Chris Dutton

If you lead an educational publisher, you face a growing challenge: improve profitability of your portfolio today and invest in capabilities and talent for once-in-a-generation changes in education and your portfolio tomorrow. To improve efficiencies, you’ve likely tested AI features in your content workflows—auto-drafts, summaries, tagging—but found gains are incremental. To realize a step-change in efficiencies, let’s reflect on a few hard facts about educational publishing: > Educational publishing is a labor- and information-intensive industry. > Portfolios are getting more complex—print, eBooks, courseware, customizations. > Most content workflows remain stubbornly parallel and manual, with few efficiencies. > Outsourcing was the last true step-change in profitability. That’s why improving your content workflow efficiency isn’t optional. It’s the only way to foundationally shore up margins now so you can build the capacity and capabilities to respond when market changes accelerate. Other industries have already shown the way. In finance, insurance, and pharma, AI agents are delivering huge productivity gains by taking on complex, labor-intensive, information-rich tasks—and in highly regulated environments. Educational publishing is just as ready. The leaders who deploy AI agents to transform content workflows will free up resources, regain profitability, and be best positioned to thrive in the next chapter of digital disruption. Have you taken a hard look at your content operations and started exploring how agents could transform them? Please see my full blog for the why now and how to begin. https://lnkd.in/eZapzX9M #strategy #AI #growth #edtech #enablinginsights

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You don’t need a $3,000 Vegas badge to move your career forward. Brian Fowler and I just published a new piece with Greenbook on why local and regional conferences often deliver better ROI, especially for insights and analytics professionals who are job searching, hiring, or trying to grow their network without blowing the budget. A lot of this thinking grew out of conversations inside Insights Career Network (ICN), which is an awesome community that’s been helping thousands of researchers navigate career shifts, job searches, and industry change together, not alone. We see every day how smaller, local events can spark real opportunities: new roles, mentors, collaborators, and clients. In the article, we dig into: - Why smaller shows = deeper conversations (not just collecting lanyards) - How locally sourced speakers and sponsors get you closer to real opportunities in your own backyard - Simple ways to turn a one-day event into new connections, leads, or job conversations within 14 days - A mini-list of lower-cost conferences to keep on your radar If you’re thinking about how to level up in 2026, without getting on a plane, this might help you choose your next move more intentionally. Read it here: Why Attend Local Conferences IRL? For the ROI https://lnkd.in/e3S7RdBY And if you’re in the insights world and not yet plugged into Insights Career Network, it’s a great place to compare notes, swap leads, and find your “conference crew.”

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Many have commented this week on the leaked paper titled #UN80 structural changes and programmatic realignment. A compilation of non-attributable suggestions as the paper states... The current discussions seems to be focused a lot on mergers, and finally I would say, but mergers must be driven by why an organization exists, how it adds value, and what synergies can be achieved — not simply by where it fits on an org chart. Read my thoughts in my latest newsletter: Merging for What? UN Reform Needs More Than Just Consolidation Read it here:https://lnkd.in/eTdJVijP and subscribe if you are interested in future updates...

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Why CIOs Should Follow Academic Research for Tech Trends - Many essential business technologies first appeared in academic research. Here's how following these journals can help you stay ahead of the competition. https://lnkd.in/gaCX26Am

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Global momentum is building for the AI & Digital Maturity Index (AI-DMI) – Times Higher Education and Inside Higher Ed's initiative to benchmark how universities are adopting AI, digital tools, and data-driven practices. We’ve already received 2,122 responses from 789 universities across 73 countries, with the highest number of responses from the US, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, South Africa, and Pakistan. Universities with 50+ completed surveys will: * Receive a complimentary AI & digital maturity report * Be invited to an exclusive AI strategy webinar on using the Index to guide institutional planning around AI The AI-DMI helps universities: * Assess readiness for AI and digital transformation * Benchmark against peers globally * Identify opportunities for innovation and collaboration Join the global conversation, ensure your institution is represented – and encourage your colleagues to participate! #Digitaltransformation #DigitalMaturity #AI #Digitalclassroom #AIeducation #AIlearning https://lnkd.in/eM-um9XH

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Excited to share the first guest column on Class Central by David Joyner from Georgia Institute of Technology. David taught an entire course using his AI avatar. His key insight: each small convenience we add with AI tools, letting TAs post announcements, producers fix errors, chips away at student trust. His approach to transparency is practical: his avatar wears an AI bracelet (spelling "AI" in binary) that his daughter made, and only he can generate content with his digital twin. These are deliberate trust signals. As David puts it: "There's something about having it replicate the actual author's voice that draws students in. But there has to be trust that it really is replicating the author." You'll be seeing more from David on Class Central in the coming months. Stay tuned! AI Avatars in Education: The Transparency We Can’t Afford to Lose: https://lnkd.in/g9cGPrKF

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I'm excited to share that Packt has partnered with Wiley to turn some of their best business and leadership books into interactive courses on Expert Edge Titles from authors like Marty Cagan, Alexander Osterwalder, and Steve Blank will be available as structured learning experiences that combine text, video and MCQs in one place. It’s a new way to learn from proven ideas that is practical, accessible and built for busy professionals.

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