What Blackboard Needs to Say at Building Blackboard Together 2026

Every July, the most invested people in the Blackboard ecosystem travel to one place and sit in rooms together. They ask hard questions, share what’s working, and try to get a read on where this platform is actually headed. For most of us who’ve been attending since the BbWorld days (and if you’re keeping count, that’s now four conference name changes), this event matters precisely because it’s one of the few times the client community has face time with the people making decisions.

This year’s Building Blackboard Together, scheduled for July 13 through 15 in Dallas, Texas, lands at a particularly charged moment. Layoffs. Leadership departures. A rebranded company still figuring out its post-Anthology identity. And a competitive landscape that won’t wait around while Blackboard sorts things out internally. The assembled client community deserves more than polished keynote slides. Here are the things Blackboard actually needs to address.

The company needs to tell clients where this ship is going.

I’ll give credit where it’s due: Blackboard’s financial position right now is stronger than it’s been in years. Separating from the Anthology portfolio removed a lot of noise. But financial stability and strategic clarity are two different things, and right now there’s a gap between them that clients can feel. What does Blackboard stand for in 2026? What’s the product vision? Who is this company building for, and what does it believe about the future of learning management in higher education? Those aren’t trick questions. They’re the questions every institutional decision-maker at that conference carries with them, because the answers affect contracts, migrations, and staffing plans at their campuses.

And the reality is that Blackboard cannot survive on its existing client base alone. Growth has to come from somewhere, and in a mature LMS market, that means winning institutions away from competitors. That opportunity recently got better with Instructure’s data breach, subsequent payoff, along with Canvas’s slowing product development. Institutions already nervous about security posture and product stagnation now ask questions they weren’t two years ago. Blackboard can capitalize, if, and only if, their house is in order before they try.

The path to new clients runs directly through existing ones.

Prospective institutions aren’t won over by sales decks. They’re won over by a colleague at a peer institution who says, without hesitation, that the move was worth it. Higher ed runs on that kind of trust, and it accumulates slowly and disappears fast. If Blackboard’s current clients are frustrated, that frustration has legs. If they’re genuinely confident in the platform and the partnership, that travels too. The competitive window that the Instructure breach and Canvas’s product stagnation have opened is real, but it won’t stay open indefinitely.

The new support model needs to be shared, and feedback must be collected, not just promised.

Support is the most frequent touchpoint most clients have with Blackboard. When it works well, it’s invisible. When it doesn’t, it becomes a standing topic before and after every Blackboard meeting. Many Blackboard admin colleagues I’ve spoken with have noticed a drop in support quality over the past year, and they’ve noticed it consistently enough that it’s become a real concern rather than an isolated complaint. Jennifer Ziegenmier, the new head of Blackboard Global Support, has indicated that a new support process is coming. That’s genuinely encouraging news. But Building Blackboard Together is the right venue to present that plan to clients and, more importantly, to hear from them. A conference room full of experienced Blackboard administrators who deal with tickets every week is an extraordinarily good focus group. Use it.

The leadership situation needs to be addressed directly, not managed around.

Let’s stop pretending this is a secret. Matthew Pittinsky will be Blackboard’s CEO before 2027. The evidence has been accumulating in plain sight for months: former Parchment leadership moving into Blackboard leadership roles and a conspicuous silence from the top that speaks louder than any press release. Clients who pay attention have connected the dots. The ones who haven’t will catch up quickly once they compare notes in the hallways at Building Blackboard Together.

The problem isn’t the appointment itself. It’s the vacuum the delay creates. Without confirmed CEO leadership and with Chief Product Officer Nicolaas Matthijs now gone, Blackboard is operating without a clearly stated captain or a clearly stated course. That kind of ambiguity doesn’t sit still. It gets filled.

And what it’s getting filled with is precisely the wrong thing.

What I’ve been hearing and observing in client meetings and community events over the past several months troubles me and many others in the client community. Internal political posturing has become visible in ways it shouldn’t be. Factions within the company appear to be advocating for their own priorities, their own product visions, and their own positioning, rather than rallying behind a unified company direction. When employees are more focused on advancing their internal standing than on what the client community actually needs, the clients see and feel it. It shows up in conversations that go sideways, in commitments that don’t get followed through, and in meetings where you leave wondering whose agenda you just sat through.

This is not a subtle dynamic. Experienced administrators and institutional decision-makers have seen organizational dysfunction before (and many have probably lived through it). They recognize it. And when they see it at Blackboard, it erodes confidence. Confidence that Blackboard needs not just to retain clients, but to win new ones. You cannot make a credible case to a prospective institution that your platform is stable and your partnership is trustworthy while your own house is visibly unsettled.

The fix here is leadership, and it needs to happen now.

If the Pittinsky appointment is coming, announce it, give it context, and use this conference to frame the vision he’ll be carrying forward. If the timeline has changed, say that plainly and explain what the path forward actually looks like. Either answer is better than continued silence. What the client community needs is a Blackboard that is focused outward, on their institutions, their students, and their real-world challenges. Right now, too much of the company’s energy appears to be pointed inward. That has to change before it becomes a competitive liability that no keynote can walk back.

I’ll say plainly: I believe Blackboard can do this.

The platform has genuinely improved. I’m about to say something I thought I would never say. Ultra is better than Original in the ways that matter for modern learners and instructors. The competitive landscape has opened up in ways that favor Blackboard if it moves with intention. The community that shows up every year to these conferences, including this one in Dallas, is made up of people who are invested in Blackboard’s success because their institutions are. That community is an asset most software companies would pay significant money to manufacture. Blackboard has it already.

What it takes from here is focus, communication, and continued listening. Not listening as a performance, but listening as a practice. Trusting that the people in that room know what their institutions need. Trusting that when experienced admins flag a problem, it’s worth taking seriously. Trusting that the path to growth runs through the clients already in the building before it runs through any new ones.

The good news is that Building Blackboard Together is the right setting to tackle all of this. The people in that room chose to show up. They’re invested. Clients want to hear honest answers, and they’re prepared to engage in good faith. That’s a gift, and it would be a shame to spend three days in Dallas, Texas, delivering slide decks when what the community actually needs is a real conversation.

I’ll be watching closely, and as always, I’ll report back.

Technically Yours,

The Blackboard Guru