold EdSurge? (16:14)
  • Do you have advice for these leaders in authentically sharing their story? (19:35)

In This Episode, You Will Learn:

  • What’s happening in education during the pandemic and what to expect in the fall. (1:55)
  • SEL and technology in education (4:51)
  • Recognizing technology as a tool in support. (6:25)
  • How EdSurge was born. (10:30)
  • Betsy’s life after EdSurge. (16:47)
  • Advice for future thought leaders (19:40)

Quotes:

“There are a number of different ways that technology can support social-emotional ties and connections. But number one is you have to recognize that it is in support of building human relationships. It is not a replacement for human relationships.”

“Recognizing technology's always going to be a tool in support of a bigger purpose, bigger goal, we're going to continue to see a very big role for that."

“I learned a lot about how teachers viewed and used technology, I learned a lot about why they didn't often use it, it was really practical, it didn't work for them.”

"A huge priority for EdSurge was to amplify and support the voice of the teacher, the user of this technology, and to really help them say, you have a big voice, you're the user, you should feel empowered to talk about what you need, what doesn't work, that sort of thing."

“Do you love this thing so much that you'd be willing to you know, do something else, work in the grocery store, wait tables, you know, be an IT support person, or are you willing to do something else? Because you love this thing so deeply. Then you know, it's authentic, and people resonate with authenticity.”

Connect with Betsy Corcoran:
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Sarah Williamson:

Hello and welcome to build momentum where we make PR easy for education organizations. This show was created to help edtech startups, research institutes and schools learn how to develop simple, replicable PR strategies and how to execute on those strategies. I'm your host, Sarah Williamson. And I've spent the past 15 years working in PR, where I've been able to understand what works and what doesn't when it comes to making an impact. I will share my tips for success and interview others who have done the same to provide you with the framework that you can use within your own organization. Be sure to grab my free guide how to create a killer case study even if you don't have data at casestudy.swpr-group.com that's casestudy.swpr-group.com And on today's episode, Betsy Corcoran is joining us Betsy is the co founder of EdSurge. And in case you've been living under a rock, EdSurge as rapidly become a leading information hub for teachers, entrepreneurs and school leaders with a commitment to edtech. As the CEO of edsurge, Betsy led the development of an award winning news team, a robust conference program and in depth research. Betsy has been a staff writer and editor for Scientific American magazine, The Washington Post and Forbes media, and a fellow in the night science journalism program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Aspen Institute's fahara fellowship and a featured commentator on television programs, including nbcs, press here, Betsy, welcome. It's so nice to have you on the show today, sir, it's very nice to be here.

Betsy Corcoran:

Thank you for inviting me.

Sarah Williamson:

Yes of course. So I'd love to start by taking your pulse on what's happening in education right now. I feel like we're about to hit a reemergence into what we've previously might have been called a normal time, it seems like is that what you're hearing? And seeing? What are your thoughts about what what we should expect this fall?

Betsy Corcoran:

Well, boy, So first, we have the summer to go through, and then we get to the fall. And I think all bets are off, right? Now we're still we still have so much to learn and to discover. Clearly, everyone really struggled to be learning from home and learning on zoom and all these things. We want to be back in school for the most part, people, you know, really kids want to see their friends, teachers really want to build those relationships. So, you know, number one is I think we should expect to see hopefully many, many people go back. But there's some caveats. Not everybody's going to go back, there was a great piece in The New Yorker this week about African American Girl Up in Michigan, and how, you know, she struggled. And I think a lot of people of color did recognize during the pandemic that you know, school wasn't necessarily working perfectly for them. So I think the first interesting thing to look at is how many people go back, who chooses not to go back? And what do they choose to do? The second thing is that we saw a huge, huge emphasis put on social emotional learning, I really hope that continues. That's a big deal. We gave it a lot of lip service prior to the pandemic we couldn't during the pandemic. And so it's really on us to kind of say, hey, let's make sure that we don't get this up. Third has to do with teachers, we put a tremendous amount of stress on teachers. And we see a huge need for support for them professional development, helping them figure out what their role is in this new world, once again, something we all want to know. But we pay lip service to and so I hope in the fall, we'll see genuine resources devoted to that. And I guess the last thing is, it'd be really nice to have some fun. It'd be nice to hear people getting excited about learning. We've all kind of been, you know, kind of gritting our teeth and getting through this. I think we all could use a little bit more levity in our lives.

