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. Think about the recent story of L.A. City Teachers being evaluated with publically available data by private researchers and then having the story printed in the L.A Times.

(Los Angeles Teacher Ratings)

The recent Education Nation T.V. special on MSNBC has demonstrated that education has lost control of the narrative and are being defined by others. Perception, as they say, is reality--even if it isn't. Education's brand is currently being defined by people outside of education, rather than 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?

 

Education- Difficult Work vs. Hard Work

Seth Godin describes the difference between difficult work and hard work in his book Free Prize Inside.

“I define difficult work as the stuff that takes guts or insight. It’s not particularly dependent on how big your budget is or where you got a degree. Designing the profile for the Chrysler Building was difficult. Building it was hard.”

Hard work is about the process.

Difficult work is about the innovation.

Hard	Difficult
Designing comprehensive standards based lesson plans	Deciding what the student needs isn't in the curriculum or the standards and then doing something about it
Taking time to attend grade level meetings	Having meaningful, challenging, questioning conversations about student needs and teaching behaviors
Using technology	Convincing your peers it is necessary element that should be embedded across the curriculum.
Teaching students	Getting students to take accountability for their own learning
Teaching students the right answer	Teaching students to figure out the right question
Letting the principal do all the leadership	Taking responsibility to become a leader
Teaching with the curriculum and materials you are given	Creating the curriculum and materials students need and sharing it with others
Coming up with great ideas and solutions	Being brave enough to take the lead to implement those ideas and solutions
Teaching 30 students in the classroom	Tearing down the wall and teaching 30 students online
Process, skill, best practices, implement	Insight, guts, empathy, innovation, challenge
Hard work can be done poorly	Difficult work can be skipped all together

Does Your School Have A Free Prize Inside?

Does your school have a marketing plan? No. Then read on.

Growing up I ate a lot of cereal. They were all pretty much the same. Day in and day out I knew what to expect. Sometimes one box was bigger than the other or sometimes on flake was shaped different from the other or one had a different flavor than the others, but they all matched my expectation.

Occasionally, though, there would be a box with a free prize inside and that would get me excited. I would carefully examine the box thinking about what I might discover inside. Then I would dive into the box and search for the prize by pouring out bowl after bowl of the cereal to obtain my prize.

The difference wasn’t more cereal, a different flavor, or even a different shape. The difference was the free prize inside. The free prize made that box of cereal remarkable because it added something unexpected, something different, something more than just the bowl of cereal I expected. The free prize added something I didn’t even know I needed with my breakfast.

So I ask you, is your school remarkable? Do people talk about your school, tell others about your school, or brag to others about your school or get people excited?

Does your school offer something people didn’t know they needed in a school? If so, that is your free prize.

Seth Godin, author of Free Prize Inside defines a free prize this way.

“First, it’s the thing about your service, your product or your organization that’s worth remarking on, something worth seeking out and buying.”

“Second, a free prize is not about what a person needs. Instead, it satisfies our wants. It is fashionable or fun or surprising or delightful or sad. It rarely delivers more of what we were buying in the first place. It delivers something extra.”

If you are thinking that people are going to be talking about how well your school teaches the standards or how well it does on standardized tests or how you meet the needs of every student through an effective RtI plan or how your teachers collaborate or use curriculum—if that is what you are thinking, you better think again.

That is the price of admission. That is what is already expected. What is going to get people talking about your school is the free prize inside.

I worked at a school that did all these things, but did it through art, drama, music, and dance. Students and parents got what they expected out of a school, but they also got a free prize inside. They didn’t know they needed the arts embedded and infused through the teaching and learning, but once they experienced it they were delighted. They had some to remark about.

Another school in my district is an Apple Distinguished School. It does everything a great school should do, but it has a free prize inside. Every student, in every grade level, in every subject matter, has the opportunity to use technology and problem based learning. It’s remarkable. It’s a free prize.

I worked at a school that involved families to such an extent that parents were taking classes on campus, had their own “parent room”, held carnivals, volunteered all over the campus, came to family picnics. Former students frequently returned to visit their teachers. The teachers, parents, and students embraced this so much that the entire campus became a family. It was noticeable, you could feel it. You didn’t’ expect to find or become part of family, but that’s what happened. That was the free prize inside.

