Forcing Freedom. Engineering Collaboration!

We once caused extreme problems for many hundreds of customers. Intentionally. For good reason.

I am proud. Proud because we did something hard. Making so many people so very upset is not an easy thing to do. It doesn’t feel like a good thing to do. It is a risky thing to do. Unhappy customers tend to quickly stop being your customers. Yet, in this case, it was very much the right thing to do. Here’s how I changed the world, in a small way, together with our team. Again. We all can. In different ways. We might not all be ‘Nikola Tesla’, or ‘Martin Luther King’, but all of us have the ability to make a difference, no matter how small that may be.

Let me explain. I ran a school timetable company with my brother Tim back in the day, and we needed to integrate with school administration software. Our product needed the data from the school, in order to schedule. To know who the students were, the staff, which classes and rooms and so on. Then we could schedule, but once this was done, we had to get the data back to the school admin system.

This process was incredibly painful for all concerned. So many different school admin systems, so many different protocols, many systems that simply did not integrate at all with others. Critically, the majority of such systems would not ‘accept’ timetabling data, they would only ‘give’ the base data needed. In many cases timetables needed to be manually entered into these systems, which was laborious, error prone, and caused a significant barrier to subsequent changes. Not just because the changes were hard to figure out, but because we just could not get the data into their admin systems easily!

Something had to change, and I realised that we were the only company who could make this change happen. Being a very advanced technology company, we were miles ahead of others in data integration. We had already built the system we needed to talk to other systems. But the other systems didn’t want to do their side of the development.?

I began lobbying my brother and the board, explaining why we needed to do something about the problem. However, my brother kept coming back with the question of ‘Which customers are complaining about this? How many are complaining?’. The answer was quite annoyingly, almost none of them.?

Why? Because in what may be akin to Stockholm syndrome, they didn’t know any better. They were so used to the extremely laborious, cumbersome process of manually integrating the data, it had become an entrenched way of life. It was as if they believed it just WAS the way.?

Some even enjoyed it, as their personal knowledge in this ridiculously complex process made them indispensable, it gave them power and control. But when I ever talked to customers, and explain the utopia of proper integration, they would nod and say, yes, that would be fantastic. But they would not believe. I would try to get them to write to my own company to complain, or support, but … they were … busy.. Or didn’t want to rock the boat.. Or just forgot. I think many thought it a waste of time, because it was too impossible to believe the entire industry could be changed to support the utopia of free and easy data integration between all school systems. So I got almost no support from the customers.

I did however get some. A tiny fraction of support.

I went back to the board to pitch my case. Because owning 50% of a company is very different to owning 51%. Without a majority, I had, as usual, to push hard to get some initiatives across the line.

I pitched my idea. We should set a sunset date, where we would encrypt our own data files in a way that the several large players in the industry would then be unable to read them, given this was how some worked. Flat files are not secure, as easy, and didn’t support ‘write back’, as proper bi directional integration, which we already supported.?

However, being already quite successful in the market, with a large customer base, we knew that if we did encrypt our files, then overnight hundreds of customers would be blocked from using many features in their admin systems. The several admin systems that were using our files without formal agreement would suddenly cease to work.

The board was horrified at the thought. It would alienate so many of our customers, it could cause havoc, it could lose business, we could be sued. Also, the move would not win us any more profits surely? It would be a huge cost to us to go this route!

So at first, it was a firm no. Don’t be ridiculous. And my brother, as always, saying ‘But they are not asking for this’, and me always saying ‘Remember Steve Jobs, nobody was asking for iPhones’. It was another Mexican standoff. Neither of us would budge.

Second Pitch for Data Freedom

More time passed. Years. At least now the obvious problems were more pronounced, and it was irritating others in the company a little at least, but nowhere near enough. I thought hard about the strategy, and devised a plan, and pitched to the board again.

I slightly amplified the scant complaints we did have, and enthusiastically suggested it was really annoying many of our customers. In fact what was annoying me the most was that the customers were NOT annoyed about it, certainly not enough to complain, or loudly.. But there were some at least.

Then, I began explaining my cunning plan. I said we only needed to THREATEN to encrypt our files by a certain date, and then, the other players who were using them now, would (grudgingly) accept they needed to do their side of the integration work, and also accept the slight loss of control in who owned the data.

