Think about the last time you went to a restaurant for a nice meal with friends or family. How did you choose the restaurant? You might have heard good things about it, checked reviews, had a look at their website, called them to discuss dietary requirements, and maybe even checked how the place looks on Instagram or Google. The decision making process for a simple meal can involve many channels, platforms, and engagements. Imagine, then, the process of choosing where to study. The decision that will impact your life significantly more than most choices means a great deal of engagement with marketing & recruitment information; multiple times over multiple channels.
Through social media, blog posts, education fairs, education portals and Google searches among others, the prospective student may well come to find out about you, and whichever channel that may be through, at whatever moment, the clarity and appeal of your offering must stand out. But standing out is, as we know, not straightforward. Earlier this week, we touched upon the challenge of making your institution visible at that critical moment in the decision making process via Education Portals, but what about the other end? Where does the brand awareness come from, and how can you make sure that when a prospective student sees content from your institution appearing in social media feeds and paid media content, their reaction is positive and familiar? That second, more intentional click may just be the one that counts.
2020 has brought its challenges for education; that much is undeniable. However, it has also shown us trends that can foster a rejuvenated recruitment process for your institution to expand student enrollment. In future articles, we’ll be delving into more detail on these, but let’s look at a summary of these top M&R trends for 2020.
We’ve all been there in the search for what works. The latest buzz topic in marketing, the hot new social media strategy, or the evocative landing page by a top web designer. There is merit in so many of these approaches, but without a coherent overall strategy and a steady building of engagement and visibility, sustainable ROI is always going to be an issue in the long term.
We can help because we know what works. We don’t just post about the top trends in M&R; we use them, and learn continuously from them. Data is our thing, and we geek out over results and analytics so you don’t have to. But it’s also about understanding that decision making in education is as emotional as it is intellectual and rational. Your institution is unique and so are your students, so a personalized and bespoke approach really is the only way forward. Every marketing and recruitment plan we offer is tailor-made, from the ground up. We will work with you to understand your brand and your vision, help to review and renew your M&R strategy, both online and offline. The next two years will see a huge change in education, with institutions adapting and thriving or struggling to survive and be heard. Working on a focused and differentiated M&R strategy ahead of this curve will be vital for the challenges ahead.
“It’s not a matter of being better at what you do – it’s a matter of being different at what you do.” Michael Porter
What images does the word “university” conjure up for you? Is it robed scholars with armloads of leather-bound books busying their way across a stone-walled courtyard? Perhaps it is an animated and passionate professor filling the lecture theatre with the acoustics of insight and irreverence? Or maybe it is just the social experience; from clubs and societies to new friends and new ideas.
While the images will certainly shift with generational and cultural contexts, very few people will visualize the administrative side of the institution as a first response. Specifically, in this case, the Marketing and Admissions team, the community managers, graphic designers, and communications strategists. These professionals are very much part of the way we actually perceive the reputation and experience of the institution itself, and they are as much part of “the university” as the academics themselves. This, however, is a rather recent development, all things considered, and this has brought some disagreement as to how exactly institutional reputation is actually managed, or whether it needs to be managed at all, for that matter.
The medieval university had quite a definitive answer to this, in that the fame and quality of its scholars and alumni (and indeed the fame of the host city itself) were quite sufficient to form a reputation. But then, there were very few of them and the subjects were limited to only a handful of options in any case. Not exactly fertile ground for marketers, one would say.
Though this situation changed considerably since then, the evolution of the Marketing Department is very recent. In only twenty years, the reach and remit of this team has grown from brochure and website designers to senior board-reporting staff, who effectively manage the reputation and external perception of the institution. This change has not gone unnoticed by academics, and the journals and periodicals of Higher Education are full of tales of the corporatization of academia, and outcry over the commoditization of students, through the language of the business world. As a simple experiment, try calling students “customers” or “clients” in the presence of almost any academic and observe the palpable tension in the room.
But yet the word universitas itself means corporation; a community of scholars, thinkers and writers forging ahead in their subjects for the common reputational good of their collective. Even inside that halfway house between these two worlds, the Business School, there are two component parts, and one cannot exist without the other. No business, no school. No school, no business. One should not impose itself on the other, but in symbiosis lies strength and sustainability.
The reputation of an institution is no longer simply down to how hard it is to get in, or the year it was founded, nor the prevalence of its research or the breakthrough discoveries of its flagship faculty. Bob Sevier found back in 2009 that admissions selectivity and academic quality were only two of six ways to build reputation in an institution. Another study of the same year found fifteen components to reputation, from stakeholder theory and CSR to trust and advocacy. In an age of digital communication where institutions act as social agents and work closely with industry and government, reputation is no longer something that comes from academia alone.
Research and teaching, as provinces of the academic, are a personal business. As Philip Muriarty of the University of Nottingham put it, academics have an “unvarnished” style which “humanizes” them and, in the same article, gave a passionate defense of the individuality of the academic against the onslaught of corporate branding guidelines, uniform PowerPoints and brand ambassadors. “I Am Not Your Brand” cried Professor Muriarty, and there are many academics who expressed solidarity with this sentiment.
