Education Innovation

Analyzing Your Educational Brand

As readers of this blog know, I believe that technology, education, marketing, and brands are on an eventual collision course that will create Educational Brands for teachers, schools, and districts. Teachers, schools, and districts will have marketing brands created by students, parents, test scores, and any number of available data streams in the coming years. Much as business has had to come to terms with their brand and reputation, so too, I believe, will teachers, schools, and districts have to come to terms with the need for brand management. Educator brand management.

Here is a questionnaire to help you analyze your educational brand.
(Adapted from Mitch Joel’s book Six Pixels of Separation)

1. What do people “feel” when they think of you as an educator?

2. What does your educational brand do for people—are they excited about you as a teacher? Do they want to tell everybody?

3. How would you feel if someone gave you your own business card? Does it impress you?

4. What does a your school website (or lack there of) say about your educational brand?

5. How do people find out about you as an educator?

6. How much marketing are you doing to make students, parents, and other school districts know about you?

7. How much money will you spend to attend educational trade shows, conferences, and networking events?

8. How often are you speaking or presenting at these educational events?

9. How often are you involved with organizing those educational events?

10. What are the many cost-effective ways you can better market your educational brand?

11. How comfortable are you with the new digital channels?

12. What kind of relationships are you forming at your school, in your district, in your community, and in the educational community? Are you a trusted educational adviser, an appreciated educational ally, or just another teacher?

12. How many websites, blogs, books, magazines, etc., that cover education are you currently reading (and have you thought about writing for them)?

13. What untold stories unfold every day in your classroom or at your school and how are your fellow teachers, school administration, district administration, students, parents, and the community informed of theses successes?

14. What is your unique promise as an educator?

Stop Standing Still, Quit Playing It Safe: The Dip by Seth Godin

“The time to look for a new job is when you don’t need one.  The time to switch jobs is before it feels comfortable.”  Seth Godin

Comfortable. My guess is that many teachers would love to teach the same grade or subject, at the same school, in the same district, with the same teachers, for the entire length of their careers. It is safe, predictable, and comfortable. It is also dangerous to you becoming a better teacher.

Seth Godin, in his beautiful little book The Dip, explains why quitting, yes quitting, can sometimes be a valuable tool.

“Doug needs to leave for a very simple reason. He’s been branded. Everyone at the company has an expectation of who Doug is and what he can do.” Doug could be teacher at your school. He has taught the same subject or grade for several years. He is good at it. He is on the same committees year after year. He is good at that too. But is Doug growing as an educator? Are you?

“If he leaves and joins another company, he gets to reinvent himself.”  Could a new school or grade level help you reinvent yourself?  Could a new challenge be just the thing to push you out of your comfortable safe zone, and into a new period of challenge and growth? 

According to Seth Godin, “If you are trying to succeed in a job or a relationship or a task, you’re either moving forward, falling behind, or standing still. There are only three choices.” Obviously we don’t want to be falling behind. Standing still is a very easy and very common choice. Standing still is safe. Standing still is predictable. Standing still is comfortable.

But is that going to improve you as an educator?  Is that going to improve education?  Obviously, the answer is no. So that leaves us with the choice but to move forward. According to Seth, “Measurable progress doesn’t have to be a raise or a promotion.”  We don’t control those sorts of things in education anyways, but Seth also says, “The challenge, then is to surface new milestones in areas where you have previously expected to find none.” 

So what new milestones could you set for yourself today?  What new skill could you develop? I started “TWittering” and getting interested in using the web as a collaboration tool. What new skill could you develop? I moved out the classroom and into a management position. I try to speak Spanish to my parents. I tying some very uncomfortable things. I still have a goal of earning my PhD or EdD. What goals or milestones could you set for yourself? What are you doing that is "uncomfortable?"

Stop doing what you have always done. Stop standing still.

To complete your Essential Education take a few minutes to watch friend Steve Cunnigham's great video summary of the book The Dip by Seth Godin

Networks Change How People Learn--Does It Change How You Teach?

Take a look at this excellent SlideShare presenation on The Mico-Sociology of Networks by David Armano.

After you are done ask yourself if this is going to change they way you teach learners, reach learners, and connect with learners. Take a look at The Great 8 Catalytic Questions and the SlideShare below.

