This is a podcast with content makers and content marketing executives. The guest of the 14th edition is Irina Sergeeva, Director of Communications at the British Higher School of Design, mentor at the Google Launchpad project and author of the independent podcast "».
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Irina Sergeeva, BHSAD Communications Director and author of the podcast “Nu, pa-up!”
: We have a podcast about content, and since you are the head of communications at the British Higher School of Design, today I would like to talk about how to do communications in an educational institution.
How is it different from any other company or brand? What are the features of communications in a university or any educational history?
Irina: We must start with the fact that the British is a non-standard university. Wherever I am asked to tell about my attitude towards him, I always begin with the fact that I myself am a graduate of a classical educational institution, Moscow State University.
I grew up in the "classic academic scheme" and got used to it. And the Briton destroys these stereotypes every day. Probably, I was lucky that I work in the communications of this educational institution and this “product”. Communication in any case is built around the product, digital or analog. And this is a product that I believe in.
Selling education is a different story than selling cell phones or whatever. I like to work on communications that enlighten and improve a person in terms of cognition and attitude to the world. The person working in British Communications in this case is very strongly attached to the product and a bit of a product specialist.
Now there is a lot of controversy about who is a product owner, who is a project manager, where the power of marketing ends and the power of the product manager enters, and where are the sales managers. In education, this is a synergy that cannot be broken.
I can’t say where the competence of our departments of educational and academic quality ends and pure communications begin, so that they simply give us the product and say: “Guys, sell it.” Thank God it doesn't work that way. People who are working to form the right message outward need to be clear about what they are selling. Therefore, we are also a bit of such designers of education and “attach ourselves” to this path.
A: For me, too, as a graduate of a classical university, the Higher School of Economics, it’s a little strange to feel that the person who is responsible for communications works in close connection with the educational department. Although at HSE, this may not be the case anymore. The educational department - it would seem that it could be less bureaucratic.
And: I hope our training department isn't listening to the podcast, they'll get upset.
A: It's probably not, but it's amazing how universities - in this case Britannica - are changing towards what we used to understand as a modern brand. Let it be an educational brand, but not the “university” approach that everyone knows.
And: To which we are all accustomed.
A: Yes.
And: This is more correct, because we are guided by international experience and are trying to accumulate it. We have a huge number of educational products.
For the first time in my third year, I myself got into a different educational environment when I went to Germany for an internship. There, people allowed themselves to make separate educational products based on the fact that students watch the series, and then do something on it.
It broke stereotypes for me, and even then there were doubts about the classical scheme of education “from one to many”. When a person stands at the pulpit and reads some unconditionally important and useful things to you. I thought there might be other ways.
I was constantly connected with education, studied in graduate school, wrote a PhD and struggled with such a classic format, when knowledge is not quite right and not very conveniently packaged for you. There is knowledge, but working with this product in classical education sags a little. It's nice to see new things like blended formats and interactive things coming up. Even in classical structures. As an MSU student, this pleases me.
A: Online courses are re-read as a minimum.
And: Well, at least so.
A: British - initially or when you got there - was it already like that or is it some kind of evolutionary process? When the university becomes more open and focused on the student, who uses and accumulates this knowledge.
And: The British woman is 15 years old, I got there four years ago.
A: In fact, a third of her life.
And: Yes, it's a long way. This is the place of work where I stayed the longest, and so far there seem to be no plans, and I like everything.
A very important parameter is inscribed in the so-called DNA of the British brand - human orientation. She works great both in communications and in product history when the student is in the center. Not a manual written in 1985, but still a student. We work as much as possible with the concept of user experience, at least we try very hard. Even if some situations arise, we analyze in detail why the student did not receive the right experience that we tried to create for him.
The British is indeed a very open educational institution. Over the past four years, we have gained a lot in terms of the ideas that we broadcast outside.
This is, for example, sustainable design, because we cannot ignore this trend. We are trying to teach - as far as I can see it - not only beautiful design, but also smart. This appeals to me wildly, because our brand broadcasts pretty correct thoughts, which I enjoy promoting.