The pronoun tells all. Muriarty is an eloquent writer, where no word is accidental, and every choice is weighted. The brand is “your” design. It is a product of the world of business, forcing us to conform and stripping us of what makes us unique. That there is no buy-in from the academic team could not be clearer. This is not “our” brand, but one which has been constructed by those who understand market forces, emotional levers and data-rich psychographics. Those who will carry it forward into the classroom have not been part of the conversation, and it shows in this case.
Such an exercise back in 2012 involving academics in brand building and logo design was expressed (anonymously!) as akin to “herding cats”. But what would we expect? Much the same might be said if we tried to involve social media experts in designing selection criteria for a systematic research paper. Stepping into the other side is challenging, unless of course you can see that they are simply two sides of the same coin. Change does not come easy, but that does not mean it should be dismissed.
The truth is, that branding is about the distillation of so many experiences, voices, values and aspirations, into simple and recognizable form. The world of academia, however, is about expanding concepts, growing and enriching them until they branch off into other offshoots of increasing complexity. Academic traditions value the outliers like William of Ockham as engines to progress through their unique lines of enquiry against the grain. The marketing department seek uniformity of image type, font and color scheme. There are valid arguments for all of these perspectives, and yet without this conversation taking place, it is no wonder there are misunderstandings. Ockham was incorrect in this case: the simplest solution is not always the right one.
Bringing academics into the conversation about education branding is not performative or superficial. It is the key to a robust brand image and reputation that can endure in uncertain times. Finding the common values that unite the university, and ensuring the teaching staff can feel that sense of ownership over the brand might not be easy, but even attempting to do it will help to open a conversation that needs to happen.
Teaching staff often travel, give public talks, make YouTube videos, and are often fiercely independent in their right to do so. Checking with the marketing department before all of this must feel like micro-management to someone who holds the idea of the brand apart from their own sense of ownership, but it might be different if they themselves co-authored that brand story.
“Branding can act as a shorthand measure of the whole range of criteria that inform student decision making” finds a research paper from 2016, and given that the very nature of our campus experience is currently under threat from the pandemic and its unpredictable shockwaves, there is even more reason to ensure that our institutions are holistically clear upfront on who they are, what they stand for, and the experience they will deliver. There is no try before you buy in Higher Education.
While a modern and relevant curriculum, slick marketing, abundant testimonials, and a catchy logo might help to get students through the virtual or physical door, there is much that cannot be controlled thereafter. The student experience can deepen or recede brand loyalty at every touchpoint on the journey, and while universities invite students to form focus and feedback groups, or to become ambassadors, there is rarely an extension of this invitation to the teaching body.
There is no school without business and no business without school. Unless both are part of the brand and invested in its values, the cracks might appear at a time where a solid foundation for the future will determine who is still standing when the dust begins to settle. Marketing and academia are part of this same story and, if that story is written together, the tale may well endure in what is yet to come.
Though Charles de Lint wasn’t writing about Education Portals when he said this, it doesn’t make his words any less fitting. It is a source of frustration for so many institutions to know that they have such excellent programs and services, but yet watch other institutions bringing in higher enrollment numbers year on year. Make no mistake, visibility is critical and, with so much information competing for the attention of prospective students, we have to be clever about when, how and where we reach out and connect as institutions.
Today’s students are used to seeing institutions in their social media feeds, vying for their attention and engagement, but the reason they are logged into social media in the first place is not always because they are searching for the right institution. They are on to upload holiday photos, scroll their news feeds, or catch up with friends. To be visible as an institution does mean social media presence is a must, but we also have to be there when prospective students really want to start narrowing down their choices and choosing the right place and program for them.
One place which increasingly suits this search behavior is the education portal. These portals often appear above your organization’s own website in organic search rankings, and really give you the chance to showcase refined content for very specific and targeted messaging. If you really want them to know why you’re different, this is a great place to start.
An education portal is not like a regular website, which has any number of functions. These portals have one purpose; to showcase institutions and compare them. The same way we use consolidators to compare flights or car insurance, the education portal really empowers students to filter what they see and find the right fit for them, from the location of the study program to international transfer opportunities, from price range to study mode. By giving the searcher the control, and presenting them with your offering in a very visually appealing way, institutions are connected only to those people who are genuinely searching for what you offer.
This specific targeting also extends to SEO. If your institution's internal SEO strategy is not yet well developed, Education Portals can actually write high-quality, unique and well-optimized content for you. For institutions that don't want to commit to regular in-house or even subcontracted content writing, this is a great way to get your story out there in a space where it will stand out and make an impact. This content can be targeted to specific markets, and is often coupled with a geolocation function which focuses visibility on the markets you want to develop and attract.
But it doesn’t stop there. A good portal service can be connected to your own CRM, helping you manage and track every stage in the engagement process. You can stay in step with anything the student needs to make the choice to study with you, and ensure that you offer the most appropriate and personalized service to a person who needs the right information to make an important decision. This can even mean only receiving pre-qualified leads- a service offered by some providers-which allows you to really focus your recruitment energies wisely and efficiently.
Like any online service these days, the range of options and opportunities can be broad and hard to define. This is when geNEOus (formerly NEO Academy) can help. Our expertise in working with institutions and Education Portals will help you to stand out from the crowd, make effective choices, and really have an impact on growing your student numbers. Moreover, we want to help you to get the information you need to make this growth sustainable. From customizing and integrating your CRM with the portal, to providing clear and actionable ROI data, our aim is to empower our clients to get the most out of every action you take and every resource you use. Being truly and uniquely visible online is possible with the right approach. When students are making the final choice of where to study, amidst a sometimes bewildering array of options, geNEOus (formerly NEO Academy) can help to make sure you are not only in the running but already two steps ahead.