The Great 8 Catalytic Questions

1.    Your learners are creators of content not just consumers or your content. How does that change things for you?

2.    Your learners expect to share their ideas with others and have others share their ideas with them. How are you creating opportunities for your learners to share?

3.    The social circle of your learners is a path of teaching. Their circle is bigger than the classroom and bigger than the school. It may include people from all points on the globe. How are you accounting for this network? How can you leverage it for greater teaching and learning?

4.    If you have any sort of digital footprint, it is very likely that your students have seen parts of or your entire digital footprint. How are you preparing your self for educational brand management? How will you interact with students online outside of the classroom?

5.    Connections are the "new currency" of the 21st Century. How are you preparing your students to thoughtfully build, manage, and leverage this "new currency?"

6.    Your learners do not view the educational establishment as the only means of teaching. Their network is a means of teaching. There is a shift away from the classroom to the Open Model of Education. How are you preparing yourself for this disruptive shift in education?

7.    You are a filter. Are you filtering information for your learners and teaching them to do the same, or are you blocking information from your learners and showing them you don't trust them or understand their world?

8.    Do you see now that you are more important than ever? The network needs you. Your learners need you. What are you doing to equip yourself to be there for them?

The Micro-Sociology of Networks

View more presentations from David Armano. (tags: behavior human)

Subliminal Advertising in Teaching and Learning

I was wondering if the characteristics of subliminal advertising might have implications for teaching and learning.

by BBColin

The impetus for this question is this excellent You Tube video in which to marketeers are influenced in their ad strategy by strategically placed subliminal visuals. Take 6 minutes to watch what happens to these two pro ad people as they create and idea and then see how their ideas was influenced through subliminal messages.

Link To You Tube Video on Subliminal Advertising

I wonder what sort of subliminal messages the the classroom or school campus is sending our students. It it one that locks them into a certain way of thinking or using the same visual over and over again. Or is your room or school campus sending messages that help to subliminal messages of learning or creativity.

Does what students hear and see on a subliminal level influence their learning and their thinking? Probably. But, can we as teachers, educators, trainers, pastors, etc. harness the power of subliminal messages?  Or, should we even attempt it. Is there too much downside from thinking seriously about subliminal messages.

Will we one day come to see that power of subliminal messages and even begin to plan purposefully to use it in our lessons, training, or sermons?  What benefits might this bring? What dangers might it unearth?

Subliminal Messages as a learning and teaching tool. That is Education Innovation.

Social Media and The Role of Personal Branding In Education

I believe we live in a time when Education Brand Management is quickly becoming a skill all educators will need. Others agree.

Dan Schwabel of the Personal Branding Blog has recently had a great series of post on the use of Social Media and the importance of understanding Personal Branding in education.

In part 1, they discussed why blogs are important in classrooms and the advantages of using blogs as a learning vehicle.

In part 2, they talked about the relevancy of “Blackboard,” which is an online teaching center that many colleges use and how the teachers are actually using social networks, blogs and wiki’s for their class.

In part 3,they talk about the concept of Personal Branding in education

 "The idea is that we can think of the identities we project onto others as our own brand and that we can apply advertising and marketing principles to shape what we want others to think of that brand - all within ethical guidelines of course. That means we shouldn’t abuse the anonymity of the Internet to present a self that has nothing in common with our true self. Instead, we should put our best self forward and think about the impressions our online actions will create."

"In an age where the boundaries between private and public life are becoming increasingly blurred and personal (and corporate) reputations are defined by Google results, it is crucial to monitor and define our online identities. We need to start thinking of those Google results as our resume and clean up anything that doesn’t belong there. Unfortunately, students oftentimes don’t think about the implications of their online actions until it is too late and their reputation has been damaged. The latest figure I’ve seen suggested that 75% of employers Google job candidates before making a hiring decision and that roughly 1/3 of recruiters have eliminated candidates because of what their search turned up. That alone should be reason enough to learn about personal branding!"

I previously wrote...

