Newsletter #47: School of Art NYC has a smiling assassin; GDPR can be solved with common sense; You can now pay for your McDonald’s in Bitcoin
📰 HE news
The UK’s culture secretary, Oliver Dowden, shared that he’d like to diverge from GDPR 👀. I’m curious how he expects “common sense” and “not box-ticking” to work with data privacy though. Yes, cookie banners are devastating to a site’s UX, plus annoying, but (and I say this with 100% certainty) good ol’ British common sense won’t fix that. Data law is incredibly complicated and obtaining explicit consent even more so. Introducing a common web standard (via Schema.org) could work, but the problem can’t be solved by staying within the UK’s boarders. The internet doesn’t really work that way. Read
WonkHE’s Jim Dickinson delivers a stand-out piece about how this year’s SU officers have been shaped by Covid. Those he’s met are “less gregarious” with a preference for “quiet(er) analysis and curiosity” (introverts!) over a need for popularity and relationship building. Makes sense, getting elected wouldn’t have involved lecture shout outs and making a splash in the SU, but rather understanding digital channels and seeking new ways to connect. Read
💻 Digital marketing news
Users: “We want more privacy!”
Facebook: “Yes, but RayBan glasses with cameras and speakers!”
Facebook unveiled its new smart glasses, but I’m struggling to see who for. The young people dancing, riding rollercoasters and skateboarding aren’t on Facebook. These glasses are meant to capture life for your social feeds, but say “hey Facebook, take a video!” and watch your social life run in the opposite direction. The only thing this video has convinced me to do is throw out all my black long-sleeved tees. That look is over for me. Read
Now we’re on the road to the end of third-party cookies and Apple’s effectively ended cross-app tracking, more brands are switching to audience building, rather than sinking $10,000 a month into display ads. Increasingly popular is treating the marketing function as a publishing studio: Creating newsletters, building in-house digital content platforms, working with influencers, managing brand partnerships - basically, transforming the marketing department into an engine room for first-party data. Hmmm, if only there were a name for that… Read
Amazon Music is making lots of quiet (but significant) moves in to live audio. The format wasn’t a Clubhouse fad - Amazon is paying podcast networks, influencers and artists to use its new features for live conversations and events. It’s even looking at how it can integrate live audio into Twitch. And it’s not alone - Discord, Twitter and Facebook all have new audio products too. Not a lot of unis are moving in the audio space - some have created quality podcasts that have thousands of downloads a week, but the vast majority still publish ad-hoc episodes for only a handful of listens. A waste of time. My advice: Find a unique angle and deliver consistently to a niche. How about a daily five-minute podcast about student mental health tips? Or a weekly live conversation on Clubhouse about a topic your university wants to be famous for? In a time where we’re obsessed with productivity, audio is the only medium where you can effectively multitask. It’s perfect for learning on the go. Read
🏫 What unis are doing
The School of Visual Arts NYC takes a hard line on masking up while still being quirky. The presenter makes it: “All of our common areas will require people to wear their masks. Like I’m doing here.” She’s always smiling, but like someone working in hospitality as the world burns. A smiling assassin. The School also has a strong “we’re back” video, which is a nice take on how to handle campus in 2021. Mask up | We’re back
Eastern Institute of Technology’s “Your Journey Starts Here” video has a nice idea - one person connecting a wider campus community - but the soundtrack and slow turns to camera remind me of an intro to a 90s TV drama. Graduate Ollie Powrie at 1.18 gets it - he’s clearly the fan favourite with eyes for a second season. Look
Leeds Becket University has gone all-in for its Welcome and Induction site this year (it’s a good benchmark if you need one). There’s a lot going on in terms of CTAs, but you could argue this is as much about discovery as the more practical elements, like enrolling. My favourite part though is the “!” badge above the link to its SU’s events, which is the digital equivalent of saying “nothing to do with us, guv!” Sector-wide, there’s tension this year between Covid rules on campus vs those off-site. A student could be dancing with their flatmates at night then asked to sit apart from them in a seminar the next day. The return to in-person feels more like a social experiment right now, so I expect we’ll be seeing many local press headlines (and a few attacks from the Telegraph) before Freshers is over. Look
🧑🎓 What students are saying
“[Contact tracing] was like a game of Clue. Everybody’s trying to assess the damage, kind of figure out the culprit, obviously being exposed from a roommate would be much worse than someone on our floor, versus someone in a class with a bunch of people.” Students on living in Harvard’s isolation halls last year. At times it felt like I was reading a Ballard novel. Read
👾 Culture shock
In El Salvador, you can now pay for your McDonald’s breakfast in Bitcoin. Look
It’s now possible to program classic arcade games using natural language - AI writes the code for you. Look