I explained that we never needed to actually annoy any customers, or cause mass devastation in school administration by our intentional actions. The threat would be sufficient to push them into collaborating on open data standards. I explained we were safe, and that with the threat of us encrypting our files alone, by a certain date, the problem would be solved.?

However of course, I knew no such thing. What I did know, was that it was quite obviously NOT going to happen. The incentives of the much larger admin system players in the market would drive them to not bother, or at best lamely make it look like they would, but not really. Any deadline we set would be ignored as ‘we are too busy’ and so on.

Still, my pitch finally got some traction, and the board agreed. We would set a sunset date, by which time if the big players didn’t support data integration, they would be effectively blocked from accessing our files directly via the old and inefficient method. Which would cause schools to melt down. Without timetables, schools would not be able to manage daily covers of replacement staff, schedule excursions, change class lists or class times or do anything in the manner they had become used to with our Edval product.

It was pitched as a threat, but we accepted it would not really be the right approach to force this change. Well, some of us agreed, except for those of us who knew that sometimes forcing the issue is the only way to achieve the right outcome in the end. We would be living for years with very problematic and inefficient flat files, or engage in brinkmanship and force change, for good.?

Force data freedom, and release everyone from the inane process of data wrangling on a regular basis, simply because our industry colleagues didn’t want to play fair. To their slight credit, they too were grumbling that their clients were not complaining to them either. It really seemed like I was the only one complaining. It felt like I was the only one who could see the emperor's new clothes were invisible. Others could, but dare not speak up, though many could not even see.

I was elated at our company agreement, and crafted an email to all the industry players who were currently working with our data in the flat file format, explaining our intentions, and the ethos of why. I didn’t say it would be terrible if they didn’t collaborate. That was clear and implied. But my email was supportive and helpful, explaining we would do everything to assist their development of the data integration. The protocol is called LISS. Lightweight Integration Standard for Schools. We designed it mostly, but with at least one player Edumate that was working very happily with it for years now. The email set the sunset date clearly.

Approaching Encryption Day

Time passed, and the sunset date appeared. I continued lobbying but knew there was no way they would meet the date. Eventually, when it became clear, I implored our board to stick by our agreement and encrypt our files to force our hand, but the fear of losing many customers and causing such mayhem was too much, at least then. So I pitched my plan B. We would issue an extension date, but be stricter. Surely this would be enough to force change. Thankfully, with much relief, the board agreed to a one time extension on us causing mayhem, if they didn’t comply.

Time passed. As I predicted, they did not comply. This time I became even more animated, and pointed out we would look silly in the industry if we could not do this, follow through on our clearly stated plans. I amplified further the nearly non-existent customer complaints. I pushed hard on showing new data privacy legislation that may require it anyway. I did all I could. I was loud. I was insistent. I had the debate covered from so many different angles. Eventually the board agreed.?

Whether due to my impassioned arguments, or to avoid having to hear them anymore, or more likely a combination of both, we signed off on the most significant move in our company history at the time. It certainly wasn’t that the team felt it wasn’t a good idea per se, all were clearly in strong support this WAS the right way forward, for all our customers as well as our support staff.?

What was not so clear, was if the risky move would succeed, or cause our company to quickly lose industry and customer respect, and rapidly hemorrhage. It was a case of fear of failure. At least by then, they had come to realise brinkmanship was clearly the only way it would ever happen.?

So at last, the fear of destroying the company in this risky move was finally eclipsed by the fear that they would be subject to yet more animated, impassioned board debate by Chris Cooper. It was agreed. We would carry through on our threat, encrypt our files on said date, and deal with the mayhem as best we could.

Encryption Day

On the day our encryption kicked in, there was a relatively calm start. We knew our industry partners had done some work to support integration, but were quite sure it would be woeful, untested, and in some cases not have any work done at all. But without these players willing to engage directly in any meaningful way or with strict timelines, all we could do was wait.

It didn’t take too long to discover the outcome. The phone rang. A support email or two came in. ‘We urgently need to fix this. We can’t cover any classes today. Something is broken!’ was the common cry from customers. We gently explained they needed to contact their admin system provider to solve this ‘problem’.