As readers of this blog know, I believe that technology, education, marketing, and brand are on an eventual collision course that will create Educational Brands for teachers, schools, and districts. Teachers, schools, and districts will have marketing brands created by students, parents, test scores, and any number of available data streams in the coming years. Much as business has had to come to terms with their brand and reputation, so too, I believe, will teachers, schools, and districts have to comes to terms with the need for brand management.

I call this Educator Brand Management. Dan calls it Personal Branding. The point is we are on the road to being de-privatized as educators. We need to begin to think about what that means for us on-line and off.

Recommended Reading:

Should you be on Facebook?  David Truss says yes: When facing the issue of Facebook,
our students are there, and we should be there too!

Beth Holmes deals with the personal implications of David's idea.

The Groundswell and Your Educational Brand Management

14 Trends Of The New Educational Reality (Trends 1-7)

Education Brand Management

How Strong Is Your Educational Brand?

How Strong Is Your Educational Brand?

As readers of this blog know, I believe that technology, education, marketing, and brand are on an eventual collision course that will create Educational Brands for teachers, schools, and districts. Teachers, schools, and districts will have marketing brands created by students, parents, test scores, and any number of available data streams in the coming years. Much as business has had to come to terms with their brand and reputation, so too, I believe, will teachers, schools, and districts have to comes to terms with the need for brand management.

And a business has learned, and I am warning teachers and schools, you need to manage your educational brand, or it will be managed for you. Also, it's not who you say you are, it's who "they" say you are that will matter.

Anna Farmery posts You Know That You Have a Strong Employer Brand When... on The Engaging Brand Blog

1. You have people contacting you to see if they can join
2. When your "unintentional" employee turnover is significantly lower than the competition.
3. When you have a waiting list of potential recruits.
4. When your employees recommend you as an employer to friends and family.
5. When your employees are proud to say who they work for...
6. When people choose to stay despite a better financial offer.
7. When employees do not focus on what they are being paid.
8. When people are smiling in open rather than talking in corners.
9. When you don't have to look outside to fill a role and there is a pipeline of talent.
10. Oh and of course when people wear the company t- shirt on holiday!

So how are you managing your brand?

1. You have people contacting you to see if they can join
2. When your "unintentional" employee turnover is significantly lower than the competition.
3. When you have a waiting list of potential recruits.
4. When your employees recommend you as an employer to friends and family.
5. When your employees are proud to say who they work for...
6. When people choose to stay despite a better financial offer.
7. When employees do not focus on what they are being paid.
8. When people are smiling in open rather than talking in corners.
9. When you don't have to look outside to fill a role and there is a pipeline of talent.
10. Oh and of course when people wear the company t- shirt on holiday!

So how are you managing your brand?

Education Brand Management

Over at Leader Talk, Matt Hillmann wrote about the need for personally creating good public relations for your school by speaking to civic groups such as the Rotary, Kiwanis, or the Lions Club.

“This was public relations at its finest. School personnel talking directly with community leaders who are influential and will spread the good news that was shared with them. This personal contact is immeasurable.”

I agree with this view and advice, but I go further, believing we are in an era of educational brand management which I discussed in my posts The Groundswell and Your Educational Brand Management and Protect Your Rep!--Teacher Brand Management. I believe education is entering an era where teachers, schools, and districts will become brands. Each teacher, school or district will have to be aware off and take steps to actively manage their brand. Brand management will become a leadership skill of administrators and teachers. It will, of course, include public relations like the kind that Matt is advocating.

Seth Godin in his book Meatball Sundae writes about the 14 trends of  “new marketing.” I previously posted about trends 1-7 and their intersection with education.

Trend 3: Need For An Authentic Story As The Number Of Sources Increases
Stories spread, not facts. So what stories are being told about your school and your teachers? A story is a symbol of who you are. Do you know your symbol? Do you care? Why would anyone want to go to your school? What makes your teachers so great?

Technology is allowing for students and parents to share their stories about you. Are you sharing your own stories? Do you have an educational brand that you trying to spread? What kind of message is your school trying to spread? There is a story about your school, the question is, is it your story or somebody else’s version?

