Academic Innovation & Disruption

Targeting memes with personal data (i.e., Facebook reactions) has been suggested as Cambridge Analytica’s low cost “support strategy” for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.

Brands can use the same or similar tools; in this episode I talk with researcher and personal data entrepreneur Paul Dehaye about data privacy, using memes to “collect” and “share” segments of consumers and the monetization of personal data.

Dr. Paul Dehaye wants to liberate (for your benefit) data accululated when brands track your online activities – @hhawk

Digital marketing tools used to sell branded products are also used in Elections.

Policies that protect political speech, including “anonymous pamphleteers,” (link) can also be used to subvert elections.

They say they don’t keep that data – Paul Dehaye

Policies enacted to protect consumer privacy may also be making it hard for consumers to learn how they are being tracked, monitored, and segmented.

It might seem like the primary goal of data privacy is to keep your information safely in your own hands.

Companies “enhance” your personal data and then horde it – @hhawk

The reality is that businesses buy and sell your personal data. Then they segment, cluster, and augment your data with historical and real time information.

They hide what they know about you – @hhawk

The same laws that protect personal data from hackers (and illegal use) also make it hard to discover what large social networks know about you, how they know it, and where the information was found.

#Facebook forced to disclose more information about its ad targeting by @podehaye https://t.co/XnQNl4eeiT #adtech pic.twitter.com/v5HgIbjpSz

— Marcus Sarmento (@msarmento42) February 19, 2017

A few weeks ago I spoke with Claudiu Maraiu (co-founder & CEO) of the SAAS analytics company Innertrends.  Claudiu and I spoke about the ubiquity of tracking and monitoring of consumers.

Claudiu took a clear stand that the industry (and our society) has an ethical dilemma it needs to resolve in RL, Real Life.

I played Claudiu’s observations for Dr. Dehaye hoping that he would be in agreement; (spoiler alert) he was.

Paul and I did a “deep dive” on privacy and tracking – @hhawk

I truly believe that marketing can be a force for good and as beneficial to society as any other profession.

What Facebook Advertisers knows about me and the brands I interact with (Harry Hawk)

Minimalist Shopping

There are many (on the right and left) who view consumerism and corporate commercialism as scourge.

Yes… we could live in a world with 1 brand of toothpaste, soap, candy, coffee, computers, phones, cars, a single restaurant chain and (for Americans and Swiss) 1 brand of guns.

It may be more efficient and even cheaper since presumably there would be billions saved in marketing and advertising.

It might also mess up the economy killing off innovation and freedom – @hhawk

Consumer Choice

I understand the backlash against consumer choice and 100 brands of coffee, and 15 types of Oreos – @hhawk

Freedom to Shop

Marketing doesn’t always encourage us to listen to our “better angels” – @hhawk

I want to be able to pick my own music, food, movies, and mate – @hhawk

Modern marketing requires tracking, monitoring and more. The real question is how do we ethically address these issues.

[Spoiler Alert] Paul has a plan – PersonalData.IO

Marketers and market data companies do want to know what you like or love

Global Issue

The larger issue here is bigger than stores tracking your visit their web pages; they can also track folks who visit their web pages and drive past their physical locations

Modern marketing tools are being used in elections @hhawk

The 2016 US election and the Brexit vote – Big surprises for many.

What fueled these “surprises?”

The tipping point may have been when campaigns learned to polarize the electorate. Easy polarization means easy segmentation.

Daisy or Daffodil?  – a hard “problem” for marketers – @hhawk

The “right” memes easily split (segment) the population into clearly defined cohorts.

@hugorifkind I think this is the quote you are looking for @Arron_banks pic.twitter.com/pH2wz2oKg8

— Paul-Olivier Dehaye (@podehaye) March 5, 2017

Knowing which Memes you like or dislike, share or didn’t share, could be used to classify you.

