Step one to increase Apple Fan-Girls and Boys
So yesterday Apple announced how it will revolutionise education with iOS. The quick answer is by selling lots of iPads and taking commission on text book sales. This is marketing utopia.
The focus of the product release was aimed at K-12 education – high schools / secondary schools. So how will Apple change the classroom for ever? By replacing the text book with the iPad, of course what else? What did you expect, maybe to replace the teacher with the iPad and have a new social network ‘Ting’ answer any questions.
The solution to education is iBooks 2 which supports a new authoring tool from Apple which will be free. The text books will be submitted to iTunes in the same fashion as Apps, and go through a review process. Presumably for functionality not accuracy and correctness. No textbook can cost more than $14.99. Apple will take their standard 30%.
So how will an iPad actually change the text book? The solution supports rich media, note taking (although the demo of this looked awkward), search, and quizzes. This is a big ask from the publisher, how many text book authors have 3d modelling skills to demonstrate a concept, or video content to illustrate their point? I think its great, and if the content is created at a high enough quality then this could be a wonderful learning tool. In the UK it could change the textbook industry and boost the BBC / Open University to a premium position. They have heaps of rich media content and now have the opportunity to add text and wrap it up in a more compelling package.
But there are a few areas I believe are missing and clearly must come in the future. Perhaps the most obvious is the kindle feature of shared highlights between readers, or the ability for a class to socially communicate between each other around the textbook but limited to their class. It brings the text book half way to Internet generation.
A well as iBooks 2 and an authoring tool Apple are providing new planning tools to support schools. They are also extended their already successfully iTunes 2 so K12 level can have access.
Will this change education? If the teaching staff adopt it with the and embrace it as they did by adopted computers when I was a kid then – no freaking way!
But we have a younger generation of teachers now, who are IT literate and grew up with a computer. If this format is more to the pallet of pupils and we can reach a stage where kids consume the text book more rapidly or even in a different format within school then the impact could be huge. This is key so teachers have more time with the kids to overcome the areas that need support and to inspire.
The different format could really help those who suffer from learning difficulties, and greatly improve the experience for those with various impairments such as sight. The text book could be listened to.
I struggle to see this working to its max and with no prejudice across social class barriers, which in my opinion is a serious problem.
It does feel like a very clever marketing strategy to increase sales of iOS and generate millions of Apple FanBoys and FanGirls. We learnt yesterday that there were 1.5 million iPads in the education system. This really could establish Apple for a long time into the future.,
If at all successful this move will result in success for Apple at the University / College level. Students leaving secondary level bound to the iPad text book will not be pleased with a heavy, static, probably damaged, textbook. In addition Apple are under threat of various tablet innovations from the Android market targeting education. If they sit back and do nothing, school leavers may all be running around as Android fan boys.
I believe this can really have an impact on education, and as with ALL technology it will be down to the people who implement it. Apple need to run teaching training courses to ensure this solution has the biggest impact it can.
Will it revolutionise education, I who knows, but let’s hope so. The hope is what makes it such a powerful marketing message.
I fully expect Apple will sell a LOT of iPads and text books. It’s just too irresistible for a secondary school to not interact- assuming budgets allow. Apple should offer educational discounted iPads.
The education system is out of date, I would be keen to see a bigger change with focus on vocational skills, problem solving, social skills and project ability. My 9 year old is currently doing a class project which copies the young apprentice (a uk tv show with Alan Sugar). Through designing a company logo, a Product and calculating costs, profit margin etc the groups within the class are engaging in multiple elements of their curriculum, while competing and having fun. And gaining entrepreneur / business skills This has nothing to do with a text book, instead it is inspired and innovation from the teacher.
Mobile solution guide
The mobile industry expectations are on target, mobile web will be bigger than desktop really soon. The world of marketing and commerce has worked it out. We are all consumers of various apps and mSites which sell product or extend brand. But have you recently been looking for a new job? What was the experience like?
In the UK the recruitment industry should be ashamed that the biggest site where job ads are viewed in the millions is GumTree. The major job boards are now enjoying mobile as a channel and are befitting from huge growth in this channel. In some examples job boards are getting 10 times more traffic through mobile compared to just 12 months ago.
Now that marketing has proven this mobile stuff can work. Now that job boards have delivered millions of job seekers via mobile. What are companies doing to engage with the channel directly?
This is dependent in many ways on what are vendors offering.
For our industry to capture mass market mobile we need vendors helping us. So I am kicking off a number of posts to share and review what is on offer. So hear up, if you are a vendor contact me, tell me all about the product and give me interesting case study example and I will share your product and add it to my list of mobile vendors. Ideally I want to have a Skype chat to uncover the details.
If you have been a customer of a mobile solution, please contact me. I want to hear all the problems and all the great stuff. These stories need sharing, if you don’t want your name unpublishing then I can keep that to myself.
So who is brave enough to go first? Who is good enough to set the benchmark? Next week I will publish the review of CareerBuilder Mobile who are based in the USA but have clients all over the world.
Eye grabbing QR codes
This gallery contains 8 photos.
It frustrates me how frequently I have seen examples of eye grabbing QR codes on Mashable, but there is never any that are related to recruitment. Well here are some examples of eye grabbing QR codes: After a great chat with Eric J Offner, Managing Director at CareerBiulder Mobile US, I am pleased to share [...]