Matt offers some great advice. I have thought about joining my local Rotary. Good public relations are an important aspect of educational leadership, but it is not enough to stop there. We must embrace the reality of era in which we live and work. Technology has made the communication and sharing of information, viewpoints, stories, and opinions nearly ubiquitous. We must begin to develop our educational brand and understand that we must actively manage our educational brands. If we don’t manage our brands, someone will do it for us. Can you take that chance?

14 Trends Of The New Educational Reality (Part 1-Trends 1-7)

What do you get when you combine a meatball sundae, home/school communication, brand management, the New York Times best sellers list, Google, homework, outsourcing, and the definitions of literacy? Let’s put them in the Education Innovation blender and find out.

In his book Meatball Sundae, Seth Godin describes 14 Trends of New Marketing. I put these trends under the lens of education and call them the New Reality.

Trend 1: Direct Communication and Commerce Between Producers and Consumers
Consumers demand speed. Businesses need to respond quickly to consumer demands or the consumer will go elsewhere. Consumers can now connect directly to the top of an organization. They expect a response. Technology is changing the way organizations and customers interact.

Our students and parents live in a world with the ability to communicate with an organization and expect a quick response. Is the use of technology in your school changing the way you interact with students and parents? Are you responding to the needs of your students and parents and communicating that response effectively? If students and parents can communicate directly with the school, how important is the response you give back? How quick do you respond? Do you view it as a burden or an opportunity to spread your educational vision and message?

Trend 2: Amplification Of The Voice Of The Consumer and Independent Authorities.
Every interaction with a consumer is an interaction with a critic (or potential critic).
Everybody, student, parent, community member has a voice that can be amplified through technology. What are they going to say about your school?  What are they going to say about your educational brand? (You do have a brand, whether you like it or not.)

The web remembers forever. A poorly written email can be posted in minutes to the web.  Blogs allow students, parents, and community members into instant publishers. YouTube allows them to become movie producers. What are the publishing or producing about you? You may have a point of view on an issue, but who is better able to get their message out, you or the student run blog posting pictures, YouTube videos, and podcasts? Your schools reputation is always on the line and on-line. What is being said about you?

Trend 3: Need For An Authentic Story As The Number Of Sources Increases
Stories spread, not facts. So what stories are being told about your school and your teachers? A story is a symbol of who you are. Do you know your symbol? Do you care? Why would anyone want to go to your school? What makes your teachers so great?

Technology is allowing for students and parents to share their stories about you. Are you sharing your own stories? Do you have an educational brand that you trying to spread? What kind of message is your school trying to spread? There is a story about your school, the question is, is it your story or somebody else’s version?

Trend 4: Extremely Short Attention Spans Due To Clutter
There is a multitude of choices and a deluge of interruptions for students and parents. Commercials went from a minute to thirty seconds to, in some cases, three seconds. A bestseller was on the New York bestsellers list for 22 weeks, now it’s on the list for two. Books are shorter. Not enough time to read the book, listen to the audio version in the car. YouTube has over 7 million video. Most are only watched for less than 10 seconds. If it’s not good we move on.

That is the world you student is living in. If the don’t like it, the switch it, drop it, or change it. They don’t have to wait for something better. They are in control.

What about in the classroom? How much time do you get to grab their attention, make it meaningful, and engage before they drop you? They may be forced to sit there, but they aren’t forced to learn. The world is catering to their desire to move on. Your teaching can’t afford to be good enough. It must be great or it won’t cut through all the clutter or the world they are living in. You can’t count on their attention and engagement. You have to compete for it and win it.

Trend 5: The Long Tail
“Any market of people with sufficient resources will get very pick on you.”
People want choice. Students and parents want choice. Education does not have to provide that choice. (For now) Students have to go to school. They have to go to school in your district. They may be allowed to move within your district, but for the most part, they are assigned to you. You didn’t have to earn them, they were just sent to you. But you can’t rely on that forever.

Your students and parents live in a world where they can find nearly any book they want at Amazon. More of them are watching YouTube videos than the top ten television shows. Online they can find a hundred times more inventory than a retail store. You can find nearly anything on Google. The digital world means products are easy to store and easy to customize to the individual need.

So, if they can find nearly anything they want or need online and have it customized to their needs, what makes you think they need your school? They can find the learning they want online, learn what they want, when they want, where they want, and at the pace they want. So why should they want you? What is it about your educational brand or story that makes them want to choose you?