Then the avalanche began in earnest. By about 9:30am the support lines were running so hot that the first complaint was usually that they had called a dozen times already, but could not get through to us. Not surprising, as no sooner had we hung up, then the phone rang again. It was endless, and by lunchtime our customers, numbering in many hundreds, were screaming at us.

Our own support staff were bemused. Why had we done this if it would cause such problems? They knew the change and that it ‘may’ cause some problems, but were not ready for an avalanche, or the anger that these desperate clients were directing. ‘Can’t you just fix it? My admin system vendor said you caused the problem. They said they can’t read your files anymore because you blocked them. Is this true? Just undo it now. I don’t want them blocked. I want to run my school! We can’t operate like this!’

There were some very tense moments, where the management team were in fear, not quite expecting this level of anger, this level of disruption. I had expected this, but had played down such concerns because you just can’t make an omelet without cracking some eggs. We devised some workarounds for schools, but there was incredible pressure to just revert the change. We could issue a software update in minutes that would solve the ‘problem’ for hundreds of schools instantly, and calm the support lines and our staff’s frazzled nerves. It would be so easy to back down.

Thank God we were able to stand firm, as a team in that most difficult moment, risking the company on a brinkmanship move towards a better future long term. We decided to stay with our position.

It was clear our admin system partners had not expected this, from a small upstart company. How dare they! Surely they would not. It could be business suicide. Surely they will offer another extension! No, we were firm. It just wasn’t going to happen.

What went down from our encryption date was perhaps the most difficult three months of our company history. It was months of mayhem. Schools struggled to go back to how they did things before we came on the scene, as we offered such better tools, so long as their admin system could work with the results. It was hard to explain our position to schools, who rightly said they didn’t see it as a big problem to be solved in the first place, and now this was terrible.

Vendors Grudgingly Comply

Slowly, piece by piece, each of the large industry players would grudgingly build their side of the ‘LISS’ data integration according to our specifications. The LISS alliance was mainly ourselves with Edumate as champions. Painfully slowly, schools would recover their much needed tools after months of chaos. Our weary support staff had many hundreds of angry calls, but at last, the whole drama was over. The storm had subsided. The war… had been won. We stood our ground, and right prevailed. We now have dozens of vendors globally using LISS, including some large players, and including even our direct competitors in the timetabling space, which is great to see.

At first, early on, the only thing schools noticed was that they could get back to normal. But increasingly they discovered their iPhone. The bi-directional data integration protocol called LISS was found to deliver incredible benefits. In many cases far beyond what schools had ever imagined.

Suddenly complex mid year class list changes could be made instantly. Timetables could be changed in seconds. Staff could be rearranged in far more creative ways. The software didn’t just make it easier for the timetabler now it was ‘properly’ integrated, it was better in every way.?

Staffing expenses were reduced, as previously, it was so hard to integrate timetable changes, that any staff going on leave would usually be covered by a new hire, when the ‘new’ way was to totally adjust the timetable to suit the change, and thus not NEED to hire a replacement. All changes were pushed to end users instantly. Everything was so easy. Rooms and other resources found their utilisation rates climb. The change to bi-directional data integration was in fact a game changer, that no school really had been pushing for. None of them had seen the holy grail, and those who did simply disbelieved it could ever happen.

Oddly, despite incredible drama, our company lost almost no clients through the entire arduous ordeal. We came out the other side much stronger in the industry, and respected by clients and admin players together. The results of this ‘Forced freedom’ of school data were stunning. Our support costs were reduced, clients became so happy with the new normal, and the many benefits fortunately allowed the incredible pain of childbirth to be forgotten. Edval had forced out a data integration protocol, and made every other player play ball. For the right reasons. Even the admin players themselves accepted at last it was a better way.

Ironically, our brinkmanship of forcing data freedom was done by encrypting the data in one form, to make it ‘free’ in the right form! It was a success all round. A great example that sometimes you should not solely listen to your customers, and you should not solely focus on the customer is always right. Sometimes you have to take a big risky leap, to engineer radical change, for the long term good of all.

LISS Website

During this process, we also had some admin system vendors approach us, seeking lock-in integration, where we would agree to not allow data integration to be quite as easy or specific to other players. We also had players try to charge schools for data integration, as an additional service fee. We had some approach us in an almost cartel like manner, seeking to commercially profit from data integration as a new ‘product line’.?