A: I find it somewhat seditious—and perhaps this is not just my feeling—to call a student a consumer. In such a super-academic environment, this seems wrong.
Many classical systems see the student as a product of their educational process, and not as a consumer - a person who has more rights, who somehow votes for the educational process and influences it, and who needs to be liked. In general, in the classical educational environment there is no idea to please a student, but there is an idea to put something into it, to make it a proper scientific object.
And: It seems to me that there is nothing wrong with having a clear structure of what you want to lay in a student. As they say, "I'm not a penny to please everyone." If you completely follow the lead of the student, this is also some kind of imbalance.
It would be ideal to find something in the middle. Maybe with the help of electives and programs of choice that can be built in. The modular system is also a cool story. These things really appeal to me. It seems to me that now classical education is [not like] what we demonize here with you (laughs). There, too, there are many good things that students of “free” educational institutions may not get.
Perhaps the difference lies in the fact that there is a big difference between Western and Russian universities - namely, educational systems. And we were brought up in the Russian system and got used to what we were given.
I don't complain about the education I received. It certainly didn't bother me. Rather, I acquired something in it that allows me to do the things that I do today.
A: Is it possible to say that the British - as a university that is focused on creative professions - has more freedom in connection with what is taught here and what is taught? From the series: mathematics should be brought up like this, but a designer can be a little more free.
And: Interestingly, a huge faculty of marketing and business has appeared in Britain since last year. Here, it seems to me, everything is stricter. This is certainly a creative story, and I am also impressed that design is inextricably linked with how to translate it into external space. Here we are already entering the territory of marketing, which is quite interesting.
From the point of view of freedom - if you look at our students on the eve of the final sessions, final degree shows and so on, it doesn't seem to me that it is somehow easier for them. On the contrary, with freedom comes responsibility. Even if students are released for the so-called reading weeks, when they have to study something on their own. Well, you do not have someone who is above you, but you yourself must go through this path - to defend and prove your point of view.
This freedom brings up some important things in you that we are just not used to. If I remember the rhythm in which we studied ... I graduated in 2012, it's not too far away, but not yesterday either. There was constant pressure - to prepare for the exam, learn 50 tickets, check in at classes, and so on. There was continuity and accountability.
The models are different. I don’t know which is better or worse, but I look with great pleasure at what kind of research our students get. They have a huge amount of research even before creating a collection of clothes, especially industrial design products or building models. These are really some big and very reasonable things.
A: Is there any gradation between media communications, how the company looks in the media and in general in the open space, and how the university should look like? Are there any barriers or things to go around? Where you need to behave differently than any other brand would behave. Or do the same schemes, techniques and rules work in the media communications of the university as in the case of any other brand?
And: In media communications as a whole, the rule “Reflect correctly, without distortion, in the media ecosystem, who you are” works. What are you broadcasting, who is your target audience and so on. If we go down to the details, every university today launches advertising on social networks. To be different, to try to undermine someone if you are not this - this is a rather strange story in communications. I have a feeling that it’s not that easier for universities to do this, it’s just that they don’t have to make “deals with the devil”. You sell education, it's an important thing, it's easy to talk about it. While, of course, times are difficult.
We understand that there is a certain context, cost, quite a lot of competition. However, the right communication, which will be quite honest with the end user of your product, is the key to success.
A: You, as an educational product, are guided and look at completely different players, it turns out. They can be large and small or the same universities
And: Yes, and for Western ones as well. Check out our product line. We have a large part - the British Baccalaureate. Why, in fact, the British Higher School of Design - because it is an opportunity to get a British bachelor's degree in Moscow. It is a franchise of the University of Hertfordshire. The more we tell parents what they are willing to invest in and what kind of education it is, the better and more useful.
There are other stories, a shorter format - a year or two. This is a program of Russian additional education, when older people [study], with the first education. You and I could now go and enroll in graphic design, visual communications.