#TACDforum17 Cambridge Analytica explains how they use “Likes” https://t.co/6DWeT8LjRJ

— Paul-Olivier Dehaye (@podehaye) March 21, 2017

HRC or DJT? – an easy problem because of the strong negative opinions – @hhawk

DJT may naturally enjoy pushing buttons and speaking previously unspeakable thoughts — but they were a huge benefit in the 2016 election cycle – such polarizing messages filter voters.

How ad technology turned against the world cc: @profcarroll https://t.co/HPyJaz33x3 pic.twitter.com/Iq4falX0GY

— Paul-Olivier Dehaye (@podehaye) March 17, 2017

You may also learn enough about them to discourage them, give them false hope, or get them all riled up and “mad as hell.” That’s what I call a push meme.

Political speech, including anonymous speech – is the cornerstone of American democracy.

A 1.3+ Billion Dollar Marketing Campaign – Democracy in Action

Data, data privacy, and monetization are key building blocks for our digital age making online sales from Amazon, Uber, and the local butcher efficient and effective

Mathematician Paul Dehaye (PhD Stanford) and I take a deep drive into the digital footprint of the 2016 US Election cycle.

The same tools that make modern markets marvelous may make “Moxie” for malicious meme makers.

This from @GaryCoby is the story everyone missed (so far) out of @CamAnalytica cc @HNSGR @carolecadwalla @Schwartzesque @ninaburleigh pic.twitter.com/JcWm5CzyVm

— Paul-Olivier Dehaye (@podehaye) April 4, 2017

Who is Cambridge Analytica – they are part of a company that also trains the military for psychological warfare.

Even marketing experts don’t know what is possible or what really happened – @hhawk

America, here we come! pic.twitter.com/if0TfZtYSV

— Paul-Olivier Dehaye (@podehaye) April 11, 2017

There is a lot of debate about what happened, how it happened, and more importantly if it did happen – what levers did they pull? What tools did they use?

@profcarroll my actual Adobe Markeing Cloud data: my identifiers across the industry for dozens of companies pic.twitter.com/MKxaQbLWJO

— Paul-Olivier Dehaye (@podehaye) March 21, 2017

There is no easy answer here to regulating marketing tools when we are talking about political speech.

I wrote a bit about the value of anonymous political speech. https://t.co/n9kkDmYJKF pic.twitter.com/4ckftTB5j7

— Scott Blackburn (@ScottBlackburn2) April 17, 2017

The same law that protects protesters also protects political speakers.

It is possible that Super PACS, Campaigns & Think Tanks shared segmented audiences and used them to support the candidate(s) of their choice.

HRC was frequently “dinged” in the press when using different language, focus among stakeholders.

If voter group A would be discouraged if they learned about Fact X, yet  voter group B would be encouraged – we can use segmented audiences to “suppress ‘Face X” to group A while promoting it to group B.

Where did it all start?

We can blame our modern democracy on the ancient Greeks — Cambridge Analytics had an “ah ha” moment when Cambridge University published a study about Facebook “Likes.”

Like, Wow, Haha, Sad, and other Facebook reactions may only make the research more effective – @hhawk

If you want to go further down this rabbit hole..

.@LouiseMensch‘s FOI request to Cambridge University about Cambridge Analytica, itself FOI’d pic.twitter.com/SB792hlxyi

— Paul-Olivier Dehaye (@podehaye) March 9, 2017

Links:

Sitting still at your desk “absorbing” knowledge is passive. Often the only “active” part of a classroom is distracting siren call of smart phones, and watches.

Cahoot – usually used in plural they’re in cahoots.  He was robbed by a man who was in cahoots with the bartender. – Merriam-Webster

It might seem “wrong” (and even a bit odd) that gameplay is a solution that can make classrooms more active & reduce distractions.

Kahoot! has reached 1 billion cumulative participating players on the platform – Jamie Brooker

With 40 million monthly active users, Kahoot! (a learning company) is happy to be “in cahoots” with students and their teachers to change the way people learn.

Gameplay is Active Learning – Harry Hawk

CUNY’s Distinguished Professor Cathy N Davidson (link) has often noted that our current educational system was created in the mid 1800’s to train the children of farmers to become efficient factory workers.