Recruitment industry #fail the candidate
Does your recruiting function send emails to candidates updating them with new job opportunities? Are links to job adverts posted on social media? Do you think carefully about SEO to attract job seekers to opportunities? Do you attend recruitment fairs or visit college campus? Do you run Google Adword or Facebook ad campaigns?
Did you answer yes to any of the above? So last question, do you have a mobile website?
Did I hear “no” to that last question? Why not? The mobile channel can increase your return around all the activities mentioned above. You are failing to double your social recruiting return, empower your SEO and attract more candidates while offering a better candidate experience. Today you are failing in good company – most of the recruitment industry.
The silver lining is you have vast potential to increase your pipeline of talent from your existing marketing activity simply by supporting mobile devices with an optimised mobile website. By demanding mobile support from your advertising channels (such as job boards and recruitment agencies) you can improve your situation. But to do things properly you need to ensure your career site and web campaigns are fully mobile optimised. In case you had not noticed, or have been in a cave for the last 5 years – web activity, either via apps or the browser is increasing rapidly. Next year it will overtake desktop activity.
So it is clear that the mobile channel is here to stay. However it is feels a technical project and recruitment functions are putting their heads in the sand to avoid it. There are very few companies engaging with mobile for recruitment, in the UK companies making the most of mobile is barely out of single digits.
In a typical month in the UK the mobile channel attracts over 2m job seekers (according to ComScore) and the number is increasing every day. So which companies are winning and capturing the traffic?
Currently the recruitment industry is failing the Job seeker who uses their mobile. The number one site in the UK where job ads are viewed on a mobile is GumTree. While GumTree is I am sure wonderful for classified adverts to buy sofas and cars, the candidate experience is not ideal.
After GumTree the major job aggregators are attracting the next level of traffic, lead by Indeed. If you pause for a moment, this is possibly a worse experience than that of GumTree for the job seeker.
The candidate experience is typically:
1. Search in Google Mobile
2. Land on a mobile optimised aggregator site such as Indeed or SimplyHired
3. See an interesting job advert and click it.
4. Be taken to a desktop website to read the full advert, #fail
6. Struggle through the non mobile friendly job advert, click the apply button and immediately be faced with an impossibly large application form or more frequently a browse button to upload a CV.
Incase you don’t know, uploading a CV from your phone is near to impossible and very few people will have their CV on their phone.
The process is disappointing for the candidate and makes the company look rubbish.
A few UK job boards support mobile web very well, Jobsite and Total Jobs perform very well. However the niche job boards, company career sites and recruitment agency sites typically fail completely.
Why is so much of the recruitment market failing on mobile?
Is it cost and budgets?
Is it the lack of mobile application solution?
Is it disbelief that mobile matters?
Is it failure to recognise the benifts?
Is everyone getting such great returns from social recruiting that no one wants to double the return by engaging on mobile?
I would very much like to hear your thoughts on why you have done something on mobile, or why you are not bothering. Or is it as I fear, you are waiting for everyone else to do it first?
Why I did not buy the Nokia Lumia 800
Over the festive period I purchased a new phone to carry about everyday. My needs are simple, email, social network access, Skype, Yammer if possible, a good chess game, an alarm clock, a note taking app (ideally Evernote), a good camera and a fast browser. I guess would like to make calls and send text messages too.
My desires for a new phone was change, something different, I have carried an iPhone for too long but the replacement had to be slick and look great so I ruled out a Blackberry straight away as it does not do it for me! The latest ice cream sandwich Android versions look great and the HTC and Samsung devices are nice to hold and do everything I need. For me the Android OS now looks great, but many of the apps I looked at still felt clunky and unfortunately the apps are really where my usage will be. Few apps appear to make best use of the bigger screen or the high resolution, this is a result of so many different Android device form factors. I have other Android devices, but always carried the iPhone, so until the Android apps get better, I rules out Android. A shame because some of the Google innovation is great.
It was looking hopeless, it felt that fate would force me to buy the iPhone 4S. But in the shape of a curved blue bound device came hope for change. The Nokia Lumia 800. The device feels really great to hold, it’s very well made. It is running the latest Windows Phone 7 which feels slick and easy to use. All my favourite apps are available on Windows Phone 7 and new ones I looked at felt great and well designed. The camera takes good photos, and the phone quality is great. The CPU etc are slower than others’ but the apps I tested seemed to work well.
So for a week prior to my contract upgrade date I felt decided, I would go back to Nokia. The memories of my old Nokia 3110 and all those that followed that first one made the decision feel nostalgic.
Then upgrade day came, as I walked to the shop, I remembered I had not used mobile Internet Explorer since owning a Compaq iPaq about 10 years ago. I could not recall the last time I used IE on a computer. Did I really want to return to IE?
Some research quickly (via my iPhone) showed that IE on the Nokia was slow, it’s JavaScript benchmarks were about four times slower than iPhone 4S. This was a disaster, I use mobile web all the time. So on arrival to the shop I tested a few websites out and compared to the 4S. The result was a huge disappointment. A browse of MS marketplace showed no suitable alternative browser that may be quicker. The performance may well be impacted by that slower CPU.
So, after lusting over the Nokia for weeks, I bought an iPhone 4S. It is super fast, the camera is wonderful, I restored a backup from my 4 and everything was working within minutes. As for change, I now carry a white one not a black one.
