This is the fourth post in response to question prompts in Seth Godin's Freelancer Course, found on Udemy. Please feel free to include your answers to these questions in the comment section.
Compared to others who do what you do, rank yourself on reputation, knowledge, expertise, tools and handiness.
Which will you invest in developing?
I've been putting this assignment off for a few days. There is a lot to unpack on this question, and the answer requires airing some dirty laundry.
The first part, comparing myself to others, hurts my brain, which is not a good start. I'm not sure who to compare myself to. We have competitors that do presentations like mine, or they have some really fancy marketing that says they do. I've never had the privilege of crashing their presentations so I'm not sure how I compare. If marketing is to be believed (I know, I snickered to myself too) these companies are doing all the things I hope this position evolves in to -- researching and creating solid content strategies based on learning objectives. That is a significant investment in subject matter experts and curriculum designers. Through my own networking, I have yet to come across anyone from those competitors, so my (admittedly somewhat naive) view says I'm towards the top of the pack when it comes to content options and strategy presentations in the private K12 space.
I could also compare myself to educators who not only present but also inspire, entertain and lead all in the span of 30 slides. Compared to those people, I get the polite head pat and participant ribbon. Thanks for playing.
So where do I rank myself with these qualities?
Reputation: My company has a good reputation, among schools that have heard of us. We usually try to stay behind the scenes, with our partner schools' branding taking the spotlight. Even so, our reputation revolves mostly around textbooks, and so we are not known for being on the cusp of innovation. Not many of our schools think of us when they are researching content alternatives. Usually they act like a cheating spouse, being secretive and distant until they are ready to present us with the divorce papers. They don't realize that we can help them and that we don't have our head in the sand. That is a bigger branding conversation.
Knowledge: More dirty laundry. While I love all of the information floating around the Internet just waiting to be consumed, not having been in a classroom limits my application of that knowledge. I'm not a subject matter expert nor a curriculum designer. I'm a journalism student who was pretty good at marketing but took an opportunity to learn some new things. My knowledge comes from pure curiosity, not so much experience.
Expertise: Which is where this comes in. I think I have a pretty good understanding of the K12 education industry and the major changes and trends happening. It's the application of those trends and the experience of applying them first-hand that I'm lacking. There is only so much comparison I can draw between teaching a room full of middle schoolers and training a room full of account managers.
Tools: Thanks to a wonderful PLN that loves to share new ideas, I think my toolbox is multipurpose. I can present using Prezi and Haiku Deck, record videos in Camtasia and PowToon, do on-the-fly web conferencing in a Google Hangout or WebEx, engage in Kahoot! and Poll Everywhere. To name a few. And I learn something new every day. Just yesterday, I created my first Google Form. Next, I need to learn how to write scripts for it.
Handiness: I think of handiness like curiosity. Willingness to learn. Trying. Failing. I excel at trying and failing and learning.
Which will you invest in developing? The trait I think will help me the most is expertise -- understanding how to apply the knowledge. Without classroom experience, the closest I can come is asking a lot of teachers what they think and what questions they have about content. And listen. A lot of listening.
I'm going to reserve a table at the coffee shop closest to the ISTE conference this year so I can have many conversations with people who are much smarter than I am and ask them lots of questions. If you will be at ISTE and want some free coffee, let me know! I'd love to pick your brain.
I'm going to reserve a table at the coffee shop closest to the ISTE conference this year so I can have many conversations with people who are much smarter than I am and ask them lots of questions. If you will be at ISTE and want some free coffee, let me know! I'd love to pick your brain.
Comments
As someone who knows your work fairly well, I would suggest (most gently), that you are underselling yourself quite a bit in this comparison. Your "macro" knowledge of the industry is much better than that of competitors because of your personal commitment to acquiring new knowledge, and your access to information through your employer (and network). In addition, while you have not worked specifically as a K-12 classroom teacher, you are an accomplished corporate trainer (teacher) and a model lifelong learner. These more than compensate for the lack of a K-12 teaching certificate in your work.