Mark Milford - 2026

The “off-the-shelf” shortcut is usually the longest road to efficiency. Stop trying to fit your round school into a square software hole.

→ 4:59 PM, Apr 30

Information shouldn’t be a scavenger hunt. If you can’t see the health of your school at a glance, you’re flying blind. It’s time to move from “running reports” to “seeing results.”

→ 4:51 PM, Apr 29

Stability is important, but there is a big difference between a stable system and a stagnant one. If your software is older than your students, it’s probably time to ask what that “safety” is actually costing your school.

→ 3:46 PM, Apr 28

Stability is important, but there is a big difference between a stable system and a stagnant one. If your software is older than your students, it’s probably time to ask what that “safety” is actually costing your school.

→ 3:46 PM, Apr 27

Silos are for grain…

Not for systems! I’m making a quick stop in China on my way home. Airline systems are all connected, if you run a school are yours? If not why not let me know the challenge you are facing, never know might have a solution!

→ 3:08 PM, Apr 22

Worrying thoughts…

It’s 2026 and so many in our industry and still using ancient software and plugging the gap with staff.

Ask yourself: Is your team working for your software, or is the software working for them?

→ 3:20 PM, Apr 21

You don't know what you don't know…..

The business meetings at IALC Salerno are finishing up and I noticed a common thread in my conversations this week.

A lot of school owners are working way harder than they need to, simply because they don’t realize that the manual “grind” they do every day has been solved by modern tech.

The best example was a chat about accommodation matching. The owner I was with assumed that playing “human Tetris” with spreadsheets for hours was just part of the job. They had no idea there was a way to automate it.

Most legacy systems—some 30 years old now—just aren’t built to handle the logic that saves you time.

Going to the Gala dinner now to celebrate a great week. Next Week, I’ll start posting some specific examples of what modern school tech actually looks like in 2026.

→ 2:51 PM, Apr 20