After consuming a ridiculous amount of information, I realised that my learning may not be rising above the lower order of Bloom’s Taxonomy, or Laurillard’s acquisition and inquiry types. Since participating in the NFTL PACT course the importance of evidence-based reflection plays on my mind – it is something that I procrastinate about. While out walking, recently I listened to Adam Grant on TED Talk Daily interviewing the very witty author of the Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood; about ‘The real reason you procrastinate’ the idea being that we procrastinate out of fear, fear of inadequacies. Similarly, I find it difficult to write – so here’s to making it easier by reflecting on one day, 28th May, not very special but any day is a good day to extend my comfort zone!
The goal for embarking on #CovidCPD was initially to immerse myself in the learning communities of practice, aiming to develop the language and become more accustomed to terms and influences in the hope it may enlighten me as to my next professional role.
Depending on the subjects, I went between watching/listening, diverging and assimilating information, to converging actively through note taking and googling for insights on new information. I recorded some words as Liesel did in Markus Zusak’s ‘The Book Thief’, that my daughter gave me to read, sometimes I added a few to the google form I created based on Frayer Model by Dorothy Frayer (Nov. 1, 1938 — Aug. 25, 2019). I came across the Frayer Model from the Learning Revolution and look forward to using it with future classes for a deeper understanding of terminology.
1. Digital Marketing Institute
On this day I completed two short courses on the DMI website: Specialist Selling: Finding and Targeting Prospects, DMI Pro: Paid Search (PPC) with Google Ads and I started the Digital Expert E-Commerce Strategy. The specialist selling concentrated on the B2B buyer as a persona, this was new to me as was using the Sales Navigator for prospecting. The insights I gained from the course walkthroughs led me onto Linkedin for further investigation. Previously I didn’t delve into distinguishing between social monitoring and social listening which deals with ‘what matters’, not just ‘what is said’. A range of tools were discussed which reminded me of a previous student of mine; Michael Hutchinson’s project cofo2020.com, is a framework of steps to take if affected by online harassment. The project discusses using OSINT tools (Open Source Intelligence) for investigative purposes. After reading his dissertation, I found academic papers online investigating using OSI for social media analytics, I’d like to explore this further. Other noteworthy topics were ‘hot’ prospects, sentiment analysis, the use of bots, account based marketing and USP vs Emotional Selling Proposition. Three resources were mentioned that I had not used before so I signed up to Salesforce Interaction Studio, leadlander and demandbase for a quick look around. New Learning:- Linked Sales Navigator, Social listening vs Monitoring, B2B Personas.
2. Linkedin Webinar
I liked the use of music in the waiting room and at breaks; Michael Cox also used music in this way during two courses I participated in thanks to Waterford Skillnet. I digress, Preethi Sundaram and Ben Weeden from Linkedin presented on the B2B buying journey, they recalled 1995 with floppy discs and ‘The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air’ a time when there was one head of IT who was enthusiastic about buying. Technology then was not as ubiquitous, now there are many decision makers involved in the buying journey and non-decision makers who may make suggestions (mentioned in DMI online course earlier too). I learned about the Personalisation paradox – nowadays the tech buyer wants to remain anonymous for up to 67% of the marketing journey, businesses need to provide the same value to anonymous prospects as current customers and shifting from short term marketing goals to long term goals.
Preethi stressed the importance of targeting ads differently in the top, middle and bottom funnels, he spoke about the rise of conversational marketing, self personalisation and turning anonymous buyers into anonymous customers; and reminded participants that a linkedin Company page is a destination not a distribution channel.
3. Creating and Sharing Open Educational Resources (OER)
Quoted from NFTL “Catherine will share how the National Forum supports the use of open licensing and OER, specifically for initiatives funded under the Strategic Alignment of Teaching and Learning Enhancement Fund but also for other work developed within Irish higher education.”
The National Forum for Teaching and Learning’s Open Licensing Toolkit is definitely worth checking out. Gearóid O Súilleabháin from Cork Institute of Technology, was one of the guest speakers. He spoke about TELU.me, an open online resource for teaching with technology, built with the help of the Rebus community, articulate and h5p.org. I used Articulate Storyline during a course on elearning essentials instructional design with John Kilroy of Harvest and recently signed up to h5p, so I added the rebus community to my expanding email subscription list. I had previously seen Gearoid on Who’s Zoomin Who the Weekly Higher Edchat with Ken McCarthy where he mentioned his collection of old tech next time I’m in Cork so I made a mental note to visit.
4. Adapt 2020: Retaining Customers During Difficult Times (Hubspot)
Noted items – how employers treat workers is more important than price of goods to customers; frictionless self-service is expected and barriers can be removed with FAQ sections and flowcharts. Also, if chat bots are used, do not to leave customers at a dead end. Chat bots don’t always recognise the subtleties of language, ensure a real person can step in before customers get to a dead end. This resonated with me as recently whilst on web chat for bank information, the bot gave me loads of info and links leading to information that I already knew and just when I was going to give up and ring the bank, I was transferred to a real person. The Adapt webinar concluded with particular salience on building empathy, something that transcends all sectors and disciplines. See ADAPT 2020 educational series for future events.