There are even more compressed formats - three-month. There are intensives when you get some kind of fast pumping in 4-8 days. We also have education for schoolchildren. I myself teach a little - communication, content marketing. My recent love is a program for schoolchildren where I came to read media theory.
The way I communicate with people who are 14 years old and what I see in them is a completely new experience. I see that this is really a different generation that thinks differently and gives different answers to the questions that are usually asked to adult marketers.
And this is a completely different communication with the consumer of such a product. Therefore, I cannot say that we are competing with someone alone. We compete with everyone and everyone competes with us.
A: Super. At first glance, it seems that the university is a rather static structure.
And: Come visit us.
A: In fact, this is a huge job, everything is in full swing, and a huge number of new players appear. I just wanted to ask about intensive, content marketing.
And: There is such a thing.
A: It’s one thing to talk about content, it’s another thing to make content, and yet another thing is to teach content marketing. What place does this intensive occupy in the field of tasks of the British? Has there been any interest in this area for a long time? And what did he grow out of?
And: It should be noted that about 80 intensives take place in Britannia a year. This is a story about interest in the widest possible number of areas, fields and niches in the market. In intensives, we allow ourselves to be a little mischievous and go a little further than the big programs that we have. Some intensives are really samplers with curators of large programs. You can test whether this format suits you and see what British is.
With some intensives, we can test the waters of what is happening on the market today, what is coming or not coming. In some cases, we just see that there are great opinion leaders in the market of education, communications or culture, whom we invite with great pleasure to conduct intensives.
Content marketing happened to me for the first time last winter. We have already planned the fourth stream of this intensive for this summer. It started my big journey into education. Since then I have been teaching on big programs in the UK, I teach on the Marketing and Brand Management program. We also have a wonderful Media Design program.
It would seem that marketers, business history, [but] on the other side sit designers who create prototypes of mobile applications, sites for magazines, print versions. There is a lot of hype around the concept of content marketing right now. As before, everyone considered themselves designers and photographers - factories are standing, and we have all photographers and managers.
Now there is such a bias in content marketing. This is not bad - it shows interest in the sector. Content marketing is perfectly intertwined between marketing and media production. These are my two great passions in life. I have a media background, I used to work as a journalist. It entices me endlessly - how to produce media materials, videos, texts in order to lure the reader. When metrics and measuring the usefulness of your content are layered on top of that, content marketing was born.
We once tried to incorporate this thing into one corporate program at the invitation of one of our curators. I spent a small block there. And it worked out so well in terms of audience acceptance. Now once a season, for 40 academic hours, I give my all to teach people how to make good content, how to count it correctly, and how it fits the big brand idea - guided by what I can do in Britain with my excellent communications team.
A: Who is this intensive for? Is it for those who work in some brand, for marketers? For philologists, perhaps, who want to expand their field of possibilities? For students who want to get an extra boost?
And: I take great pleasure in reviewing the lists of students who come to my program every time. The unconditional backbone is marketers.
There are some amazing things in there too. There were interior designers, last season there was a delegation of people from Peterhof who are involved in museum communications. A lot of startups are coming. People who want to start or already have their own business.
In fact, communication with startups is a wonderful thing. Another big side project in my life is the story with Google, where I participate as a mentor. They periodically gather strong teams of mentors and take them to nearby countries in Europe - the last time it was Germany. And you go out to mentor startups, for example, in Serbia. This rarely happens in the lives of normal people.
A: Almost never.
And: Yes. And when you start testing at Serbian startups what content marketing is, whether it is needed there, how they react to it. It is impossible to make a reference to any Russian company there, because they simply do not know this. This is where it gets really interesting. And there it goes almost better than in the fields of our spacious homeland.
A: Why?
And: Because [content marketing] is important to everyone in the face of a complete lack of user attention. We get a billion messages a day - how can [brands] lure the user and how to be where he consumes content? And all these standard stories about noise, through which we build our communication between the brand and the user today. How to do things that are remembered, you are brought up, give a little knowledge?
