Digital advance for education with Textbooks rewritten...literally!

Having lectured at universities over the years I was always amazed at how pedantic and backward the content of most textbooks were vs. the actualities of our fast-paced communications industry. How many times I longed to change the curriculum to better reflect reality. Often hard to do with scholarly auditors watching from the back of class as you hand out poorly copied xerox's of more recent industry material from a school copy machine that groaned like an old man walking up his last flight of stairs.

Now it seems Macmillan (one of the largest textbook publishers) is jumping at the opportunity to allow educators the chance to customize and change the text and construct of a curriculum to best suit their style, the industry or overall approach of the institution.

The opportunity for better, more updated information is obvious, but marry this with digital textbooks at the fraction of the cost and we may have an even better use for those Kindles and iPads.

More from Fast Company here...

Posted via web from Jared Hendler

The Rise of the Graphic Novel.

Comics, long frowned upon by the literary set may start to take a front seat in storytelling via the graphic novel which has been growing in popularity over the last decade. Already a leading inspiration for development within the film industry, a few traditional authors have elected to have their novels illustrated within as graphic novels in order to better reach new audiences. Savvy educational textbook publishers are also starting to get in on the act (kids are inspired by the storyboard-like visualization vs. the dry nature of educational textbooks) - a smart move.

Brands would be well suited to capitalize on this trend, especially those that are already a part of pop culture. While a digital recreation of the graphic novel has yet to be successfully recreated online, an execution cannot be far off. The art-form can inspire wonder akin to an animated feature without the expense - especially if live clips and sounds are incorporated digitally. More affordable than live action footage or expensive  photography - the value delivered would be tremendous.

This is an art-form that is long overdue to be catapulted into the mainstream, and one that is ready for mass forms of digitization.

From the New York Times: A World of Words Reinvented in Pictures

Posted via web from Jared Hendler

The significance of Social Media Week...

Why, in my opinion is this singularly one of the most important gatherings within the marketing and communications industry today?

Because it is organic. Organic in the way that our industry has and will continue to evolve along with all of the buzzwords we have become accustomed to.  It's authentic, fueled by recommendations and built on WOM. It's also random. Random in the sense that it is iterative and events are added and build momentum as the gatherings take shape over the course of one hell of a dynamic week.

Most of the events are hosted by industry leadership within their offices and are on a first to sign up basis.  In other words no Javitz Center here folks. Speaking to one of it's founders I griped that most venues were 'sold out' only 1 day prior to signup and that they needed bigger venues.  "Shoot me first..." was the response I received...and I think I finally got it. So don't think conference...think globally coordinated and loosely orchestrated croudsourcing (I'll probably get shot for that one too!).

Social Media Week is run not dissimilar from a franchise in the sense that all host cities get support and guidance from the central team, but run and coordinate their own venues in a way that best suits the local marketplace. The press conference on Monday for kickoff streamed live coverage from 5 of the 6 international cities at the same time! One of the cities (don't ask me which...was still sleeping). One of the many challenges of pulling something like this off.

In other words the conference is reflective of our industry in all of it's forms. The focus is of course on social, but the events reflect the fact that the dynamic nature of the communications industry extends into the social strategies that inform our ideas, the technologies that carry our dialogue, while emerging measurement tools are finally beginning to take shape in order to inform our iterative approaches to improvement at a pace akin to Moore's Law. All of course leading to our client's success along with measurable ROI.

All of this along with the fact that the events connect us globally, the fact that growth is organic and challenges the founders to keep up with the pace of their own creation. Talk about being reflective of the industry.!

I for one am also sick and tired of paying bloated entry fees for industry events year after year only to get the same choices served up in the same locations - by the same people along with vendor lists that are limited to the size of a venue.  None of these constraints apply here.  Brilliant!

With the exception of a few very affordable events, most on the bill are sponsored by brands leading the conversations within their respective industries. A win win for all.

So run, don' walk to what is left of Social Media Week this week.  Events worldwide in a city close to you.

New York, San Francisco, London, Berlin, Sao Paulo and Toronto.

Posted via web from Jared Hendler