Education is becoming increasingly competitive. Parents have more and more choices for their students. Is your school drawing parents and students to it? Are you doing something remarkable?

Maybe you have never considered how important marketing might be for your school in the coming years. It is. Start thinking about it.

Is your school doing something remarkable, unique, and meeting needs parents and students didn’t know they had? Are you doing something worth buying?

Ask yourself…is there a free prize inside my school?

Also see: 

What Marketing Taught Me About Education Improvement

Analyzing Your Educational Brand

The New Educational Reality: Part 1

The New Educational Reality: Part 2

How Good Is Your Educational Sales Force and Their Products?

I have been read and enjoyed a great book called Death To All Sacred Cows by David Bernstein, Beau Fraser, and Bill Schwab of The Gate Worldwide. It has nothing to do with education, so, of course, I was instantly attracted to it.
 
In their chapter titled The Sales Force Makes The Sale, they write about the "sacred cow" that it is a great sales force that sells the product.

The authors butcher this sacred cow.

“When great ideas get turned into great products, a strong Sales Force is essential. They can make the difference between never quite catching on and mega-success. But when lousy ideas get turned into lousy products, even the greatest Sales Force on Earth can’t help you.”

What’s this got to do with education you ask? I am glad you asked?

When great lesson planning gets translated into great lessons, a strong teacher is essential. They can make the difference between the student never quite getting it and the lesson being a great success. But when lousy lessons planning gets translated into lousy lessons, even the greatest teacher can’t help you.  The lesson is the product, and a great product needs a great sales person, in this case a teacher, to make it a huge success. It's a partnership of well crafted lessons and instructional sequences, and the sales force, the teacher that makes it all go.

But, they also include the other famous "sacred cow" that the product should sell itself.

How does this sad cow meet its end?

“In most instances, consumers do not buy products. They buy benefits. A product is more than the sum of its parts. It needs to solve problems, create opportunities, makes us feel better about ourselves and the world around us. These benefits are not usually obvious to the naked eye.”

In most instances student do not just accept they need to learn what the teacher is teaching. They learn because of the benefits to them. A great lesson is more than the sum of its parts. It needs to investigate, innovate, imagine, explore, experiment, examine, collaborate, create, and connect to the students’ lives. These benefits are not usually obvious to the naked eye, but it is up to the teacher to demonstrate these benefits. You need a great product and a great sales force.

“…the customer still needs to know why they should want what you’re selling. They need to be told what it will do for them.”

Students still need to know why they should want to learn what your teaching. They need to be told, explained, and demonstrated what it will do for them.

“Charles Revson [Founder of Revlon cosmetics] once said, “In the factory, we make cosmetics. In the drugstore, we sell hope”

Education Innovation once said, “At our desks we make standards based data driven lessons. In front of the students, we ‘sell’ hope.” That is Education Innovation

How good is your sales force? How good is your product?

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?

What Marketing Taught Me About Education Improvement

Here at Education Innovation, I spend a lot of time looking to the field of marketing and branding as a source of ideas, insight, direction, and inspiration. Marketers and education have more in common than you would think. What follows is a list of reasons why I think marketers could improve education.

Why Marketers could improve education

Marketers are concerned with creating ideas that are memorable.

Marketers are forced to be creative and innovative.

Marketers are expert users of data and statistics

Marketers want to reach people and impact their thinking

Marketers are expert at using current and emerging technology

Marketers try to reach people and communicate their ideas in creative and innovative ways

Marketers are very much results driven.

Marketers are passionate.

Marketers seek to inspire.

Marketers are expert at anticipating and understanding global trends.

Marketers seek to create the future, not just react to it.

Marketers understand their biggest asset is their employees’.

Seth Godin said, “Your marketing changes the way people act.”

Don’t we try to do that in education? 

So the key question is: Who is having more success, marketing or education?

