Digital Hive

School 2.0

Most of us agree that advances in technology and the web are generally good things. We have access to information at any time in almost any geographic region. We can download songs and listen to them on our iPod immediately after. We can share information and ideas with peers across the globe. The world a better place, isn’t it?

Not everyone would agree.

There have always been cases of students cheating on tests and assignments – writing answers on the bottom of sneakers and the brim of baseball hats to name a few of the “old school” favorites. Today, some students are relying on technology to cheat (texting answers, downloading information on mp3 players, buying reports online; see this CNN article) and it is causing a tension within the teaching community: should teachers embrace technology or outright reject it?

Students are generally more tech savvy than their teachers because technology IS a fabric of life for youth, while it is something that must be learned and adapted to for the not-so-young population. Students may not see the need to learn what a Dewey Decimal system is or how to navigate the local library because their information needs are a mere Google or Wikipedia search away. What is the point of memorizing formulas and definitions when you can simply access the web from your mobile phone or go home and look them up on the internet? Teachers seem to be losing control of how students cheat because the means are evolving faster than teachers can keep pace.

My goal of this Friday afternoon post is not to offer a solution but rather to see what everyone thinks about this trend. What should teachers and educators do with the dynamic evolution of technology? It has undoubtedly changed the way people search for, learn and share information, so should those who teach it modify their approach as well?

You Can Take the New Yorker Out of New York, but....

  A funny thing happened on the way to work this morning: I passed an ad, read it, and was suddenly struck by the fact that it felt totally incongruous to be seeing it during my morning commute. I couldn't shake the feeling that something was suddenly out of place in the Universe. And then....in dawned on me. I was seeing a Citibank ad on the streets of Boston, alerting me to the presence of their branches nearby.

Now, if you've ever spent any period of time living in New York, the ubiquitous Citibank ad on the side of a phone booth is part of the streetscape. They're so prevalent that they're easy to ignore. And yet, I became so accustomed to seeing them that at some point during my years in the city, they became a part of my spatial memory - a familiar reference point in a vast landscape.

So, what does this have to do with marketing? Well, beyond the fact that my ad recall would make any marketer gleeful, I can think of three good lessons:

1) Consistency breeds familiarity: It's the same campaign they've been running for years - if they'd messed with it, they would have lost the visual cues that caught my attention in the first place.

2) Campaign as brand equity: That simple campaign IS the brand, at least for this banker.

3) Context matters: They took something that was familiar to me in another place and time (and period of my life) and inserted it into a totally different context. Are there many former New Yorkers who had the same reaction? Dunno. But, it's a good reminder that - even with advertising - seeing the unexpected and the out-of-place can make us pay attention.

Ethnography: some helpful tips

I found a great post about ethnography on This Blog Sits at the Intersection of Anthropology and Economics which I always enjoy checking in on. Grant McCracken identifies some of the key success factors for an ethnographer:

- humility, empathy and patience

- the ability to draw a respondent in to the interview

- the ability to identify the best approach at any given moment (aka working well on the fly)

- the ability to "shift frame" to see the significance of what the respondent is saying; this reminds me of the point I am always making about how context can inspire customer insights

- the ability to follow up and drive the intellectual inquiry without losing your place or failing to be in the moment and listen

See, it's easy! Actually, it's not. You need a real head for this activity, as well as a lot of practice. Its challenging nature makes it (once mastered) a valuable skill, therefore worth pursuing.

Also, I find these skills are absolutely critical for planners even when not doing ethnography - particularly when inspiring teams to develop Big Ideas. These are great key principles for the planning craft, in my book.

Bud TV is a bust so far, man

Check out this fantastic post about BudTv's woeful success from Millward Brown's Nigel Hollis, which echoes many of the comments made here by Jake Garber a few months ago. Apparently the site is achieving a mere 10% of its forecast visitors.

No surprise when you consider it's a closed community that's near impossible to register for stocked with marginally amusing content (at least according to a focus group conducted by Millward Brown).

He cites a comment from Jackson West at newteevee.com that BudTv's content is forcibly viral by committee (fantastic turn of phrase, BTW).

The damning truth: "But apart from the reaction to the content, there is a fundamental mismatch between Bud.TV’s presentation style and the interactive experience many younger people are looking for online: it doesn’t offer a sense of discovery or a means of self-expression." Great insight - which I'm guessing Bud wishes they'd thought of.

Will be interesting to see where this thing goes..........My bet is - they open it up to non-registered users and put all the stuff (the better stuff, perhaps), on YouTube, etc.