"The two main challenges that I have seen coming back over and over again with the hundreds of universities marketing managers whom I have worked in my 10 years at Study portals are: How to measure the results and ROI of a digital marketing campaign, and how to define the best recruitment strategy when working with a capped marketing budget.
These are two great challenges, and I was always impressed when seeing how Alejandra [geNEOus (formerly NEO Academy's) Founder & CEO] has this under control. She definitely has a great understanding of the do's and don't of lead gen campaigns, especially through portals such as Studyportals.
For instance, she always uses clear KPIs to asses the ROI of our campaigns and makes data-driven decisions on what and how to promote a global or targeted audience. She is also quite sharp at getting the best out of her budget and is very reliable and attentive in the campaign monitoring and optimization process".
As part of geNEOus' (formerly NEO Academy) mission, we've always believed empowering our clients in effectively managing their database is critical to their success. As anyone who has ever tried to use CRM software already knows, using it "off the shelf" is going to lead to a challenging time in adapting it to your own unique operation, and likely some colorful language in the staff room. In this article, we are starting at the beginning, by exploring one of geNEOus' (formerly NEO Academy) main services for educational institutions: CRM Customization and Implementation. In subsequent articles, we’ll be digging into much more detail, but to get things rolling, we will first look at the nuts and bolts of what this powerful technology offers and how to do it right.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is really just as it sounds, a tool to help you manage relationships with "customers" or, in this case, students. A CRM system offers educational institutions more personalized interactions with alumni, current students and potential students, and is the perfect instrument for high schools, universities, language schools and agents for keeping track of all the preferences, contact details, conversations and behavioral data, saved and organized in one single place. Imagine how much information can be gleaned from all the interactions we have with our students and alumni, and how it can all be used to provide a much more personal, efficient and effective experience for everyone involved; if only it is working for you in an optimized way.
Data management has become one of the biggest assets an institution can have, if well set up. Having a CRM can facilitate and automate a variety of actions, such as sending targeted emails to specific groups of alumni, while using predefined snippets to give a sense of personal touch. In addition, your CRM can be linked to your digital marketing actions, allowing you to manage them more easily and rapidly. Nowadays, offering an excellent degree program or language course just isn’t enough. Beyond the attributes of the product itself, It is essential to deliver a personalized experience that people will remember, which makes them feel they have been heard and that they belong. This increases not only the likelihood of the person continuing to engage with you but also recommending the institution, program or experience to others.
From a managerial perspective, the days are gone of having to wait for report X or meeting Y to get the information you need, and instead, we can see that whole range of real-time data right in front of us, like the CIA Secret Ops Centre in The Bourne Identity. This slight exaggeration aside, top CRM platforms such as HubSpot or Salesforce really do enable you to visualize so much tailored information, from which you can really extract learning, modeling, and rich data to make systemic changes and strategic decisions. Making decisions based on what you know always feels more secure, and a well-organized CRM platform helps you to know more about what's really going on.
For those in your staff team, when the number of interactions is increasing with students, from potential to alumni, it gets challenging to keep track of them with a one-dimensional database. We have all seen the smaller organization, which starts out with an Excel sheet of lead statuses and quickly becomes overwhelmed. Information is lost, staff turnover complicates the handover of important detail, work gets duplicated, and it is all visually unappealing to those who need the birds-eye view of where targets are being met, or where there are connections and insights between different streams of information. Excel tabs just aren't built for that.Using CRM software requires a bit of adaptation time, but the efficiency and enhanced experience that comes with it means more stability for your institution and a system that is easy to follow as you expand. The later you leave switching over, the more challenging it can be.
From a student's perspective, the CRM system means not having to re-explain things in subsequent interactions with your institution, and speaking to someone who really knows the story so far. It is also about receiving information and offers that are actually relevant to you, and less likely to make you reach for the “unsubscribe” button; particularly in the case of busy alumni who don't want to be bombarded with scattergun content, or potential students who get put off by information overload.
Here’s a handy infographic of the many advantages of having a CRM system automated and implemented in an educational institution.
Depending on where you are on the scale of your operation, switching to a CRM platform can mean an investment of time and effort. Importing the tool “off the shelf” might seem appealing. Compare the functionality, shop around for the best price, and click download. Easy, isn't it? Not quite.
The truth is, that what lies ahead can be a steep learning curve until you find the setup and settings that are best for you and your process workflows, not to mention the change management issues this can bring, from staff training to the integration with all the other departments that will want to make use of it. Your admissions or marketing team may be more familiar with CRM tools, but the academic team may want to use it to contact current students and record interactions. The careers office will want to use the CRM platform for alumni surveys, the marketing team to promote events, and any number of other uses that are part of the day to day running of your institution.
Having a tailor-made CRM really is the only answer, and geNEOus (formerly NEO Academy) can help create organized efficiency right from the start. Whether it is on HubSpot or Salesforce, geNEOus (formerly NEO Academy) works with you to craft an automated and bespoke CRM setup which adapts to your institution and your priorities. As a matter of fact, geNEOus (formerly NEO Academy) is a HubSpot Certified Partner, in recognition of our expertise with the platform and its customization. All of this means you can get down to business, while we take care of the rest.