Some of my favorite sites for marketing, branding, and idea mojo are

Brains On Fire blog

Seth Godin

Bait, Tackle, Ice, Advice & Beer Blog

The Engaging Brand blog

Knowledge Marketing

For those of you who follow Education Innovation, you know that I often intersect ideas outside education with education. One of these fields is Marketing. You can find some of my ideas on how marketing and education relate here. I often refer to it as the Education Innovation Blender.

by cnmark

Michael Eury, author of one of my new favorite blogs, Sticky Learning: Practical Ideas For Learning That Sticks. put is this way.

"Should people who work in education/learning/training instead see themselves as knowledge marketers? If it means learning new and more effective ways to help others to learn, then the answer is yes. We should always be looking for ideas that help people learn more effectively, it doesn't matter if these are educational theories, modern marketing practices, design ideas or something else completely from left-field, we should be looking beyond our own backyards to find new perspectives on what we do."
 
Couldn't have put it better myself Michael. Education Innovation strives to be a cross-pollinator, a Medici Effect, a collision of education and ideas outside education because there is much to learn, "looking beyond our own backyards."

The New Educational Reality: Part 2

What does a book on New Marketing, consumer communication, scarcity of attention, the book Think Better, individualized instruction, and YouTube have to do with education? They don't, but I really tried hard to find one.

by DailyPic

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. See yesterday's post for Trends 1-7

Trend 8: Infinite Channels of Communication
The New Reality requires that you have great ideas. If you want to continue to attract students to your schools and your district your ideas and programs need to be good, interesting, or original. It is not enough to hope that your schools continue to get a steady stream of new students. Technology will allow for students and parents to learn everything there is to know about your school or district. But first they have to want to know about your school and your district. If your school or district has innovative programs and ideas in place, it is key that the marketplace of education knows about it. Technology will allow you to reach out to those who might be interested in your programs ideas. The key is to use the channels of communication to target the types of students and parents who would be interested in the programs you offer. You want to get to the people who care about what you are doing and offering. Without those people, you are just sending out white noise. Target your group. Channels of communication used correctly will help you be more specific in which you target, and reach even more of those who care; those who want to know.

Trend 9: Direct Communication And Commerce Between Consumers and Consumers
Parents have power. Unions have power too. Imagine the power parents would have if they organized themselves like unions. The new reality is that technology is allowing for more direct communication between parents and parents and students and students. Technology lowers the barriers to communication. Parents don’t have to be at the P.T.A meeting or on the school site council to organize and have a voice. Further, one individual and the right technology can do what formerly only groups of people could do. Namely, spread their voice and ideas about what is happening at your schools. Networks built this way can easily connect with networks at other schools, other districts, counties, or states. Direct communication is putting your parents and students in touch with their peers and allowing them to organize with almost no effort. So even apathetic parents and students can easily click to join the movement and add their voice to the discussion.

Trend 10: The Shifts In Scarcity And Abundance
The New Reality is that things once common are becoming scarce, while scare things are now becoming common. What used to be scarce was access to technology, information about you and your schools, outside sources of teaching. What are now scarce is attention, spare time, trust, and cutting edge programs. In the old reality location mattered. In the new reality, learning can happen anywhere, so location does not matter to students. Spare time is scare, so learning that takes place on the student’s time table will become more available and students permitting themselves to locked into your will become scarce. Your new reality focus should be how to begin to eliminate distance and schedules and empower students, parents, and teachers to connect anywhere at anytime.

Trend 11: The Triumph of Big Ideas
According to Seth, “In factory-base organizations, little ideas are the key to success. Small improvements in efficiency or design can improve productivity…”  The new reality demands of education something bigger. Tim Hurson, author of Think Better, describes this as Kaizen vs. Tenkaizen. Small improvements in what is currently done vs. totally new ideas of how to do things. Education has chosen to organize around the small idea. The new reality rewards organizations that organize themselves around new ideas. Big ideas. People are looking for the big idea. Think of online learning. That is a big idea. People are attracted to it. You don’t have to advertise it, that experience of learning from anyplace, at anytime, and at your own pace embeds the message of the idea into the experience. A big idea like this, pursued relentlessly is a giant killer.

Trend 12: The Shift From “How Many” To “Who”
Think of this as differentiated instruction in the new reality. This means bringing the right information or instruction, to the right person, who is focused on what you are teaching, at the right time.  The new reality demands this sort of individualized instruction. Technology makes this possible.