In this sense, I am a big opponent of advertising bombing - which, of course, is part of the brand's communication with the world. But I want to do some more sophisticated things.
This story about usefulness and education works in any case, whether it be a startup, marketers, museum workers, interior designers and media. That's why I'm so happy to see different profiles of people on this program. Moreover, I divide them into teams, and when these people with completely different backgrounds start designing content solutions together, amazing things are born at this junction every time.
A: Based on the experience of mentoring in other countries, can we say that in Russia the topic of content marketing is well developed? Or, on the contrary, is it less developed than abroad? Are there any correlations between what they have and what we have?
And: It seems to me that we are talking about this topic more today.
I've been to a huge number of conferences lately [about] how to make money with content and how to make good content. Everyone starts talking about themselves, their successful cases, these are media and big brands. And at the same time, I have a feeling that this topic rested a little on itself.
I'm terribly sorry that we do not look at the Western experience of content marketing and are a little behind the global industry trends. You have to look there, of course. All successful projects in content marketing that used huge budgets, people and resources have been studied and re-examined.
It is impossible to give birth to something new from this, when everything is changing so rapidly in the market - both in terms of brands and in terms of good communication.
A: What are the trends there? What distinguishes the Western tradition of working with content and ours?
And: Probably the most important thing is absolute freedom and the desire to get rid of advertising communication. Every time I see with us - even if there are some cool things, anyway, every marketer has an idea at the end: let's stick a button, let's drop a banner, make everything clickable so that it's clear that it's us.
You have to fight this every time. When I give some simple exercises to the marketing guys in the audience, they constantly fall into direct advertising of the product.
I convince them to make communication not product-oriented, at least within the framework of pure content marketing, but human-centered. Based on what people read and watch, how they react to it.
A: When it is not a pity for a brand to give some benefit just like that - without counting it, without measuring it in transitions, clicks, links.
And: Yes, absolutely. At the same time, no one prevents you from continuing advertising communication in parallel with this one.
Why in the West do we see a huge amount of analytics, white papers, some kind of guides that people release every month? When it is a wonderful analytics, which they do not spare and share in the public space. In this way, they earn points for themselves as a brand that can be trusted and whose analytics are quite legitimate.
A: It turns out that in the Western tradition, content marketing is a little more about content ...
And: And we have more about marketing. Yes it's true. Of course, it is necessary to focus on some market realities. In our country they are different from what is happening in the West, but for some reason we look very little even at Western examples.
When we look at cool examples with students, they say: “Well, this is not ours.” I say: "My friends, we need to look at absolutely everything." Otherwise, this is narrow-minded thinking and the “make me like someone else” story is a rather narrow-minded strategy.
A: I can't help but talk about podcasts for a bit.
I: Actually, this is the most pleasant topic. Let's.
A: I have to ask this question anyway: how and why was the podcast born? [talking about the podcast ""]
And: I understood that this question would be, and I scrolled in my head how to talk about it more effectively. This story actually has two planes. One is rational-professional. I've been a huge fan of the audio podcast format ever since Serial came along and Meduza launched podcasts.
It was a discovery for me that I can, riding the subway from work to home, plunge into a completely different world. Suddenly I find myself thinking that I start laughing while standing in the subway, because it is wildly funny. And everyone looks at me like I'm crazy.
I felt that this is a powerful tool for storytelling and conveying emotions. I really liked it, because it also tickles the imagination a little. I've been sneaking up on creating something of my own for quite some time.
On the one hand, I am interested in everything that I know and what I give as knowledge of content marketing, digital, media and storytelling. In the essence of my work, I follow this market, it’s a pity to keep it all in myself. You don't have to keep it to yourself, you have to give it away.
But on the other hand, such monopodcasts, when one person sits down and languidly begins to sow his own wisdom at the microphone - I did not want this. It seemed to me that it was a little crazy to talk to yourself for half an hour and then promote it in some way.