Sarah Williamson:

Yeah. Isn't that the truth? Let's hope this summer is the summer of levity. That's a nice idea. Yeah. Okay, so where does technology play a part in all of this? So, in terms of technology, what I don't know back up a minute, do you think SEL can be addressed through technology?

Betsy Corcoran:

You know, so I've seen recently some really interesting programs. And I think that there are a number of different ways that technology can support social emotional ties and connections. But number one is you have to recognize that it is in support of building human relationships. It is not a replacement for human relationships. Frankly, I've never been really impressed with the games that aim to show you how to be nice to other kids, that sort of thing. But the technologies that are supportive of building ties of having ongoing conversations of keeping better in touch these things are really important opportunities to use technology to show people how to do mindfulness, how to do meditation, yoga, super helpful. And then finally opportunities to share stories. I mean, this is the choice of storytelling medium, and sharing stories of how other folks have managed through tough times adversity challenges can be very inspiring. So those are the ways some of the ways that I think technology can support the development of SEL. But if you think that there's a game that's gonna help you be nicer to the kid who's beating you up? I don't know.

Sarah Williamson:

But it's a really cool badge, Betsy. I know that doesn't sound like a suitable option for that kind of thing. I agree with you. But there are benefits to it for sure. So also, I'm curious in terms of technology, what do you think is going to be the long term education plans? parents like me? I mean, yes, it was painful and hard. But it was also kind of nice, because the flexibility provided, you know, for people of privilege, for sure, I would acknowledge that, but we could go on trips, and my son could stay connected to his class, it was it was pretty nice. Do you think parents are going to demand that kind of flexibility moving forward? Do you think that's going to be part of education moving for what are your thoughts,

Betsy Corcoran:

I was part of a sort of little, I don't know Twitter chat sort of thing actually happened on LinkedIn recently on this question of managing time and privilege. And I actually believe that the ability to control your time is one of the great privileges that we have open to us, I think it's a real mark of privilege, right? What we saw was that people who had to be in a certain place had to be there at a certain time had a lot more constraints on their life. And quite frankly, like you said, the parents who could say, well, let's play outside today, or let's go for that hike or something like that. I mean, that is a mark of enormous privilege. So do I think that parents are going to demand some of that privilege? Well, I think some of them will simply take that privilege. I mean, we've heard an awful lot about education pods. We've seen parents hiring tutors, we've seen them create local groups. We've heard of people saying, Oh, I want to start a new school. So I think that parents who have the financial means to do that are absolutely going to continue to seize the privilege of how they choose to manage their time and their children's time. The really interesting question is, how do more formal schools deal with this? Right? Yeah, we have for decades talked about how seat time, the amount of time that a kid spends physically in the classroom really shouldn't be a measure of much of anything, right? It shouldn't be a measure of success, it should be a measure of learning. And unfortunately, it shouldn't be an indicator for funding either, which, quite frankly, it is, in many places. So the really interesting question is, how much flexibility can schools have on the panel discussion that I did yesterday with school leaders from Albany, New York and be written Oregon, both of them public school districts, both of them said, Yeah, we're actually starting a virtual school in our district. And clearly, they feel that there is going to be demand from families for that option. So the only way you can really do that is through use of technology. So once again, recognizing technology's always going to be a tool in support of a bigger purpose, bigger goal, we're going to continue to see a very big role for that. And you know, particularly as people do demand more time flexibility.

Sarah Williamson:

Yeah, I agree with you. I know, they'll be interesting. And it'll be interesting to see if educators use technology in the classroom, or if they're so excited to get back in the classroom, they deny the use of technology, because they're with their kids.