Charging ongoing fees for data integration seems excessive. I was very against this idea ethically, and fortunately so was my brother Tim. We both shared a vision that school data should be free. Unencumbered. Able to be shared with any vendor’s system, without any barriers, and goodness there are many. Technical barriers, commercial barriers, privacy barriers, data scheme barriers and still more.

At the time, I was solely responsible for our LISS alliance website, and had written all the content and graphics,? apart from the technical standard, which my brother had written (together with a lot of input from some like David Savill of Edumate). I realised we needed to be very clear what the ETHOS of our LISS protocol was, which in essence is FREEDOM. Freedom for school data to flow to any authorised system as needed, free of charge, free of technical barriers. Freedom!

While I am no longer administering the LISS website, it’s good to see our ethos of data freedom is still proudly written there as an important part of the standard. https://liss.org.au/docs/about/ethos

Chaos to Bring Positive Change

Changing the world for good is hopefully doing something which survives you. Which makes the world a little better to live in, for all. Martin Luther King Jr was such an activist. His actions caused CHAOS. In the Rosa Parks case of 1955, where poor Rosa was arrested for not giving up her seat for a white passenger.

Ruby Bridges was in her own right, an activist. Fighting for the right to an education, which is an industry I have been so passionately supporting for decades.?

She suffered serious threats, white parents threatening to poison her, throwing things at her, showing her a black baby doll in a coffin, such an incredibly angry mob unhappy with ‘change’ that she needed four USA marshals to escort her to school, and was banned from eating food at the school for fear of poisoning.?

So very sad, but shows there can be good from chaos. Sometimes the system needs to change. And change can be difficult and challenging, but still it can be so very needed. At the time, the white racists would not realise they were so wrong, as the momentum of status quo can be a heavy load to shift, and sometimes needs new perspective to see it for what it is.

Also with Cooper v. Aaron in 1958, where school segregation by race or skin colour was challenged and won. Such brave souls have been routinely arrested trying to change the system for good, and Mr King also had his home firebombed and was ultimately assassinated, yet his legacy continues on, with his birthday now a USA national holiday. What a change!

Justice Brennan of the Supreme Court was even careful to use the word desegregation rather than integration, as he felt the term was too inflammatory for the South. As a minor in the industry at the time, Edval was segregated out in a way, not able to integrate, not able to have it’s data used in the seat on the bus, as the rules were essentially that it was not permitted to be there, where it should be!

It is interesting to see in these challenging times much similarity in segregation over the virus and mandates, and so much civil activism ongoing, including protests. As the NSW Deputy President of the governments Fair Work commission stated in the mainstream media “All Australians should vigorously oppose the introduction of a system of medical apartheid and segregation in Australia.”

Nobody wants to see chaos. Such protests can be illegal, or in the case of my company with data integration, have massive commercial risks to goodwill and profits. And yet, when we look back, we may well see such actions differently. History is never kind to those in the past. Burning witches, segregating, on race or gender or now medical status.?

But what seems to stand the test of time is freedom. Freedom to be. Freedom of data. Freedom to operate your school without onerous barriers to system integration, or financial costs. So neither I nor my team are Martin Luther King, but in some small way we have achieved a victory for the people, in data freedom. In closing the divide between system. In making school administration so much better, and significantly so in terms of ongoing financial savings that result.

To all our beloved Edval clients I apologize for the immense disruption we somewhat intentionally yet quite indirectly caused by standing our ground, and fighting for data freedom. For your data freedom!

Government Chaos

The Australian government in NSW was aware of LISS protocol, which was widely used. In their wisdom at the time, they decided to bring in a LMBR system to ‘replace all’ school software, including ours. This was such an utter disaster, and we all saw it coming from a mile away. I secured industry support and wrote an open letter to the government outlying our concerns, and offering to assist in very specific ways.?

The government held a tender. But it was ‘invite only’. And neither we or other major players were invited. When I actively tried to get invited, or inquire why we were not, there was no answer. When I pointed out my belief the tender omitted timetabling, I was told it was included, though subsequently the government admitted with some embarrassment it was not (but didn’t re-tender).

The government clearly had its own mind made up, or perhaps an improper relationship? Ultimately the tender was won by Tribal, who at the time had not one single school as a client. To say the industry was flabbergasted by this outcome is probably fair. It made no sense to any of us.

