1.
MOOCs as the New
Marketing:
how learning drives engagement
and connection
Irene Greif, Fellow, IBM Research
Perry Hewitt, CDO, Harvard University

2.
Pop quiz!
 Who knows what a MOOC is?
 Who has taken a MOOC?
 Can you name some ways
MOOCs might be connected
to marketing?

3.
Define: MOOC

4.
Why so much interest?
 Response to rising costs in higher
education: “there’s gotta be a
better way”
 Realization of the internet’s
promise of providing worldwide
access to knowledge
 The supreme sexiness of scale:
160,000 in a course

5.
56% of population
73% of internet users
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6.
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7.
[
“We are already
in a post-MOOC era.”
Robert Lue, Faculty Director of HarvardX
]

8.
HarvardX
HarvardX is more than just MOOCs.
It is a broadening effort to support the
transformation of teaching &
research…




catalyst for improving teaching
interactive learning experiences
instructional resources and experts
community of research

9.
More about MOOCs and learning
Still a rapidly-growing market in
online education within and beyond
the MOOC, but as an industry:
 Intense interest
 Low completion numbers
 Hard to measure outcome

10.
How do you learn?

11.
Social Learning
how people learn

12.
Learning would be exceedingly
laborious, not to mention
hazardous, if people had to rely
solely on the effects of their own
actions to inform them what to do.
Fortunately, most human behavior
is learned observationally through
modeling.
-- Albert Bandura, 1977
15

13.
People learn better when they
Model other people’s behaviors
Discuss
Create and co-create
Teach
Get tutored (and even if they just watch a
tutoring session)
• Ask and answer questions
• …
•
•
•
•
•
16

14.
1
Modern businesses run on
social learning!
17

15.
just-in-time is good learning practice
• …
Individual Candidates
Community
Candidates
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16.
You can make these tools a part
of your marketing plan






Forums
Wikis
Expert Locators
Shared files and bookmarks
Shared spaces for “war stories”
…
19

17.
2
MOOCs provide an engaging
context for social learning
20

18.
Sometimes it’s by accident:
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19.
Sometimes by design:
Video enables “Flipped Classrooms”
22

20.
The video can be talking heads:
MIT 6.00x
23

21.
The video can reveal the social
process: Harvard’s CS50
24

22.
For a business: a compelling view of
your company’s values
25

23.
3
MOOCs capture tons of data
…more fodder for analytics akin to
sentiment analysis you do on
twitter
26

24.
The opportunity: get
over worrying about
completion rates
More useful
measures:
 What chunks do they
go to?
 What concepts do
they master?
 Are they engaged?
27

25.
Engagement

26.
Everything
old is new
again

27.
content
strategy
learning
 teach
 assess
 credential
 engage
 build
community
 connect
 spark
discussion
 amuse
30

28.
Case study: Google Analytics MOOC
31

29.
Why Google Analytics MOOC matters
32

30.
Why Google Analytics MOOC matters
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31.
4 takeaways from the GA MOOC
1. MOOCs offer an opportunity for scale for
organizations looking to engage.
2. Adding synchronous, interactive sessions like
Hangouts supports social learning.
3. Using community tools drives learners to
engagement opportunities after the course.
4. Analyzing data can inform the online
curriculum and overall engagement strategy.
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32.
Social Learning and
Your Customers
35

33.
What you could accomplish …
 Engagement through learning
 To what end?
- Better understanding of your customers?
- Making your products more
understandable?
- Developing your current – or future –
workforce?
36

34.
Understanding your customer:
The Bucket List Game
37

35.
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36.
Make your product more
understandable
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37.
Develop your workforce
40

38.
Develop your future workforce

39.
Shaping your
learning strategy
You may not want to offer a full-blown
MOOC, but what learning strategies
might you implement today?
42

40.
3 ideas … then let’s hear yours
1. Leverage existing MOOC products
and create a forum for customers or
employees.
2. How-to videos – and invite and
incent users to submit their own.
3. Mine social content within and
beyond the company, using tools
and human insight.

41.
Q&A

42.
Thank you
Irene Greif, Fellow, IBM Research
igreif@us.ibm.com | @igreif
Perry Hewitt, CDO, Harvard University
perry_hewitt@harvard.edu | @perryhewitt