Betsy Corcoran:

Yeah. Well, I mean, again, I don't know what your experiences with your kids and, you know, and how old they are. But certainly one of the points that I think the school leader from, I think it was the Beaverton guys said yesterday is he said, Look, you know, we went from basically only 10% of our teachers, understanding how to use Google Docs and Google classrooms to basically everybody. And you know what the kids prefer it, it gives them control, it gives them more ability to see where they're at. So yeah, I mean, the pandemic did really accelerate and force people to do a lot of things that, again, we've talked about, and that we know we kind of should get around to doing. And I think that those kinds of things will continue. I don't think anyone who figured out how to use Google Docs in the last year, I don't think they're gonna give them up. No,

Sarah Williamson:

it's too easy. I agree. I have a first grader and I have two preschoolers, so it's busy over here, but my first year They did continue to use lexia, throughout when he returned to school, and it's actually been really beneficial. And I think it's really helped him learn to read much quicker. So yeah, I think you're right about that. So Betsy, I've admired you for a long time followed you. And I would love to know your story about how you founded EdSurge. I don't really know your beginnings. Tell me more about how you became to be such an influencer in this space. I would love to learn more about that.

Betsy Corcoran:

I think that's a question that we all ask ourselves, who am I anyway? And who is this strange person in my life? Yeah. So you know, I spent quite a long time in my career as a journalist, I think of myself as a journalist, I like being a journalist, I enjoy learning what's going on in the world, working at places like Scientific American was incredible opportunity to feel like I was getting a graduate degree in education every single month in a new field, working for The Washington Post was also a huge privilege to have the opportunity to tell stories to that community, and to the readers of the post was terrific. And I learned so much. And you know, running the Forbes bureau out here in Silicon Valley, also a lot of fun, certainly a place where we got an opportunity to peek inside the heads and the businesses of many, many companies. But I did reach a point where I wanted to align the work that I was doing with the thing that I cared the most about. And at that point in my life, I was a mom, my kids were kind of about the age that your kids are Sarah and I realized I was spending all of my time talking about you know, computer chips are enterprise software, you know, stuff like that, that had no relationship with the thing that I thought I cared about the most, which were my kids. And so I had a deep need to kind of basically reconcile the things that I was doing the way I was spending my time and the things that I cared about. So I talked with my husband, and we are not, you know, wealthy people, we have to pay our mortgage every month. But we agreed that I could take a year to try to figure out if there was something useful I could do in education. And so I quit my job at Forbes and spent a year actually working as it support person in some of the local schools. And I learned a lot about how teachers viewed and used technology, I learned a lot about why they didn't often use, it was really practical, it didn't work for them. That was around 2010. And we were really still at the stage where desktop computers had to be refreshed and maintained one by one by one. And California, like so many other states has about one IT person per 1000 students. And that's impossible. I mean, you simply cannot. And so in a school of, you know, a couple 100 kids, the school was trying to run six different operating systems. And that didn't make any sense at all. And so the fact is that technology simply didn't work teachers, were not Luddites, they were absolute pragmatists. And if the thing was not going to work, they weren't going to use it. And so I spent a lot of time kind of learning about that I spent some time you know, supporting teachers through professional development. And towards the end of that year, I saw that there was something changing and kind of the world of technology, namely, the cloud, the infamous cloud had become a place where not just big companies, but little companies could actually host their applications. And all of a sudden, that big problem, which is that a school couldn't really managed this crazy hodgepodge of color of technology, all of a sudden, that started to change a little bit. And when it became feasible for teachers to use technology without doing heroics, without having to stay up until three in the morning to update everything and stuff like that all of a sudden technology had the opportunity to be a useful tool for the classroom. And so around that time, I saw a collection of people starting companies and I had covered the beginning of many, many, many other industries. It's kind of embarrassing to say how many but you know honestly covered the early days of biotech when you know Genentech and companies called Amgen, were just beginning to use biotechnology all the way through kind of more recent nanotech and clean tech. And so what I thought I was witnessing was the emergence of a new industry. And one of the things that I think is critical when an industry is coming together is that there is a way that people in the industry get to know each other and get to know their customers and get to know the industry. And so that was something that I felt that I could do, I felt that a newsletter was a good way to start them, I met a few other folks, we're seeing similar kind of trends and had similar instincts. And so we started EdSurge, really with a couple of ideas in mind, number one, to be that water cooler to be that place where people could share ideas where they could learn about what each other were doing, and critically, where they could learn a lot about their customers. Number two is from all the years I spent writing about technology, what I was pretty sure about was that people who are don't think of themselves as technologists can get very intimidated by technology. And they can feel like Oh, if I don't get it, it's on me. Most of the time, it's not most of the time, it's on the technology, or the engineers or somebod y else, but it's not. And so a huge, huge priority for EdSurge was to amplify and support the voice of the teacher, the user of this technology, and to really help them say, you know, you have a big voice, you're the user, you should feel empowered to talk about what you need, what doesn't work, that sort of thing. And so that was another really big part of what we tried to do. And so we use the tools that we knew the best, which was writing storytelling, pulling together information, ultimately pulling together, people, we had many, many, many conferences and meetups and sessions, where we would bring people physically together, which is also a delightful thing to do. pull together a lot of research and so forth. And that's what we did.