Trend 13: The Wealthy Are Like Us
The gap between rich and poor continues to widen. Despite this gap, there are more wealthy people than ever before. The market for education that can be custom built for the individual student is going to arise. Why go to ordinary schools when you can get a custom built education suited to your exact needs, at your pace, and focused on your interests. The same technology and educational model that can deliver this to the wealthy will eventually be able to deliver it to all students. The wealthy and the poor can both benefit from the models and practice that develop to meet the need of wealthy parents buying customized education.

Trend 14: New GateKeepers, No GateKeepers
YouTube can allow virtually anyone on the planet to make a movie with his or her message and share it with the world. They don’t need a movie studio or a distribution contract. All they need is an idea. Now, if anyone can spread a message to anyone else with ease, what makes you think that education, your school, or your district is in control or immune from that?  Think of the power that your students could wield. They could reach out to the entire globe, share their ideas and thoughts about any subject (including you) and they don’t need you are a school to do that. The same technology that allows students to share ideas globally allows them to interact with teachers, tutors, and instructors from around the globe as well. They can learn from people all over the world without your permission, authorization, or control. They don’t need you to learn. Teaching is not the school or the districts private domain anymore. The students are going to bypass the educational gatekeepers.

Catalytic Questions:

How might you stand out in the market place of education? In what ways are you communicating your message to connect to potential students?

How might your school be impacted if parents and students organized through online networks? Might impact might this have on your school or district?

Would organized student or parents networks be a partner or an advisory to your school or district? How might you engage these networks?
In what ways might your educational model change if you focused on learning, which can happen anywhere and anytime, as opposed to teaching in the classroom?

What might this look like at your school?

What big idea have you implemented lately?  How would you change your approach to your educational model if you developed completely new ideas instead of making slight improvements to existing models?

What big idea would you implement?  Who could help? Who else?

In what ways do you see technology being able to individualize to each students’ needs?

In what ways could models of education that wealthy students have access to be made available to all students?  What sort of things might you adapt or modify?

If students don’t have to rely on the teacher in the classroom, how does this change your view of our current educational model? How might you adapt to a future educational model based on the Open Model of Education?

Recommended Reading: 

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

Think Better blog

Defending Mediocrity and Other Thoughts of Seth Godin

Just into to Seth Godin’s new book Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us and thought I would share of few quotes that stood out to me.

“So here we are. We live in a world where we have the leverage to make things happen, the desire to do work we believe in, and marketplace that is begging us to be remarkable. And yet, in the middle of these changes, we still get stuck.”

“Stuck following archaic rules.”

“Stuck in industries that not only avoid change but actively fight it.”

According to Seth, organizations, and I include education, are going to have to adjust to what I call The Big Change and The New Rule.

The Big Change
“The big news is that this has changed. People yearn for change, they relish being part of a movement, and they talk about things that are remarkable, not boring.”

Current education system = boring, unremarkable, and change resistant.

The New Rule
“If you want to grow, you need to find customers who are willing to join you or believe in you or donate to you or support you. And guess what? The only customers willing to do that are looking for something new. The growth comes from change and light and noise.”

Education is losing the public’s belief and support because they are looking for something new. They are looking for change. Education is breaking the New Rule and losing support and belief.

“Is there a difference between average and mediocre? Not so much. Average stuff is taken for granted, not talked about, and certainly not sought out.”

Are you sought after? Are people pounding down the doors of your school, your district, or your education system?  Or, do they just take it for granted that the doors will be open, the teachers will teach, and the kids will have somewhere to go from 8:00 to 3:00?

“The end result of this is that many people (many really good people) spend all day trying to defend what they do, trying to sell what they’ve always sold, and trying to prevent their organization from being devoured by the forces of the new.”

Sounds like a job description for district, county, state, and federal education administrators, union officials, and bureaucrats.

“It must be wearing them out. Defending mediocrity is exhausting.”

Somehow, I don’t feel sorry for them. They are just doing what they are told to do right?

“On a recent trip to India, this mind-set was made crystal clear. Ask almost anyone there what the perfect job would be, and the answer is: working as a government bureaucrat. Not only do you have air-conditioning, but you aren’t even asked to take initiative. The job is steady, the pay is good, and there are no surprises.”

