K-12 Education
TEDx Talk by netTrekker Founder Randy Wilhelm – Igniting the Hope of Knowing
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At TEDx event at Xavier University in May, netTrekker (now Knovation) founder Randy Wilhelm described children's innate curiosity as "living in the question." Kids think they can do anything – even fly. Their imaginations are free to explore any idea that is interesting to them.
However, in public education Wilhelm muses, we have lost our way as "the currency of education is no longer in the question – education currency is in the answer." In fact, we have organized ourselves around a system where success is defined as the highest total of correct answers.
In his talk, Wilhelm explores the idea that we, as adults, are asking the wrong question of our children. Instead of asking, "how intelligent are you?," we should be asking, "how are you intelligent?" Continue reading
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Case Study Must Haves for K-12 Solutions
One of the most common ways to demonstrate product efficacy or to tell a product story in the K-12 industry is through a case study or a customer success story. Case studies are an important component of your content marketing strategy in pushing out content of interest to your community of prospects.
While the general structure of a case study is basically the same across all industries, K-12 stories are usually quite compelling because they strike at the heart of two things our culture holds most dear – kids and education.
Case studies have a four-part basic structure: Continue reading
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The Thing that Binds us to Each Other in the K-12 Industry
Everyone in the education industry has experienced it. Those who leave the industry eventually come back because they miss it. Competitors sit on panels together and share what they know because of it. Most associations depend on it to stir their memberships into active engagement, and every school has teachers and administrators that live and breathe it every day.
No matter where we work inside the industry – educator, vendor, policy makers or advocates, we share a passion for learning that propels us to make a difference for today’s students.
Although there are certainly people and companies that become wealthy in the K-12 world, accumulating wealth is not the driving force that brings us together nor keeps our interest over the course of a career. Continue reading
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3 Terrific Resources to Learn More about Content Marketing
Most marketers in the K-12 education industry have now at least heard the term content marketing. Many educational publishers have been doing content marketing for a long time – telling success stories with their customers as the hero.
Content marketing is fundamentally a way to attract or pull your customers and prospects toward you with great storytelling instead of pushing out traditional sales messages. There are many practitioners in other industries that have blazed the trail like Rebecca Lieb who talks about the difference between advertising and content marketing. Continue reading
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The Difference Between Social Media Marketing and Content Marketing
To put these topics in appropriate relationship to each other, it’s best to begin with a definition of content marketing. The Content Marketing Institute defines content marketing as ‘the creation and distribution of educational or compelling content in multiple formats used to acquire and retain customers.”
What do we mean by “content”? Content can be as short as 140-character tidbits to share on Twitter or it can be long-form white papers, articles, videos, etc. To be valued, the content has to be informational and topic-focused rather than the traditional product focused marketing of the past. Continue reading
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Fueling the National Conversation about Education Reform
One of the wonderful aspects of working in the education marketplace is that partnerships between public and private entities regularly form for the purpose of research. Often, the research is freely shared for the benefit of the entire education community and marketplace.
Such are the new study results on assessment from the Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) a not-for-profit committed to child-centered education and Peter Grunwald and Associates, a public relations and research practice focused on children, families, technology and education.
The factor that sets this K-12 study apart from others is that it adds a new voice to the conversation – parents. Most studies about assessment focus on students and educators only. As the study points out, parents are the primary consumers of assessment information and foot the bill for the assessments through taxes.
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Go to Where Your Customers Are and Engage Them There
One of the most important elements of successful marketing is customer engagement. In order to build relationships, you have to talk to your customers.
Some years ago, I worked for a company that believed that businesses could be effectively managed from behind spreadsheets, and it was all about the numbers. Consequently, not much effort went into building relationships with customers other than responding to minor customer service issues.
Then and now, the idea that you can build a successful business without customer engagement is nonsense.
Sometimes, the easiest thing to do is go meet your customers at conferences and trade shows. That’s where I’m headed today –to the Texas Computer Education Association annual conference or TCEA for short. Continue reading
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Why is Digital Learning Day Important for Educators, Policy Makers, K-12 Publishers and EdTech Companies?
Yesterday was the first-ever national Digital Learning Day organized by the Alliance for Excellent Education headed up by former WV governor, Bob Wise. 15,000 educators and 1.7 million students from 39 states participated in this remarkable event. In addition, an untold number of education advocates, enthusiasts, reformers, policy wonks, journalists, consultants and K-12 vendors also participated via web broadcast and social media.
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski kicked off the national town hall meeting with an announcement that the Obama administration wants digital textbooks to be implemented in every U.S. public school within 5 years. Yes, 2017. Continue reading
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Social Proof: What is It and Why Do Educational Publishers Want It?
Wikipedia defines social proof as a psychological phenomenon where the actions of others are indications of correct behavior around a particular situation.
In social media, social proof is reflected in the number of Twitter followers you have; the number of fans on your Facebook page; the number of RSS readers your blog has; the number of views for your YouTube videos, etc.
Why is this important? It’s a clear indication to your prospects that you have content worth reading – that your opinions will be important to them. Continue reading
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Does the New 80/20 Content Rule Apply to Educational Publishers?
Yesterday I read that companies should plan to give up to 80% of their content away for free and generate sales and profits from the remaining 20%. As publishers, that seems an unrealistic metric.
Content is our stock and trade. We've invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in developing the best-of-category, and now we should give it away for free?
How is that a viable business model?
Yet more and more companies are allocating larger amounts of their resources each year to this effort as reported by the Content Marketing Institute. Continue reading
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