Sarah Williamson:

Oh, that's fantastic. And you sold it in 2019. Is that correct? Okay, and what have you been up to since?

Betsy Corcoran:

I took a break? That's, that's good. That's good. And I'd say that this, to me feels like the year that again, the year that I spent sort of working with teachers and learning, this has been a year of learning for me. And so I'm doing both some full time consulting kind of work with different companies and different to nonprofits. I'm doing some writing, I'm doing some advising of people. So I'm learning that it is an enormous privilege and an enormous opportunity to take a pause and have an opportunity to be our learner. So yeah, learning.

Sarah Williamson:

I love that I am to every day, I mean, I feel like every day is a new day in edtech. Right now, it's changing so quickly. And there's, I feel like there's a simmering energy, though, that's starting to bubble up, again, kind of similar to the one we saw in 2010.

Betsy Corcoran:

Definitely a lot of money coming in. Money does have a pretty big role. So you know, look, people want to be able to control their time. Number one, whether they're learners small learners or big learners or adult learners, we all want to be able to control our time. That is, as I said, I think one of the ultimate privileges that we can have. And technology does give us an opportunity to do that. It gives us an opportunity to figure out when we're going to learn what we're going to learn. It can help support different ways of learning different modes and methodologies and pedagogical approaches. And so you know, there's a lot of good. And I think that you're seeing a recognition on the part of investors that there are real business opportunities as well. And that these will be the tools that we continue to use and continue to enhance and develop over time. So yeah, there's a lot of energy, I think, and then the last piece is, is that, you know, we'd be kidding ourselves. If we think that there will never be another pandemic, we know that there will be we know that from the science side. We know that from the political side.

Sarah Williamson:

Can we not talking about that yet, Betsy.

Betsy Corcoran:

Well, that's just that school leaders. And folks don't want to get caught off guard again, no now wants to live through what we just lived through. All right.

Sarah Williamson:

I know,

Betsy Corcoran:

we learned a lot. But honestly, I don't think anybody wants to crawl back into their cave for another two years. And so technology is a way that we can make sure that that isn't the scenario that we wind up in again.

Sarah Williamson:

Absolutely agree. Okay. So I want to ask you another question. Many of our listeners are looking to become thought leaders in the sector, and we work with a lot of our clients to develop their thought leadership platforms and tell their stories and in authentic ways, as I shared, I really admire kind of how you've done that for yourself and EdSurge do you have advice for these leaders in authentically sharing their story?

Betsy Corcoran:

So I've been reading a book recently, I'm a little late to the party. It's been out for a couple of years by Elizabeth Gilbert called Big Magic. It's a terrific book. Elizabeth Gilbert, of course, wrote Eat Pray Love, right. She's actually done about a half dozen other books. And Big Magic is about creativity and about how do You really tap into the creative nature that all humans have. And she's got a couple of images and lines in the book that are really, you know, were well worth the price of admission. And one is she asks, you know, what is that thing that you do that you are so enthralled with it, you approach it with the passion and the fervor of teenagers making out in the hallways? I mean, what is it that you do that's like that, where you, like, if I can just steal 15 minutes of time, I can do that thing, right? It's a long way of saying, I don't know that, I suppose that people can announce they want to be thought leaders, and they can go figure out how to like, get a whole bunch of people to follow them on YouTube or Twitter, you know, your favorite platform of the day, I don't actually know how to do that. What I do know how to do is I know how to spend enough time thinking deeply about the things that matter to you the things that express the deepest beliefs that you have, and then try to act on those. And I think that sort of lives up to Gilbert's idea of loves the thing that you're doing, when you love the thing that you're doing when you care about it so much that you're sneaking in 15 minutes here and there. He no one wonders if you're authentic. It's not a question. No. And when I think about EdSurge, one of the great elements of that surge was the enormous, enormous, joyful energy that we had. And that I think that drew people to the company, both to work for the company, and then to, you know, read what we wrote and so forth. Because, quite frankly, we're true believers, right, we really every single person who worked for edsurge, deeply believed in the power of learning deeply believed in the need for great teaching, and deeply believed that if we could be clever, we could figure out how to get technology to help us along the way. And we believe that 24 by 7 with all of our hearts, and when we did stuff it came through. And that's the only answer I can have for you. I think that you know, to decide you want to be a thought leader first and then go and try to figure out what you want to have thought leadership on seems a little daunting to me,