I think Seth would agree. Education could use a few surprises. Here are a few of mine.

Education Piracy

The 4th Model of Education

21st Century Education, Meet The 19th Century Reality

4 Ps For Innovation in Education

Crowdsourcing In Education

What surprises do you have for education? I am sure you have some.
Understanding the Big Change and correctly answering The New Question is one way to find Education Innovation.

"Bricks and Mortar" Learning and Teaching

Sometimes the comments generated on a post are so interesting and thought provoking that a new post is merited to flesh out the ideas being discussed. Such is the case with comments made on my post Why I Still Think Marketing Could Improve Education. I use the terms "Brick and Mortar Learning" and "Brick and Mortar Teaching" to explore the ideas that arose from our threaded discussion.

John R. is an instructor of marketing and an educator. I excerpted some of his comments.

“I think the marketing of education through use of technology will ultimately replace the institution of education, at least as we now know it, and far more quickly than we may wish to realize.”

“It is a rational choice for the consumer and the provider.

“However, as both a producer and consumer, I feel something vital may be missing in this model despite it being sold as "interactive." Call it experience, empathy, compassion, insight - I'm not sure. Maybe you can even describe the missing link as emotion or passion.

“Regardless, there is a clear difference hearing a story and telling a story face-to-face, in contrast to reading it on a page or liquid crystal display. Something feels different; it’s certainly not the same transmission without human emotion or passion. It is then truly different.

“Do we change the definition of education to conform to the "new model" or do we hold fast to recognizing a difference and calling the new paradigm something other than education. Possibly akin to edu-tainment or e-knowledge.”

To which I responded with.

"John, your comments are excellent and hit on a point. I have always inwardly struggled with myself. While I advocate what I call the Open Model of Education, I am still very much a "student in the classroom" kind of learner. Even as I have considered a doctorate or an MBA program, I knew that online programs would not work well for me. I would miss the personal interaction, the story, the smile, the laugh, and the spontaneity of learning with other people."

But, I wonder...
Is that my personal learning style? Am I a brick and mortar learner? Is that my personal teaching style? Am I a brick and mortar teacher?

OR

Is that because I am a "digital immigrant" and not "a digital native?"

I know this is a question many of you have dealt with and possibly even resolved in your minds. Is being a “Brick and Mortar Learner” as I call it, a learning style or product of my being part of a non “digital native” generation? Is being a “Brick and Mortar Teacher” a result of my training, my teaching style, or simply a reflection of where I work?

If it is a learning style, as many of us advocate for the Open Model of Education that leverages technology as a means to deliver instruction at a time and place of a student’s choosing, we will still need to be aware that some students will not do well in that sort of learning environment. We will have to be conscious that as we try to tear down the “walls” of education that we leave actual walls, actual places that some students can still go to where they can interact in person with a teacher and with fellow learners.

Similarly, if there is a “Brick and Mortar Learner” learning style, then we might well consider that there “Brick and Mortar Teachers” who will not be comfortable nor equipped to teach learners in the high technology virtual learning environment.

As we tear down the “walls” of education, “Brick and Mortar Teachers” will have to adapt to the new reality of teaching and learning. If being a “Brick and Mortar Learner” is not a learning style, but a generational condition, then I guess we can tear down those “walls” with little fear. The answers will be played out in the future and I can’t wait to see how it plays out.

Catalytic Questions:

How is your involvement in technology, marketing, etc. changing your perception of education?

What previously successful assumptions about education are you going to have to challenge or change to address the question of Brick and Mortar Learning or Teaching?

Are there ideas in other fields, industries, etc. that you can look to to develop ideas about how things will evolve in education?

Just as John and I combined a discussion of marketing and education, what ideas can you combine to gain new insight into the Bricks and Mortar learning and teaching issue?

How can you make teaching and learning in virtual environments or attractive to both teachers and students? How can you make teaching and learning in the brick and mortar classroom more attractive to both teacher and student?

Which would you prefer? Why?

Recommended Reading:

Why I Think Marketers Could Improve Education

14 Trends Of The New Educational Reality: Part 2-Trends 8-14

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