Life with a CRM means being able to easily keep track of activities, paid media campaigns, calls, emails, notes, and reminders, as well as develop tasks and schedule meetings. Thanks to the usage of a chatbot, the CRM can even create a workflow that filters the information provided by potential and current students, helping to streamline and automate tasks; reducing errors and increasing efficiency.If the implementation is customized, there is a far greater buy-in from your team as well. Change can be challenging, but if your team can clearly see how much easier the CRM can make their working day, the onboarding phase will be much more positive for everyone. For those of us who dreamed of machines one day making our lives much easier, that reality is already here.
If you enjoyed this article, please follow us on LinkedIn for more articles on CRM, paid media, higher and further education trends, plus so much more! Please also free to contact us any time with any questions, comments or suggestions you might have.
If Kevin Costner had simply spoken his famous line “if you build it, they will come” and done nothing more than building his stadium in Field of dreams, we can safely assume that things would have gone a little differently. This line is often misused by those proposing that if an idea or an institution is good enough, it will magically be a success. Instead, Costner hired James Earl Jones; a writer who was able to refine and target the message; making the story come to life. They did come in the end, but only because Jones’ words had reached and inspired them. Costner did bring a few ghosts, but we imagine that is not your ideal demographic.
In the world of education, we all know that deciding not to promote your school is no longer a choice. You simply have to find your way to stand out from others. Now, there are a number of ways to do this, but this is where the outside perspective is a critical element. Institutions often use in-house teams to boost social media ads without the birds-eye view of the strategies that govern this, and often without the dedicated time to really focus on what the analytics are saying.
If the message doesn’t land and does not stand out from others, we all know the results; low revenues and low student enrollments. This is where tailor-made paid media campaigns can make all the difference. Costner was busy building his vision, so it was Jones who focused on how to tell that story to others.
At first glance, paid media might appear unnecessary because there are other cheap ways to showcase your business. Why would my institution pay a third party to showcase it? Aren’t earned and owned media enough? There is, of course, merit in these but the facts are inescapable: one of the quickest ways to drive traffic and get higher conversion rates is paid media. Billions of people use social media daily, scrolling, clicking, liking and engaging with brands. Tailored paid media is your chance to boost awareness of your unique brand, targeted at the people who are most likely to listen, engage and convert.
By showcasing your content on social media, you will be able to increase your institution's visibility. If your content reaches more people, these same people will share it with friends and family, helping create a larger target audience. By thoroughly researching the platforms your target audience spends the most time on, geNEOus (formerly NEO Academy) can differentiate them and target your public according to age groups, usage frequency and content of your message among others.
By posting regularly, people will be able to recognize you, get a sense of who you are as an institution, follow your stories and build trust in you through personalized content. By keeping your feed engaging and active, you can try subtly different types of posts, see which ones receive most views and likes, and feed that back into your brand persona.
People crave content that suits their interests, as it helps them feel a sense of belonging. By using rich data to connect with the people you want to reach, paid media can help to bring them in to be part of your community.
the analytics of every social media platform show how many likes, views, comments, and shares your ads received, which can be quickly matched against inquiries and applications to determine the conversion rate. The agility of this data means strategies can be quickly adapted to amplify the approaches that are working.
Field of Dreams analogies aside, we can help you to craft and target your story. Our team of experts is here to assist you and guide you through the process. With our singular focus on bespoke messaging and rich data, we will create efficient marketing campaigns to foster brand awareness and personalization. Make your institution stand out and create a community that your leads and all other stakeholders can trust. Having a well-designed marketing campaign will enable you to not only enrich and tailor what you’re already offering but also help your audience really connect with you on a deeper level. If you build it (and tell them about it) they will come.
The future of education has been hotly debated for decades, but the current health crisis sweeping the globe has accelerated the shakeup of the way we do things. While the dust is still settling amidst a period of rapid change, we are presented with a moment of pause and reflection to look ahead and ask ourselves - are our children studying in an educational environment that is really the best we can offer? Can the setting be improved to meet the always-changing needs of the world around us? Are our young people developing the right skills for their future educational and professional careers? Those are only a few of the many questions parents and educators are asking themselves, and are areas which we at geNEOus (formerly NEO Academy) are watching with interest. In this introductory article, we’ll take a general look at some of the main areas of change and impact, and begin to ask the questions: what lies ahead for the next generation? What skills might they need to prepare them for the challenge?
In 2003, Bill Bryson published A Short History of Nearly Everything; an attempt to take some of the most expansive ideas from science, and explain them in ways we can all understand. The book was filled with examples of scientists who were experts in their field but, as he explains in this interview, simply could not communicate what they knew, in ways which would attract the attention and support they deserved. Soft skills matter more than ever; being given pride of place in the much vaunted 21st Century Skills approach. To reach out and inspire or lead others over zoom meetings and email, to collaborate with others across cultures and time zones, to communicate your ideas in a way that resonates and engages; these are skills that matter. Content can be learned quickly, but communicative ability takes time.