I'm also terribly interested in the story of generational differences. All huge efforts were spent on discussing what generation X, Y, now Z is. Some kind of public conversation about this is ongoing. A good friend of mine and I were sitting in a bar languidly discussing what generation Y is. For some reason, I really wanted to launch a podcast that would simply be called the letter Y, and I would try to explain with my peers what it is. How do we understand ourselves, do we really have any difference.
In general, [the topics of content marketing and generations] were successfully combined in one podcast called “Well, pa-up!”. I don't explore any broad layers of generation Z, children, how they develop. I turned this story upside down, and so far I don’t see who else is talking to the elders in this format. This is a conversation of generation Y with generation not even X, but baby boomers, dad is now 65 years old.
We began to talk more, I began to talk more about what I do. It became clear that there was very little understanding of what I was doing on the other side. Naturally, he has a huge interest in this. He is interested in who I work with, what I say, how I teach - I realized that he is generally lost there, what I talk about and what it is about.
Slowly, I began to tell my dad more and more. In December, the whole family went abroad for an operation - this is actually a funny moment. As dramatic as it was, it was also funny. When dad was recovering from anesthesia, I was there and I had to do something to amuse him. He could not sleep, and my mother and I sat and tried to tell him something. Here I think: it's time for a pitch. I came up with this thing in advance and I say: “Listen, there is an idea, let's launch a story where I will tell you something.”
And I was completely sure that when a person is under anesthesia, he doesn’t really remember anything. But the next day, when I arrived in the morning, the first thing that was said was: “So, what are we doing? I already came up with a name. How are we going to distribute it? and so on. Getting off this topic was already generally uncomfortable at that moment. I realized that my dad is wildly enthusiastic and this is such a family outlet - how we sit and discuss something.
And indeed, we recorded the first series about two months ago, and everything went to the people. It was absolutely amazing for me to watch people start sharing this thing by word of mouth. The feedback I received can be divided into three distinct segments. First, these are my peers, colleagues and friends. Someone is a marketer, someone is not at all - but they are interested in hearing about what I talk about in this format. It's just about knowledge.
The second story - from somewhere, dad's peers began to pull themselves up and comment. Not like: “Look, the director of communications for Britanka did this and that” - but “Sergeev’s daughter made a podcast with him, but do you remember ...”. My dad is a bard and there is a community of people who listen to his songs. The third story is the most valuable for me. These are comments: "Talk to your dad, talk to your parents, see how cool it is."
A: Have there been situations when it seems that everything is clear, but it turns out that a black hole is opening here. And in the next step, another black hole opens up.
When it turns out that some things that seemed obvious raise questions. To what extent do such dialogues really show the differences between generations?
And: This is also very beautiful for me, because every podcast is a small minefield. I don't know where we'll get stuck. If I already clearly understand the trajectory of how I lead people from an audience that I understand through my stories, then I am absolutely delighted with how dad reacts to some things that are completely understandable to me. And I'm so good at scoffing, of course. I make him watch the Black Mirror series or read [Ilya] Dyer's 50 points that he wrote about modern media.
With Bandersnatch, the interactive Black Mirror episode, it was funny, because people immediately start poking, and my friends and I were discussing what we chose to develop the plot. Dad began by saying that he was not going to poke anything at all and this “nonsense” prevented him from watching the series. Absolutely unpredictable reaction. We got stuck on the Dyer, because he sat with a dictionary and translated some things. It was not clear to him, but he prepares very carefully. He came with a piece of paper and told what he understood and what he did not understand.
It cheers me up a little too. I have been teaching for two years, and I have a large number of answers to questions that I have heard in my practice. [Daddy's] questions I haven't heard yet. This is very interesting to me, because he takes me by surprise, and I try to explain.
At some moments of the podcast, I understand that somewhere even I don’t press it, which could have been explained better and so that he understood. But because we are two rather funny characters, as people have noted, we come out of these educational situations with dignity.