Trend 6: Outsourcing
You assign the project or the paper and then your student goes home and out sources the work online to some student in India or Sri Lanka. Why not? A report you want, a report you shall get. It costs your students and parents to connect with people in any part of the world to share skills, abilities, and resources. Homework for sale via the Internet is a reality. There is not sense trying to stop it, it’s already out there. The question is how can you adjust your assignment to make them meaningful and engaging so the student won’t outsource the work.

It’s not just assignments. When I can hire online tutors, watch educational videos, or get language lessons through my web cam, outsourcing teaching is here too. What are you doing about that reality?  Maybe just you are just going to rely on the old model of, “You have to go here. You live here.”  That may work for you, but that is not the world your students are growing up in.

Trend 7: Google And The Dicing Of Everything
Having the teacher in your classroom is no longer a reason to believe that is where the teaching and learning is going to happen. Students are a few clicks away from being connected to people all around the world who are willing to teach and tutor.

Google has allowed us to find any piece of information or facts we would ever want to know. In fact, in the new reality, it is not the piece of information or fact; it’s how to find it. Students don’t want to memorize names, dates, formulas, etc., that they can just look up in Google. Why? Why memorize what is right at my fingertips? They key is learning how to find the facts or information. Google has changed literacy? It not longer memorizing the “what”, but knowing where and how to find the “what.”

We will look at Trends 8-14 in a later post.

Catalytic Questions:

How might your view of parent/student communication change if you knew it was being used to judge your school or yourself?

In what ways are you using technology to communicate with students and parents to spread your educational vision and brand? 

Is it effective? What might you change, add, or subtract from what you are currently doing?

Do you know what is being said about you and your school online?

Do you have an educational brand and are you managing it effectively?

In what ways are you or might you leverage technology to communicate your educational brand and your school’s story?

What is your school’s story?

How might your teaching change if you understood that you must compete and win your students’ attention?

What might this look like in the classroom?

Are you relying on the current lack of choice parents and students have, or are you thinking and preparing yourself for the power of choice they will soon demand?

If students and parents could choose, why would they choose you?
How might your thinking on assignments change based on the knowledge that students can outsource the work?

What might you do differently?

In what ways might the definition of knowledge and literacy change based on what Google has provided to every student?

Recommended Reading:

Literacy in the 21st Century

Why My Gym Is The Future of Education

The Questions We Choose To Ask and Answer: The Open Model of Education

The Future of Education

The Future of Education: Send the Lecture Home

The Groundswell and Your Educational Brand Management

I started reading the book Groundswell: Winning in a world transformed by social technologies, by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff.

What is a groundswell you ask?

“…a spontaneous movement of people using online tools to connect, take charge of their own experience, and get what they need—information, support, ideas, products, and bargaining power—from each other. The groundswell is broad, every shifting, and ever growing.”

What is it made out of you might ask?

“It encompasses blogs and wikis; podcasts and YouTube; and consumers who rate products.”  This of course means they can and will rate teachers, principals, and schools.

“…write their own news,…” of course their own reviews about you as a teacher, principal, or your school.

“It’s unstoppable. It affects every industry.”

In other words, it’s coming and it’s coming to education.

The others share an interesting story about how the encryption code for high-definition DVD’s was posted on a blog and then that blog was vote on the Digg site. The attorneys for the motion picture industry complaining about the post immediately contacted Digg. Digg removed the content. But the code was picked up by others and posted again on Digg. As fast as they could remove post that contained the code, it was back on Digg. In the end Digg stopped fighting the people. The people had created a groundswell that could not be resisted.

The point of the story is for teachers, principals, and schools, there is information about you and there are people, who are going to look for it, find it, provide it, and share it with others. It is your brand and you must think about taking control of your brand.

You may be able to control your perception with those you work with, or the parents, the district, and maybe even the students, but you won’t be able to control your brand once the online world gets a hold of information and data directly related to who you are as a teacher or educator. How you teach, what you teach, those crazy photos of you at the party last weekend, your credentials, your test scores, your comments on that blog you thought nobody reads; it’s all out there. Control your brand or the groundswell will control it for you.