Newsletter #26: Peregrinations of the Mizzou toddler; Alone with a festive bobcat; Bing prays for a Christmas miracle
Me again. Back before 2021…
Thanks to a generous share by UniBuddy’s partnership manager Jack Craig, Education Marketer is now well on the way to its next milestone: having more subscribers than there were Pokémon in 2001 😉
Last week I said “see you next year” but it’s not right for new people to sign up and only have a confirmation email until January.
So, everyone gets another issue.
This one is for those still checking their emails as they countdown the last few hours in the virtual office.
Merry Christmas,
Kyle
📰 HE news
University of Liverpool ranks at the top of Banshire’s Ultimate University League table. Goldsmiths’ College needs to up its game or move closer to a Nando’s. Look
Keel University is set to be carbon neutral by 2030. I think we’ll see more promises like this over the next year as unis realise the environmental benefits of remote work. Still, this feels like an “entry-level” target - Microsoft will be “carbon negative” in just over 9 years. Read
Two senior staff at Imperial College London are made to apologise after they bullied colleagues for three weeks. It will take more than “coaching” to fix this, but it’s good to see grievances being aired in industry news. It’s this that drives change. Read
Having had to endure learning through Zoom earlier in the year, the number of students choosing computer science degrees is up by almost 8%. Read
💻 Digital marketing news
Google is introducing “interactive search results” (I thought they already were?) with website images being made available in SERPs via a clickable icon. This will be easy to game. If you want to promote a podcast, you could include images about where to listen to it, rather than just an image of its hosts. Read
Bing has outdone Google with its "holiday recipes" in search results. It's a shame no one is using Bing to search for holiday recipes. Look
The World Health Organization, Ad Council and National Health Service are using influencer marketing to get people to take the vaccine. Read
Google released the top search keywords for 2020. In the U.S. more people searched for “election results” than “coronavirus”. Read
🏫 What unis are doing
University of Glasgow wins the award for best holiday post. Split-screen videos sometimes remind me of the early noughties, but it's fine when 68 members of your community are singing Auld Lang Syne. I doubt they got this quality audio through Teams, but the sentiment is strong and fits #TeamUofG like a glove. Look
Not sure being stuck in a room with the Ohio bobcat is a gift or curse (it's those eyes) but the quality of the University's "12 Gifts of Ohio" is stand out. A cooking show, pictures of the campus cat, a downloadable colouring book and a calming hour with a branded fireplace - there are some nice ideas here. Look
A toddler got hold of the University of Michigan’s social media iPad resulting in the digital equivalent of wall scribbles. The university’s social media team are left with one question: Why don’t their tweets perform as well as the toddler’s? Look
🧑🎓 What students are saying
“Over the Christmas holiday the rent strike movement is only growing. We are helping local activists to organise in campuses across the country, and are planning to rent strike in January to get more compensation for the second half of the academic year.” On the back of an NUS survey finding that 63% of students do not believe the government is acting in their best interest, activists outline their plans for 2021. Read
👾 Culture shock
Nintendo unveils its reimagined theme park Super Nintendo World - there are rides, but also hundreds of “activities” (like punching question blocks) scattered around the park for guests to enjoy. This is good technology. Look
Deep fake of Donald Trump telling the story of a reindeer who tried to win an election. Do you know what happened to that reindeer? Look