A: It seems to me that such things bring additional educational help and burden. It's one thing when people of the same age communicate and roughly understand the meaning of certain words, put their understanding into some terms. Another thing is when a person from another generation comes and asks to parse this or that term.
And: Absolutely.
A: It turns out that you yourself seem to understand what this means, but here you need to answer in essence.
And: Yes, because in any answer you can provide a reference, a similar situation in media or content. And when you don’t have this toolkit, and you understand that it won’t work.
A: Other references are needed.
And: Absolutely.
Dad constantly compares with his work experience - he used to work on radio "Youth", on television. He, too, has been in the media for most of his life, and those parallels are wildly interesting too. Which of us would now think of comparing something with the 70s and 80s?
This has educational value for me too, because I look at how these products worked before. In this we have a mutual educational mission.
A: Great. It seems to me that this is a great example of how additional value appears for both parties at the intersection of communication between generations. Including for people who want to understand a topic that is not close to them in terms of their field of activity.
And: Yes it is. Of course, I was lucky, because the purity of the experiment turned out to be quite high. Dad never had a single social network in his life.
He conditionally understands how Facebook works. But we hit it off when I asked him to tell me what Instagram is. It turns out that he has a principled position, why he does not want to start social networks for himself, why this is a great evil, and so on. This is an interesting position.
What [title] “Well, pa-up” was born from: [in response to] the rhetoric “You are with your computers and social networks, everything is in your phones, how infuriating.” It is clear that it was like this: “Well, dad, finish it, it’s better to learn something yourself.”
I don't know if it comes with age or the depth and quality of your conversations with your dad and someone from another generation. Now I see why. He said: “Imagine, in the 90s I am a healthy man of 40 years old with a bunch of ideas - he is really a creative person - suddenly at some point I realize that all the technologies just missed me. Suddenly, from somewhere, everyone had phones, computers, social networks. And I just sat down and realized that I didn’t have time.”
This position seemed to me quite interesting. And here I already think: “Okay, I will be 50-60 years old. How will all this develop? Maybe everyone will go to Tik Tok, in which I don’t understand anything anymore. There, children hang masks on their faces, and this, of course, is generally past us, apparently. It is also very interesting to extrapolate to our future and think about how we will live and how to build communications. I think this is important.
A: Do dad's interests or habits change as a result of communication? Are there any changes? Suddenly he liked something from the series or something new?
And: You know, this is my favorite. I recently drove home and witnessed a telephone conversation between my father and his friend.
The speech was as follows: “Petrovich, you are sitting here, trying something. Do you know that content is commodity? Do you know that marketing is now considered by such KPIs, and content should actually follow the product, and not vice versa?
Then we got such a story that from time to time he reads something on the Internet and starts writing to me: “Listen, are you aware that Twitter launched this and that?”. We are also sharing news. Of course, I chuckle kindly, but it's cool. With your chatter, you arouse in a person an interest in understanding how life flows today. I put some pieces from my lectures to him, and he tries to figure it out.
This desire to learn - going back to the British and what we believe in - is the ideal concept of life-long learning. Especially when this source of education is not just an online course or “Moscow Longevity”, but your own child who explains to you how he lives and conveys some knowledge other than personal stories.
I'm just trying to put more emphasis on knowledge, not really moving on to personalities. Although the transition to personalities is an integral part of our podcast.
A: This is such training in the British, outside the British, in media, communications, everywhere.
And: It turns out that this is really training everywhere. This story is very enriching because when you start to broadcast some knowledge outside, [self-doubts appear]. This is not quite an impostor complex, I just always have an idea inside - whether I'm talking, whether I'm talking about, whether I did my "homework" correctly. This is such a complex of an excellent student - have I studied everything in order to be able to talk about it to people.
A: Great. We made such a thematic circle.
And: Yes Yes.
A: Great, you can round off on such a cool note.
And: Cool, thanks a lot.
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Source: habr.com