But soft skills are not only communicative. They are also reflective. Empathy, self esteem, resilience and self-efficacy are also in the mix. We may attribute a focus on these areas of personal development to the “modern” age, but the Swedish were already building those foundations through their “forest schools” in the 1950’s, though this focus became more explicit in the 80’s.
If this current crisis has taught us anything, it is that emotional resilience and the ability to communicate and work across cultural and geographical distances will be of great value to us. In many countries, these areas are valued equally alongside more “academic” outcomes, and this is only likely to increase. Business education is currently the change driver in this field, but other disciplines are following suit, from architecture to dentistry. The future of education has a distinctly and holistically human quality.
Imagine, if you will, the pandemic of 1918. There was no social safety net and furlough scheme, no virtual classrooms and emotional wellbeing apps. 2020 is a vastly different story. Technology, if there was any doubt about it before, is here to stay in classrooms. There have been clear differences in outcomes between schools which were resourced to go fully digital, and those who had to do it quickly and with minimum adaptation time. What we can be sure of is a greater investment in ed-tech for the future.
There is a flip side, however. The intensity in which we've included technology in our lives in these past months since the confinement started, has pushed the digital transformation path of both companies and educational institutions to happen, in many cases, years faster than expected.
We are seeing many schools increasingly integrating technology into their curriculum, young people preferring an iPad to a puppy for Christmas, children doing “research” on YouTube without the tools or skills to filter out bias and veracity or suitability.
This is leading to some pushback from schools, and for good reason. Several schools have now decided to reverse the trend and flip the use of digital tools in the academic process to a higher focus on human interaction as part of their “renovated” programs. By communicating and expressing our thoughts in a shared physical space, we can support each other, learn from our friends and colleagues, and strive through the many changes that happen in our lifetime with the help of not only a device, but also someone we can trust and talk to without the extra step of a digital barrier. School for many young people is a safe space - sometimes the only safe space they have - and technology cannot supplant this.
We are yet to find the balance, but we can be sure that this question will be at the heart of any educational reform yet to come.
Who would have thought that Starbucks would be the starting point of modern co-working/co-learning spaces, where a group of colleagues/classmates would discuss business/studies related topics instead of going to the office/school libraries like they used to? No one really knows if in a few years we will still be commuting to the office/school to work/study, or if we will fully integrate the current home-based scenario into our daily routines, but there are signs of the latter as major companies announce a scaling down of their physical office space; something Jason Fried was pushing for a long time against a prevalent culture of presenteeism. It is already quite familiar to us, the idea of working one month from Madrid, the next month from New York, and not because it has been imposed on us, but because we have chosen to work/study from different locations to meet different people and share their experiences. Digital Nomads may suddenly become the norm instead of a fringe lifestyle. Fixed educational models have traditionally hindered families with children from being quite so mobile, but as this opens up, we may see a rise in families uprooting and following opportunities wherever they arise.
The humble business meeting is also being reshaped to shorter and more informal check ins. The person you see walking their dog in one of London's parks may be on the phone with a correspondent in China pitching a new idea. Ideas, after all, appear when they appear.
With this trend towards the mobile and the transient, the circular economy is very likely to be boosted by the current global scenario; bringing people together in co-living spaces, where they can make new connections and share some experiences within a community. A co-living space could be a place where neighbors become friends and/or future partners or colleagues, and they bring greater ideas to life, all with a higher sense of purpose and sustainability. We, as humans, are social animals, we need people, we need to communicate and share our own ideas, but these patterns shift and develop as we do, and so mobility is critical. Different places and people fit different parts and stages of our personal and professional development, and if we are less tied to fixed office spaces, the broader exchange of real-life experiences and conversations outside these confines can enable us to enrich each other both personally and professionally, developing highly-demanded soft skills, valued and requested by employers worldwide.
It is true that technology has leveraged encounters as it enables us to meet new people on a virtual basis every day, but there is an increasing need to combine it with meaningful human interactions. One of the top trends in any employment-related search engines is “networking”, as people value it, not only in order to get a good job, but also to create connections that matter. Maybe thanks to those new co-working and co-living spaces, networking will be a lot easier and more fun to do. The same could happen with freshened co-learning spaces which could be the improved version of current educational institutions' physical campuses or virtual collaborative environments.
Increased versatility of educational and professional contexts means a greater wealth of experiences from which we can draw. Being able to work remotely and use basic digital communication tools are likely to be baseline expectations employers have from all employees in even the most traditionally analogue sectors. Above the baseline, as we veer into a space that demands new approaches to communication and project management, the soft skills to engage with teams in a virtual space will be prized Indeed, as will the reflective skills to draw learning from real life experiences in a self-directed way.
Greater exposure to versatility may very well also lead to boosting the current trend towards a gig economy, with the next generation becoming comfortable with short-term projects and collaborations across multiple sectors.
Some countries, for example Sweden, have long understood the importance of such skills and therefore integrated them in their learning systems. The Scandinavian model is probably one of the most student-centered systems in the world, where children are active protagonists throughout all stages of their learning path. The Scottish Curriculum for Excellence prioritizes emotional and mental wellbeing as much as traditional cognitive outcomes such as critical thinking.
