Interview conducted by: Lynn Fosse, Senior Editor, CEOCFO Magazine, Published October 31, 2016
CEOCFO: Mr. Weisburgh, would you tell us the vision when you started Academic Business Advisors back in 2005?
Mr. Weisburgh: In 2002 I was looking at education publishers and for the most part they were print based. It seemed to me that education was going to be moving much more towards technology. I thought that I could guide publishers on the differences between providing content as print and providing content electronically: instructional design in terms of content that could be more engaging than simple PDFs, sales and marketing of electronic products versus print ones, and strategy. I incorporated as Academic Business Advisors in 2005.
CEOCFO: Were you surprised how right you were?
Mr. Weisburgh: My biggest surprise is that it has taken so long. This past academic year is the first year education sales have been more than 50% technology versus print. That took over ten years and I thought it would be a three or four. And this is just the first wave; I think whenever you have a technology that is this transformational it takes three or four waves and iterations to get it right. Over the next five or six years we will refine how we provide and sell education technology until we figure out what engages the students and what gets them to learn well. That makes for an unprecedented opportunity for organizations with transformative products and services in the education sector.
CEOCFO: Would you give us a couple examples of how you work with your clients?
Mr. Weisburgh: Many clients have experience in one area. Perhaps they were teachers or print publishers or perhaps they were in some other business and feel that education is ripe for change. Our network of consultants has experience in all the different aspects of producing, selling, and marketing education products and services to schools. We meet with the management team and figure out their goals and then we relate their product and messaging to how schools make decisions, how they use content and how they pay for content.
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