June 30th and July 1st saw a first for the Yorkshire & Humber region, when renowned social media expert Chris Brogan flew from Boston, Massachusetts, to Doncaster, South Yorkshire, to be part of the region’s first “Podcamp” exploring the use of social media in education and training.
Chris is a self-effacing man, and just as personable in the flesh as he appears in his various online manifestations, and he laughs off the epithet which has been applied to him as “the most influential person on Twitter” as “just something to do with algorithms”. Nevertheless, the fact that the algorithms have picked him out as such demonstrates that he must be doing something right with social media. Chris calls Twitter “the Serendipity Engine”, and it is purely due to Twitter that his second ever visit to the UK (the other was to Devon, he’s never been to London) saw him by the banks of the River Don, following a conversation on the micro-blogging platform with Doncaster-based entrepreneur and Chair of Doncaster College governors, Rob Wilmot. Rob persuaded Chris that Doncaster was the place to be to discuss the potential uses of social media in education, and so Chris decamped to this side of the pond to help us explore the issues.
The Social Media in Education Podcamp on Day One was followed on the second morning by a straight lecture from Chris. The Podcamp is Chris’s particular take on the unconference format, sometimes called “barcamp” or “open space”. These kinds of events are self-organised events, where participants are invited to suggest topics for workshops they want to lead, and invite other delegates to join them in parallel sessions. As with many other such events, a grid was drawn on a noticeboard and a scrum ensued as attendees grabbed the post-it notes and fought for the best slot for their own presentation.
Chris Brogan got the event off to a rousing start with a keynote address, during which he pointed out the example of US Community Colleges which he called “places where hope grows”, and urged the education institutions represented to see themselves in the same light. Social media enables organisations and institutions to develop relationships with their users, and, crucially, with potential users. As he said in his second-day lecture, effective social media use means you can get to know the customer, and build a relationship with them, long before you ever have to sell anything to them. And people are much more likely to buy something from someone they know. Statistics were quoted which suggest that 60% of the media consumed by today’s young people is made by their peers and not professionals. Educational bodies can help people learn to create media, and should be aware that this will result in content much more appealing to the people they are trying to reach than anything they might produce themselves.
From there it was off into some really intense discussions on many different aspects of Social Media in Education, from developing a Social Media Strategy to using iPhone apps in education.
Some common themes ran through the day including:
Frustration with in-house IT Departments: many internal IT managers just don’t get social media, and see it as an additional burden on their staff’s time. Blanket blocking policies are still pretty common in colleges and other public sector networks.
Joining the Conversation: Institutions need to understand the conversational nature of social media, and move away from “broadcast mode” into two-way dialogue with users, learners and potential learners. This can be a difficult shift to manage, and many marketing staff fail to develop the necessary mindset.
Controlling the message: Some institutions find the fact that social media can give a voice to many different people in the organisation to be threatening. Managers are used to being able to control the messages that come out, but social media makes this a lot harder. Some respond by trying to clamp down, but this is rarely a successful strategy, and it is far more effective to join the conversation, develop a persuasive persona, and win people onto your side.
Staff lack of comfort with social media and digital tools: The digital divide is still very apparent in the education sector, with organisations like FE colleges and adult learning providers staffed with significant numbers of people who have little or no interest in social media, and who struggle to use digital equipment. This is an additional barrier to adoption, beyond management and blocking issues.
Child protection and teacher/student relationships: These inter-connected issues manifested themselves in a number of ways during the discussions. The Podcamp was mainly focussing on post-14 learning, so child protection was perhaps not quite the issue it might otherwise have been, but it is still an important factor. The fact that Facebook, at the time of the Podcamp at least, was holding out against introducing effective child protection measures, has not been a help in persuading teachers and their management that the introduction of social media to the classroom is a responsible step. Many teachers and tutors are also nervous about what social networking means for their relationships with students. Social networking between teachers and students risks opening up the private lives of teachers to the scrutiny of their charges, and means they could be seen to be invading students’ private spaces.
A workshop session on the issues of “Social Media, Digital Identity and Personality” failed to do more than scratch the surface of this complex issue, provided more questions than answers, and perhaps opened up a debate that might extend into a series of events in the future.
Day two was about a more-or-less straight lecture from Chris. It felt like a lecture, because it was held in a lecture theatre, but Chris’s style does not really lend itself to the term “lecture”. Beginning by telling the room that everyone there is, collectively, much more intelligent that he is, is not usually the way most lecturers would begin. Chris has clearly got his social media “sound bites” well honed, one which struck a real chord was “promote others 12 times to every one time you promote yourself; and be at the shoulder of every deal”. This brought home how much social media is about generosity, and, while it may be tempting to think of the old adage “if you can fake sincerity, you’ve got it made”, it was a neat way of encapsulating Chris’ point that social media allows organisations to develop real and meaningful relationships with their customers and potential customers, the result of which is that people really want to buy something from them.
For the delegates in Doncaster, there were two aspects of Social Media in Education of interest, that of using Social Media in the marketing and recruitment activities of the organisation, and that of its use in the classroom. Much of the content of Chris’s presentation was more relevant to the former rather than the latter aspect, but there had been much talk about classroom issues in the previous day’s sessions.
Chris urges organisations to “Listen – publish – connect”, the material you put out there must be responsive to your audiences’ needs and desires, and you must use it as a focus for opening and maintaining a dialogue with them. In the modern era, people expect organisations to be open about what they do, but effective use of social media requires organisations and individuals to practice “publicness”, find their voice, and learn to become comfortable with living large parts of their lives in public. A lot of people think that being open about what they do undermines their competitive advantage, whereas the reality is that it demonstrates you are getting things done, and these days, people suspect those who are secretive about what they do might have something to hide, or at least that they are less than proud of their work.
Another thing that social media allows you to do is to let other people speak about you. Fora such a Facebook Groups and other online profiles encourage users and potential users to share opinions on your organisation. If you are successful in befriending them and showing your generosity online, they are likely to talk about you in positive terms, and testimonials from others are always much more powerful than anything you might say about yourself.
Altogether, this was a fascinating day and a half, a first for Doncaster with such a world-renowned speaker arriving in the town, simply because of an online conversation with Rob Wilmot. In many ways, this was an apt demonstration of how the internet and social media are shrinking the world, and shaping new forms of relationship. There is much work to be done in this area, however, in ensuring both educational institutions and teachers & lecturers are comfortable with social media and able to integrate it into their work. Digital 20/20 and its partners look forward to taking this forward with Doncaster College and many of the organisations and individuals represented at the event.
