There has been much talk of doing things the 'John Lewis' way now that times are hard and we have to all join in the 'big society'. Being both a life long devotee of JL and someone who is looking for new models of delivering Student Services in our post Browne world I have been thinking of just how a John Lewis model of Student Services would look and how technology would fit in. John Lewis is not a simple co-operative but rather a complex profit sharing organisation that was founded not on any socialist principles but rather as a defence against events that we happening in Europe in the early part of the last century. Nevertheless doing things the 'John Lewis' way has become a sort of shorthand for a form of sharing and co-operation even if its exact details are both hazy and probably not suitable for wholesale transfer into the HE sector let along Student Sevices.
Having said that HE is by its nature a very co-operative beast even if it times it doesn't feel like it. Student services are by and large very open one with another and always willing to share ideas and best practice, we are not fundamentally in competition with each other. If co-operation is in our DNA then finding a way to work together and even share services with each other should not be too much of a leap of faith for us all.
However there will come a brief window of competition if and when elements of private provision of student support come over the horizon. Perhaps the only window of opportunity we will be given to 'see off' the privatisation of our services will come during the required tendering process. If we are to stand a chance against companies who live or die by tendering is if we have ready to hand a business model that will allow us to deliver our services at a cost that makes sense and with a quality that protects the student experience. It will be the former rather than the later that will be our biggest challenge. This could be where John Lewis comes in. Selecting a business model that is as close as is possible to our instinctive ways of working is a key to success, the John Lewis model works because quite simply it works in practice, profit sharing amongst the 'partners' goes down as well as up, it is at heart a commercial model for a commercial world.
If co-operation and profit sharing on the JL model is the way forward where does technology fit in?
It is not just a case of one piece of kit or software being better than another but rather we need technologies that go with the cooperative flow that support shared services by allowing us to share. This is where we could not at a better place in a better time.
The phenomenal growth of web2.0 technologies and social media has been because of one single thing - it is built for sharing, it only grows through co-operation and community mindedness. It may be a type of community that many middle aged sociologists would fail to recognise but the ability to create, speak to and interconnect communities gives us in Student Services a set of tools that are constantly being refined for exactly the purpose we require of them, communication, information, community creation, support and development.
Our task now is to develop our own John Lewis business model woven around web2.0 and social media and never forgetting the reality of face to face.
However we have to do this ourselves before it is too late .
This article represents my personal views and not those of AMOSSHE or any other organisation.