This is why our educational system “insists” on work done alone, while sitting quietly at a desk without help from anyone else – Harry Hawk

Today’s work place is full of collaboration, and self directed learning in teams with various areas of domain expertise solving problems and creating processes that that span teams, departments, and even multiple businesses.

Today workers are expected to band together and solve problems with sustainable multi-stakeholder solutions – Harry Hawk 

Jamie spoke about a number of game elements that were built into Kahoot! to purposely and positively impact classroom dynamics.

Kahoot! encourages players to “look up”, creating an engaged, collaborative and loud learning space – Jamie Brooker

Learning is almost always more than a single lesson. Similarly, a properly deployed Kahoot! involves multiple games in the same day or over a number of days or weeks, etc. 

Kahoot! encourages students to “look up” — and while offering some light competition students are also encourages to speak with each other, and to even help each other.

Embedding your next video into a game can make it more engaging – Harry Hawk

Kahoot!’s pedagogy encourages learners to make their own games in groups to challenge their peers with, encouraging collaboration and creativity – Jamie Brooker

Making your own game can be a game in itself – Jamie Brooker

If you already have video lectures, short educational films, or just traditional blackboard lectures they can co-exist with Kahoot!

Teachers know how hard it is to encourage and coach students so they can pull together a set of facts and personal insight while create an original narrative or research paper. Storytelling as found in game design naturally requires synthesis as “natural by-product” of game development.

At their core gaming and video are both environments for storytelling. – Harry Hawk

We tested our gaming environment “Kahoot!” in schools, to prove the engagement model before launching – Jamie Brooker

Please Listen: In this conversation with Jamie Brooker the Chief Creative Officer and Founder of Kahoot! as he explains how Kahoot! has grown to offer over 15 Million publicly accessible games and supports 40 Million active monthly users. 

Learning isn’t only for young students – Harry Hawk

Businesses that use Kahoot! will enable us to keep the product free to our educational users – Jamie Brooker

If you are a business or communications professional try using Kahoot!.  Play a game of Kahoot! with any internal team meeting; if your mission is externally focused  create Kahoot! games around critical topics.

A fun learning based game could be part of your onboarding process – Harry Hawk

Educational Engagement could be part of your Inbound Marketing Program – Harry Hawk

Some of the largest businesses in the world are already using Kahoot! at the highest Level to improve training, professional development and internal communications – Jamie Brooker

Links:

Kahoot! Make Learning Awesome

Jamie Brooker on Twitter

A special BONUS show. Harry Hawk talks with Dr. Freberg about students and social media. How she teaches social media, and how students react to “having” to use social media as part of a classroom activity or as homework, and how that differs from using it with their friends. Karen also talks about how she teaches communications and PR and includes some of the social media lesson plans and exercises in her courses. Dr. Freberg uses Twitter, SnapChat and Facebook in her classroom.

Teachers Need Peer Review

Harry’s Notes:

Steve Price is a Chain Reaction Artist

Kickstart Steve & his 15 Friends

Some Of Steve’s Work:

Business leaders in the Spring of 2015 (at the most senior levels) are still not using social media tools themselves (even senior PR Pros). Yet there is plenty of data suggesting that when the C-Suite uses social tools, it helps them and their teams strengthen consumer trust in their company. The sad fact is that often C-Suite executives are unwilling to learn the needed skills or are simply just risk adverse.

In academic circles these same two issues are often seen as a barrier. There are some who only see social media (especially Twitter) as a tool for youthful and trivial interactions instead of for its untapped potential: a gate-free medium that can facilitate cross generational and cross cultural communications.

Dr. Ono’s usage of Twitter has been recognized  as a leading example that academic leadership can harness social media to accomplish personal, professional and institutional objectives. This leadership has been recognized within the UC Community, locally in Ohio, and by researcher Dan Ziaontz.  It takes a bit of fearlessness to present yourself to your stakeholders without a safety net; it is a common perception of social media that a tiny misstep can lead to embarrassment. Dr. Ono’s acclaim stems in part from his ability to market himself adeptly in the social media realm.