Sarah Williamson:

I hear you. And our clients, they have expertise in certain areas. So it's helping them share that expertise and passion for what they do. So it's not like these people are coming out of the woodwork saying, I want a platform,

Betsy Corcoran:

you know, one of the images. So what I had originally was thinking about quitting Forbes and jumping into education in some way. It was a really scary thought. I mean, I'd been a journalist for decades, I'd worked really hard to have a job. That was a cool job, you know. And it was at a time when a lot of people were keen to get jobs like that. And there was still a recession going on and so forth. And it was really, really frightening to think of changing that. And it happened that around that time, we had taken our boys to England and Scotland for a summer holiday. And we accidentally wound up in Edinburgh and accidentally wound up in the cafe where JK Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter book, it's not a particularly notable cafe. I mean, it's like a little cafe looks like every other cafe. And there's big room in the back and the little tiny window Way up high, where if you kind of crane your neck like that, you might be able to see a corner of Edinburgh Castle, which clearly had to be an inspiration for Hogwarts. And I thought about her life at that point, right. So there, she was a single mom. And she so believed in this story she had in her head of a kid who wore robes and had a stick that he called a wall. You know, there were not a lot of long books for young readers at that point in time. It magic was in a cool thing, you know, but she just believed in that story. And I remember instead of standing there and thinking if she can believe in that story so deeply, you know, surely I can take a risk. And so again, I think one of the other things that Elizabeth Gilbert says in her book that is really, really powerful is that just because you love something doesn't mean that you get to make a living out of it. It may mean that you just have to love it. And so I guess the question I would ask is if we're the test of authenticity is Do you love this thing so much that you'd be willing to you know, do something else work in the grocery store, wait tables, you know, be an IT support person, whatever. For, are you willing to do something else? Because you love this thing so deeply? Right? Then you know, it's authentic, and people resonate with authenticity. So again, I appreciate that there's a huge industry of folks who all want to be thought leaders and want to sort of run around and chat on panels and stuff like that. And there's a lot of value in that. But I think that we're all trying to figure out the answer to that question you asked at the beginning, which is, well, you know, who are you anyway? And how do you act on those beliefs?

Sarah Williamson:

Right. That's such great advice off, Betsy. Thank you. If we're not inspired by that. I don't know what's gonna inspire this group.

Betsy Corcoran:

Well, thank you for asking, Sarah. I really hate it. And appreciate all the great stories and the work that you're doing here on the podcasts.

Sarah Williamson:

Thank you so much, and how can my listeners follow you? Where should they follow you

Betsy Corcoran:

Follow me on LinkedIn, that's probably a good place. I do tweet too. But I would say finding LinkedIn is a pretty good place for you know, more tempered conversation.

Sarah Williamson:

So I love LinkedIn to my look for my job. Okay, sounds good. Thanks so much, Betsy. Thanks. Yes. And build momentum listeners. Don't forget to grab my free guide to creating a killer case study even if you don't have data. Again, that's available at casestudy.swpr-group.com casestudy.swpr-group.comn . Thanks so much for tuning in today. And if you've enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to our podcast and write us review on iTunes, Spotify, or whatever platform you choose to listen. We will be back with another episode of build momentum next week. Thanks so much and have a fantastic day.