Traditional education is evolving to meet the challenge, but it remains to be seen how quickly it can adapt to this most recent shock to the system. The world ahead for the next generation is fraught with huge challenges, and enormous opportunities, which those in charge of educational reform must prepare for. It is a time for imagination, innovation, bold steps and unlearning the way things “ought” to be done. If this year has taught us anything, it is that the world will not wait for us to change first.
"Crisis forces commonality of purpose on one another."
Michelle Dean
And what do you think about the future of education? We will be publishing a series of articles around this, exploring some of these aspects in more depth. We would love to hear your thoughts, and you can always contact us with anything you'd like to share.
Traditional education is vanishing. Many schools are confronted with new technicalities and competences for classes being carried out remotely, lower numbers of students enrolling in their programs, uncertainties regarding the future of education, and lack of guidance while stepping into unknown territory during such unprecedented times.
Many educational institutions remain traditional with little initiative in using digital tools, missing the opportunities to meet the needs of tech-savvy students and increase student enrollment. The current reality is different, and yet some keep anchored to old values. Adapting to student demographics, interests and behaviors has never been more essential for educational organizations in order to remain competitive and be ready for the aftermath of this new era where technology must be dealt with not as a challenge, but as a great facilitating mean.
The economic and social crisis brought by the Coronavirus has rendered education marketing more complicated, on one side having to emotionally convince students to undertake a certain academic path at a given institution, and on the other side dealing with the increasing financial difficulties of the parents sponsoring their children's educational costs.
Perception and priorities around education have changed throughout the years and generations. Baby Boomers, that experienced the post-war world, saw education as a right; Generation X, shaped by the technological boom and the Internet, experienced studying as a mean towards a goal; Millennials who had the chance to study abroad, see education as an investment; Generation Z, the so-called digital natives, tend to decide on their education path based on meaning and purpose. Therefore, nowadays it has become of paramount importance that looking-forward Higher Education institutions discern how Generation Alpha will choose their future studies.
Would they increasingly demand technological tools or request a more traditional approach? Would they be highly influenced by parents or take more ownership on the research process of their education development? Would they engage on a lifelong learning approach or rather enter the job market straight away and leave education as an optional good for later decision?
The education landscape has suddenly changed. It is time to embrace a new concept of education and capacity building, instead of waiting and be swept away by this new game-changer wave impending on us. Envisioning the current pandemic as an opportunity to proactively welcome the substantial digital transformation can only aim to bring new generations off the beaten path.
That is definitely not an easy question to answer, especially after the COVID-19 outbreak. Many students and professionals had plans for the near future, maybe they were thinking about studying in a different country, undertaking an internship, working for a different company. All of our plans have suddenly changed and answering the above question has become harder than ever.
Challenges have always been around the corner and the social and economic crisis brought by the Coronavirus is no less tough. It has challenged individuals and businesses all around the world. Many institutions had already started relying on digital tools for their programs, and the current situation accelerated the process initiated before the virus erupted. Now we see educational institutions abandon their old way of teaching, moving to a more digitalized approach to ensure continuous learning to students. These demanding circumstances have had a huge impact on companies that now are forced to change their business plans, and on schools in order to enhance the students' preparedness to be the leaders of tomorrow in a very competitive environment.
At geNEOus (formerly NEO Academy), we have always pushed ourselves and our clients, to stand out from the crowd and be more present to the public, looking not only to survive but to thrive in such a competitive world. Being able to succeed is an arduous path to go through that demands patience, a lot of industry knowledge, trends intelligence, creativity, and innovation. Nowadays, individuals are looking for human empathy and content that can represent their lives. The relationships we are building among ourselves are now stronger than ever, united by a common challenge and based on mutual understanding and support. We also see the rise of many new concepts that weren’t popular before, such as online collaboration and remote working, and these are very likely to be part of the new skills that the employers of tomorrow will look for in a job application. With people working from home and using their digital devices very often, this is the time to increase your online presence and boost your network. For this reason, we need to embrace this historical moment!
Today’s business world is seeing more and more articles related to the importance of entrepreneurship and how key entrepreneurs became successful. But let's face it, people aren’t born entrepreneurs, they are made through a slow and not easy transition. And that is where the underestimated concept of intrapreneurship comes into play. An intrapreneur is an employee who acts as an entrepreneur within a company's business unit as if it was his own organization. Before thinking big, we should focus on smaller responsibilities, so that we can gain the necessary knowledge and network to be better entrepreneurs in the future. Being good intrapreneurs is a crucial path to go through in the process of becoming an effective entrepreneur. Understanding how a company operates and being able to gain knowledge from it will be fundamental for professional growth. As an intrapreneur, you can attend industry conferences on behalf of your employer and start slowly building that network and expertise that will be useful in your future career.
This approach can also apply for educational institutions willing to change their way of thinking. It is important to create a community not only based on concepts that all students need to know, but also on what each student excels at. If we keep asking a fish to climb a tree, instead of increasing its swimming capabilities, we are only limiting the final outcome. What if we enable each student to put itself in the shoes of an expert in a specific field? What if from university we simulate a class having different business units, and we foster student's collaboration by bringing out the skills they have developed to their best? That's how real businesses work, and yet, most curriculums keep focusing on the theoretical perspective of the workforce instead of a hands-on approach where students can get a real sense of business operations.
