“A revolution has begun” in higher education, The Economist noted recently. Higher education is a product whose delivery has remained unchanged for nearly three centuries. Until now.

 

The same digital technologies and phenomena that impacted media and entertainment are now creating cataclysms in education. Just as in other content businesses, doomsday scenarios are plentiful, digital possibilities are simultaneously frightening and exhilarating, and new models are emerging everywhere.

 

As I turn to digital change in higher education, there’s one difference: My analysis isn’t that of a dispassionate observer – this is my world. In recent years colleges and universities everywhere have been rethinking their online role. I was fortunate enough to be involved in those efforts at Harvard Business School, and then asked to lead them.

 

What we’ve learned about digital transformation efforts in media over two decades are not only relevant to a field like education, they are relevant in ways that even I did not fully understand or appreciate when I first joined our digital efforts at Harvard Business School.