“An idea is worthless if you don’t have the skills or tech stack to execute it well.”
Interview with Nathan Monk, Co-Founder of education digital agency SMILE.
The “What education marketers are saying” series shares insight from marketers working in the education sector, whether that’s for universities, agencies or student communities.
Interview
Kyle (Education Marketer): In one sentence, what's your favourite website and why?
Nathan: Product Hunt, because I like seeing how ideas in other sectors are getting it done.
Bonus #1 - Laws of UX
Bonus #2 - MSCHF
Kyle: What's the no.1 issue with content on university websites?
Nathan: They all sound the same. “We are life-changing, ground-breaking, world-leading”, and so on… When everyone sounds the same, how can students make an informed decision based on the differences that matter?
Kyle: In your experience, what makes for a great virtual open day?
Nathan: Something that doesn’t try to re-create the real-world through a rectangular piece of glass.
And GIFs, probably.
Kyle: What should education marketers be paying attention to right now in digital?
Nathan: I want to see more universities contributing to open-source projects. Most big companies do, but HE marketing seems veiled in fort-knox levels of secrecy. This prevents true creativity.
A university lecturer of mine said that you shouldn't keep good ideas secret. They said that by doing so, was a sign that you weren't able to proliferate quickly enough.
“By the time someone has stolen your idea, it should be old news anyway”.
I'm with them. Besides, an idea is worthless if you don’t have the skills or tech stack to execute it well. Open-source thinking, contribution and technology empowers you to be prolific.
I think there’s a lot of concern around the openness of Open-source. For me it was, “Can I do open-source and still get paid?” opensource.guide was a turning point for me in that journey.
Some university techy-types are already switched onto this. I’m looking forward to when marketing departments adopt a similar mindset.
That’s a bit much isn’t it? Maybe I should have just gone for something basic like “VR” instead.
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