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IMS Global: We realize that a lot of this emerging technology is a passing fad and some will be around a while. What advice would you offer to other institutions as to which technologies they should watch and invest in?

BL: Let me answer that by providing six suggestions. First, I would shift emphasis to the learning priority. It's all about learning, it is not about media or technology. It's about the message, it is not about the massage. At Fielding, for example, we recently eliminated the CIO's position and moved the learning system into the Office of Academic Affairs and set up the position of Chief Learning Officer. So my first suggestion would be to shift learning to the number one priority.

Second, understand what we have learned. With magnetic resonance imaging and other kinds of advanced technologies, plus all of the research we've done about learning, we know a lot more about how to help people learn both inside and outside the classroom.

Third, recognize the globalization and the fact that the world is, indeed, flat. Albeit that it's a world of cultural differences and dissonance, the die is cast on world communication. Every college and university that I know of today is using media in the classroom and has non-classroom based media instruction. In terms of informal learning, people are learning how to learn. If you look at the new consumerism, people are constructing their own materials and the way they do things now, too.

Suggestion number four would be to get with the program. I think we're beyond the point of no return. The media is here, the technology is here. The demand is absolutely here if you look at the research you get from the telecommunication industry and the desire of people to learn in new ways. The public interest is almost as high on the desire for learning and enrichment opportunities as it is for entertainment and movies. Look at what's driving the NASDAQ. It's being driven to higher numbers now by these private profit-making universities that are experiencing huge success because people want to learn in that kind of environment.

Fifth, don't be cowed by the media. It is simpler than all that. I think it's going to get easier and easier to use. The real solution is to make the media transparent. It's all about the experience. It needs to be used without thinking about how it's delivered.

And sixth, we need to continue to support research on media and its effect on learning. And then we need to fix our schools. K-12, if you look at the national reports that are coming out and you look at the urban school districts, is having a difficult time. I'm proudly chairman of the board of Hi-tech High, which is now the number one high school in Los Angeles. Their focus is on learning, but it enjoys a tremendous technology support system.

I don't claim any originality in any of these comments, but I've paid a lot of attention to the legacy that is passed on by all of those people in the past whose work we have learned together and whose work needs to be shared into the future so that it's understood. I think that is one of the things that IMS is trying to provide, to be a catalytic agent. It's all about synergy and convergence. There is no question that it's more complicated now than it has ever been before because the power of media communication and the power of media learning is beyond our ability to use it at the moment.