No wonder that a lot of employers are not satisfied with the skills students have by the end of their studies: they are not prepared enough, or, if they are, they are not ready for the challenges that characterize a workplace. However, this could be partially avoided if universities would build their curriculums by first asking employers what the job market needs, and then turning those requests into learning outcomes with a set of skills to live up to the work environment’s expectations.
geNEOus (formerly NEO Academy) assists the education ecosystem in what has been an enormous transition in our lives. We are taking this chance to rethink and transform the educational environment to surf the new normal wave. In order to be able to grow even in difficult times, we need to be proactive and think ahead on what will happen in the near future and what the new trends will look like, so that we can be ready and live up to the expectations of tomorrow’s job market, education standards and student recruitment trends.
So, how can we still differentiate and think ahead during this crisis? One of the most important soft skills a student, intrapreneur, or entrepreneur can have is creativity. From her student years, our Founder & CEO, Alejandra Otero, was deeply invested in the importance of changing the way schools think, teach, and recruit students. With the aim of making an effective change in how Higher Education institutions operate, she became an intrapreneur in the industry providing competitive insights to educational institutions to improve their student numbers. She finally turned into an entrepreneur by bringing NEO Academy to life with the purpose of having a positive impact on the future of education.
With this unprecedented situation that hit us all in 2020, we should step out of our comfort zone to better prepare the leaders of tomorrow. This is a pledge for the international education community to bring our network together and not wait until the next dramatic change to react, but to better plan ahead and be disruptive by sharing bold ideas around digital tools and new ways of learning to keep the international student dream alive, even during tough times! Let's embrace our role as educators to come up with creative solutions from our institutions to build a meaningful path towards the “Where do you see yourself in ten years?” journey of our students.
Access to technology and a vast amount of information on a multi-screen basis have reduced the attention span of current generations. We now look for immediately available and ideally tailored content. Every feed on social media is different from one person to the other. Every Spotify listing is different for each user. None of our Netflix accounts look the same. We are free to choose our preferences of content whether it is in terms of friends, music or series, and we increasingly receive content suggestions based on our search history and even on the behavior of the audience we’re connected to. How many times have we bought something online, and we have then seen ads related to it in our searches? Could we imagine a world of social media, music and series without being able to customize these platforms to match our preferences? I’m afraid it is too late.
However, the education scenario still looks quite similar from student to student within a same classroom. What if instead of conforming ourselves with generic content for all participants, we were to give the freedom to students to decide from which institutions they’d prefer to receive content suggestions adapted to them and to professors to be the shapers of that individualized experiential shift while orchestrating collaboration? My point here is that we should be able to personalize the learning experience, by identifying at a glance i) the students’ strengths and weaknesses and suggesting pathways for specialization or improvement, ii) the relevant content for each individual student thanks to the use of predictive analytics. All the above within a safe environment in the classroom. Introverts might prefer an online format where they can participate anonymously, while extroverts might look for an in-person experience where they can have more interactions and make their voice count more. Some might prefer to learn pieces of content about several topics, others might want to learn a lot about a specific subject. Many may choose to study full time, others may prefer to work while studying. Everyone has different mindsets, preferences and plans for their future, but they all have one thing in common: they want freedom to choose, they want to be able to customize their own education and be the co-creators of their own learning path. That’s when adaptive learning comes into play.
Today’s professionals are willing or compelled to switch careers several times in their working lives, and subsequently re-skill and up-skill to meet the standards of their new employment. People want to increase their chances of having access to a broader job market and more rewarding opportunities. Retirement age is pushed further from decade to decade, but so is life expectancy. As time goes by, we’re increasingly expected to work late into our age and most probably not constantly in the same company as it was the case for past generations, but we will have to change our employer and our job functions. Higher education institutions and schools were previously asked to provide students with the tools that would serve them for a lifetime. That’s no longer the case. Today we all need to keep updating our competencies and capacities throughout our whole life. The role of education is essential. People increasingly expect faster achievements in their academic career, as a consequence of a fast-changing working environment. That doesn’t mean that degrees are about to disappear, but they might look very different in years to come. Professionals would rather get a quick certification than spend many years of their life studying to obtain a degree that might not fit their and the market needs by the time they graduate. Hence, what can schools and universities do to foster this new environment and embrace innovation?
Students crave for flexibility, they want to shape their own study and future wherever and whenever it’s most convenient for them. In marketing terms, education is usually a one-shot product. That means that a student usually buys only once from the institution he decides to pursue his degree at. But what if we change this paradigm and encourage re-learning at the same institution we chose for our initial degree? This would mean that universities would need to serve the needs of the same student at different stages of his/her life. What would encourage a student to come back to his alma mater for further education? That’s when breaking the traditional education model into Lego pieces becomes interesting. What if Higher Ed institutions would give their students the possibility to trace a tailor-made academic path? When we buy a Lego package it usually comes with a specific design we’re supposed to construct as our end goal. Some people might like to put straight together the structure. But others might prefer to build first the different elements that would then be assembled together to create the whole design. Let’s push the Lego idea even further. What prevents us from using the pieces to create other shapes than the one that appears on the cover of the Lego box? Now, let’s be aware of some challenges this approach might face. Some content might have to be delivered in the IKEA way, i.e. some prerequisites may apply before being able to move forward in the construction process. For those elements where the order of the factors does alter the product, we should either keep them in a degree-seeking format, or bring Super Mario’s gamification techniques to advance as we develop the skills required.
