Descant, . . when “musical voices interweave with or bounce off each other in a dynamic but orderly way.”
From The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music
This is a blog about digital platforms, for managing privacy-sensitive data, sharing data in small business credit, and online education. It’s an architecture that reminds me of Descant, the musical construct. People “interweaving with” data or educational content or each other in a dynamic way while the platform ensures order and structural integrity.
Descant for small business credit
With Descant, business owners harness data under their control and across the web to build a credit profile. They can create any number of private groups in which they engage and selectively share data with trusted advisors and key stakeholders such as their accountant or banker. The platform makes sure their data is organized, shared only to the level they have in mind, and displayed professionally in attractive charts, tables, and reports that support threaded discussions in-context. Think communitarian system of small business credit and trust.
Descant as technology for privacy-sensitive data
Regulations such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) identify the rights of individuals when organizations use data about them for any purpose including profiling. But, these provisions leave room for interpretation and do not give us details in terms engineers could use to build compliant systems. Here, my background as a lawyer and ethics professor joins my creative roots to bridge the compliance-innovation gap with lyrical solutions.
Descant for higher education online
Over two decades have passed since I created the system and method for delivering online degree programs branded and accredited to the graduate schools behind them. As I have watched other entrepreneurs pick up that work and grow it into a multi-billion-dollar industry, I’m concerned that the spirit of my invention has been lost. The company was Cenquest but the vision was Descant. That is, technology and services complementing (interweaving with) the very best that professors and universities have to offer. Instructional designs that, like music and dance, engage the whole student to internalize learning in a profound and lasting way.
Technology and Consulting Services
Below are just a few of the ways I work with organizations, from non-profits, financial services, and corporations to government agencies:
- Engage me as a consultant to:
- Develop community among your most important partners, clients, or suppliers
- Build data governance, including new policies or leveraging yours, into internal IT or your technology offerings
- Design and deliver applied ethics programs for your engineering and data science teams
- Review existing solutions and provide recommendations for enhancement
- Engage with our technology to:
- License the platform to engage with small business clients or suppliers
- Sponsor the platform as an open source/collaborative project
- Conduct a paid pilot
You can find more information on my professional experience and credentials here.
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