Sadly the government ignored the industry and continued plowing taxpayer funds into what seemed essentially reinventing the wheel, but with a government designed product that had zero commercial incentives, but the obvious massive overhead of government process. It was never going to work, and eventually the entire project failed to the tune of $180 million or so, after being years overdue. Ironically one of the key benefits cited of the LMBR was savings. We did point out for $180 million that would have funded all the technology schools used already and more for decades, without needing to build anything new, but there you go!

Initially the government pushed a competing standard for data integration SIF, including offering significant funding to re-engineer to support it. Our team refused. We pointed out numerous problems with this standard, and why ours was better. After some irritation, the government significantly changed their SIF standard, and made concessions we had pushed for. My brother was a consultant and significantly involved in the design. One wonders why they were not happy with LISS, which was proven working and secure and well supported, but Cest La Vie. At least we fixed the major problems with the standard they wanted, though the only one using this standard directly is the government, as all other providers favour our LISS standard in Australia at least, and growing in the UK.

I was able to secure a meeting with the government as a result of my activism, and open letter. We met with the LMBR team, as an industry, despite all being direct competitors. Here, we were united, standing side by side, and supporting each other against the government's segregation of us as vendors and our systems from the government educational systems. The government was even actively advising schools not to deal with us even, in writing, such was the massive efforts to alienate us from the education industry we served. It was as if the government thought we were lepers or something!

This photo was taken with many CEO's of competing systems who had signed my open letter to the government, just after meeting the head of the LMBR. We were told in no uncertain terms at that meeting there would really be no place for our technology in schools, as LMBR was going to 'replace everything'. Hmmm!

I can’t imagine how bad it would have been for Martin Luther King, but in that small way, we were all fighting against segregation, fighting to serve the educational community in the way we knew best, and that was certainly far better than the government at the time.

Government Sees the Light

Thankfully things have radically changed, and the Australian government’s education department is quite supportive, and acknowledges the value the commercial players have. In somewhat of a concession, they were forced to issue advice to schools in timetabling when LMBR failed, advising schools they needed to purchase a commercial replacement now, and gave a list, with several so obscure we had not heard of them. But they also said it must be data integrated with the department, and that our Edval product was the only one who was so integrated. Essentially mandating our product, but without the embarrassment of awarding us a formal tender. So it wasn’t what either of us wanted, but I think we were both happy enough with the result.

So in the end, sanity has prevailed. In two of the largest battles of our company history, we have stood our ground and challenged an entire industry of much larger players, risked our goodwill and profits. We have also challenged the government and also won the battle.?

But what has been won, is freedom. Data freedom. The freedom of schools to use which software system they want, and not be mandated, forced to use one system that may not suit their needs in the ways they need most.

Change - A Risk Worth Taking

I wonder who else has dared risk everything for ethics. For the greater long term good. For freedom, unity and common sense, despite enormous resistance. The only constant in life is change. In physics Newton has stated that for any action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. This applies to a degree in any change. There is effort. The status quo is very hard to shift, there is always opposition. There is always ‘if it ain’t broke, why fix it’, there is the old ‘what if it doesn’t work’, and there is the ‘do we really need change anyway?’. An interesting analogy is the grass being greener on the other side. Maybe it is. But one thing is for sure, any change will also change your view. It will give you new information. Yes you could waste a journey and come back quickly, but more likely you will learn something new, and find some new and improved way, process or state of being.

We should not fear change. We should fear the fear of change. We don’t want to needlessly incur the cost of ongoing change, but so too, we absolutely must challenge our long held beliefs, and rethink. Maybe we are too comfortable and unaware we are stagnating, in putrid waters. Maybe we need a fresh look, and a new position. Change. It can deliver incredible results, but sometimes we have to push very hard to engineer change, as the barrier of fear of others can be so difficult to shift. Some fear is good, but don’t let the bar of fear be so high that you never see the grass being so much greener on the other side, even if folk are not complaining yet about the grass where you are now!

A challenge to everyone. Change. What can you change now and in the future, to make the world a slightly better place? We look back at those who struggled to cause change, such as in the segregation of education, or in gay rights… maybe there is something here today in the world (or your company) that you can see needing change, and will dare to give your best efforts for a better world!