In any case, universities need to increasingly integrate the “and/or” variables into their offering if they want to remain competitive. Schools should become agile enough to provide students with different learning styles and content adapted to their specific needs at a given moment in time. We should transition from a one-shot education model to a space of continuous learning and re-learning. Developing a flexible portfolio of skills and qualifications can be of great use when guaranteeing adequate preparation of alumni, in addition to giving more credibility and trustworthiness to the school. There is an enormous opportunity for educators to own this renovated trail, offering an adaptive learning scheme that can be customized and enriched throughout the student’s learning process.
At geNEOus (formerly NEO Academy), we believe that schools can embrace new educational paths based not only on traditional degrees, but also on a set of content capsules that can be customized according to the students’ needs. Just like a phone subscription, where you can add data and minutes to your monthly plan, or even go unlimited, educators should be able to offer students a personalized learning process that can satisfy each of them at a specific point in time, whether they need or want to aggregate additional skills or knowledge to their value.
The educational system has been shaken and the traditional approach adopted by schools for years needs to be rethought to better take on new challenges. Let’s explore alternative options to reshape the future of education!
What if we push the boundaries of the existing higher education system as we know it, and we take bold chances by giving the freedom to students to customize their learning journey where learn-from-home, learn-on-campus and even learn-from-anywhere become part of disruptive universities’ key selling points? This would trigger a mixture of knowledge and experience that would define some core traits of students selecting to embark on that original discovery. For instance, the knowledge taught online could be combined with the on-campus experience together with peers or even workers at a co-working space, guaranteeing a 360-degree preparation. Hence, by having hybrid programs we are bringing together a revamped educational approach where students benefit from technological advances properly integrated into their learning, whether it happens on-site or off-site, and an open door to the practical business world that hints a smoother transition into both the virtual and physical workplace. Every student, every faculty and every staff member should be allowed to be part of this personalized experience that unites all kinds of different people with different ways of learning, different personalities, different cultures.
Do we know why we studied thousands of pages of English Literature or a specific Math theorem? Employers increasingly value experience over theoretical knowledge, to the extent that some corporations are even hiring people without a degree as they rather teach them the specific skills for their particular role at their company, than struggle with the fact that the academic know-how that students have acquired doesn’t satisfy the learning curve expectations of certain employers. If we continue on this path, companies might even over-perform educational institutions on the delivery of skill-acquisitions. What if pioneering institutions in the reinvented classroom partner up with companies to offer certifications and skills-based programs to better fit the peculiar needs and wants of the job market? Such a move would render these Higher Ed institutions more attractive to businesses and subsequently increase enrollment numbers as students would prefer to secure their hiring chances by developing the most adequate set of skills to deliver better results to their potential employers.
What did people think when Netflix first came out? Were we ready to stop going to Blockbuster and start watching movies online? Back then it was such a disruptive and innovative way of viewing content, whereas now it became part of our lives. Look at our impatient selves now, barely going to the movies nor watching TV, and fully loving the Netflix experience. Now it’s the time for education to change! For many, online learning seems only a temporary approach to education, few aren’t willing to acknowledge that it would be the new normal, but a vast majority of schools are already committing to integrate online learning in their current curriculums even after the current crisis is over. Some universities have even gone beyond in changing their status quo and decided to operate fully online until the start of the 2021 academic year, regardless of the trend of the pandemic. In both cases, the key would be to maintain engagement levels as high as possible to avoid drop-outs on the one hand and to encourage newcomers on the other hand. Nano-learning could be a great conductor for cross-curriculum gamification to provide students with bite-sized education, which can be compared to the constant yet brief access of younger generations to their smartphones, accompanied by experience on the field.
Would it be a utopia to think about a new form of education on-the-go where students are free to select some courses at a given university for a specific time frame, then do the same with a different school in the country of their choice and follow classes from the place that they consider the most convenient for their context? By combining different modules from different institutions we break up with the model of the paper diploma that gets dusty in their parents’ office, and we transition to an academic journey built around curriculum elements and/or skills that would fit future employers’ needs. Think about how this could also generate new professions where educational coaches come into play to mix and match a tailor-made learning journey for each of the students they counsel. This would be the basis of a new type of education where guided freedom and personal branding are core values. Pricing strategies should also be rethought as people would no longer expect to pay the same amount for a totally different experience than in previous years: maybe a larger portion of students will choose private education and maybe those people who didn’t think about getting a degree now want to obtain a skills-based preparation to have access to better jobs. Spotify, Netflix, Amazon and many others have integrated subscription models in our daily lives. Why not applying this same concept for education to encourage student learning and workforce relearning within a life-long learning membership?
The triptych school<>student<>company ought to be rethought. Now it’s time to enable students to freely customize their experience by empowering them in bridging the student-market gap, sponsoring a more straightforward education where they learn what is useful for them and their future. At geNEOus (formerly NEO Academy) we believe that it is essential to refresh Higher Education institutions’ mission by making innovation, personalization and skill-readiness the core of their new manifesto. Our aim is to accompany education institutions to embrace this new normal wave and reshape the future of education at the intersection of their academics, marketing and student recruitment departments. Education must never be seen as a static good, nor as a transaction but as a life-changing opportunity.
