Focus Group on Building Blocks

I was so busy yesterday that I didn't have time to blog. When I wasn't meeting with our partners I was in our booth doing non-stop demos, answering questions, and seeing demos from Building Blocks developers who are planning to come to the Building Blocks Developer Conference

However it was my first meeting of the morning that was the best. Right after the breakfast keynote, I hosted a focus group on Building Blocks Adoption - why are some institutions so conservative about using Building Blocks? I learned a lot during the discussion. I went into the focus group thinking that some key reasons that institutions were conservative about adopting Building blocks were:
- concerns about additional costs (e.g., hardware, license fees, staffing)
- concerns about impact to the Blackboard System (e.g., what happens if the Building Block breaks something)
- specific to the free or Open Source Building Blocks - who does the institution call if something goes wrong.

But I learned that there are many other reasons including:
- additional load on already overworked System Administrators to train faculty
- Administrators need more information about Building Blocks - which are the good ones, where can they test drive them, more detailed information about how they work are needed, etc.
- concerns about quality of development for both third party vendor products and free/open source Building Blocks.

Are you using Building Blocks? If not - what are your reasons for being cautious about adoption?

This was probably the most valuable experience for me during the conference and will definitely impact my plans for the coming year as we work to address the concerns of the group. Thanks to all who participated!