President Ono recommends that individuals, departments, and companies need to find their “authentic voice.” My impression of Dr. Ono is that he considers authenticity of voice to be a critical requirement for using social tools like Twitter. While Dr. Ono makes use of a variety of social networks, his reputation for using Twitter is significant. Students at UC have analyzed his tweets, and he has taken their advice to heart, proving that his use and command of Twitter are both dynamic and evolving. He informed me during the interview that a student in Canada is analyzing his Tweets as part of his PhD. research

“Santa J. Ono is the 28th President of the University of Cincinnati, one of the nation’s top 30 public research universities. An avid user of social media, he is also an accomplished researcher in eye disease.  A new book called #FollowtheLeader (Lessons in Social Media Success from #HigherEd CEOs) says that with his use of Twitter, Dr.Ono “epitomizes the institutional champion” – ‘highlighting his university’s achievements, both academic and non-academic, interacting with key stakeholders, including students, faculty, staff, alumni, and partners; and also serving as ‘cheerleader-in-chief’ whenever possible.’ “

Education in America is focused on how many days you spend in the classroom, and the grades you are assessed. Education in America rarely focuses on mastering new skills and quantified evidence of learning. If you show up for every class and you get a passing grade, you have passed the course, even if you haven’t mastered everything covered in the course.

Students who wish to complete a course or a degree don’t have to really strive — they just have to figure out how to pass a few tests, and how to impress the teacher enough to get a passing grade; students have been known to beg, cry or even cheat their way to a better grade. Students learn that the emphasis of their studies should be focused on jumping through the right hoops, at the right time, and cramming for tests. Sure there are some students who really try for deep learning and put all their effort into their studies, but the vast majority are there to do just the most minimum effort.

College for America CFA) has designed a new approach to higher education, and theirs is the first program accredited by the US Dept. of Education based authorizing funding/payment based on skills learned vs. time spent in the class (contact hours). Students do not get letter grades, and they are not subjected to the vagueness of Pass/Fail; there is no teacher to beg for a better grade. Students are assessed with either Not Yet or Mastery. They need to fully master 120 skills to graduate, and can move through the course at their own pace. They negotiate the length of time they will spend on assignments (projects); they even get to pick their own graduation date. Miss a date? No problem, they are learning through their own “failure”.

Students at CFA have to complete about 40 unique projects. Smaller projects that are easier “to eat” are called Blue Projects. Purple projects are more complex, and involve more skills. Every student needs to complete at least 3 Purple projects, in addition to a few group projects in order to graduate. It is easy to reject any educational scheme that doesn’t involve the letters A, B, C, D & F — because we have been conditioned to see those letters as the gold standard of education.

Typically only a few students get As and that means everyone else has failed to grasp all of the material. How can that be the gold standard? Everyone learns differently and the online, self paced courses offered by CFA compel students to master each of the skills not 60% or 70% but 100%. The educational coaches at CFA, and the structure of the Blue & Purple projects, and even the negotiation over the time limits for the assignments “force” students to not only learn, but to think about how they learn, and to learn enough about themselves to master their own educational journey.

Today CFA is open to students whose employers are partnered with College for America. This includes many famous companies like McDonald’s, Dunkin Donuts, The Gap, GULF Oil, and ConAgra. They have also been cited by the White House and President Obama as one of the examples of how American education needs to transform. One of the benefits that will appeal to both students and employers is the Associate degree costs $2,500 per year. Finish in a year and $2,500 is the total bill — often paid by the employer through their tuition assistance program. CFA also offers a BA in in communications and healthcare management (with more on the way); students need to complete the Associate degree first. The BA is also very affordable.

In this episode of Talking About Everything, I discuss education theory and the practical implications for this new style of education with CFA’s Chief Learning Architect Yvonne Simon. Yvonne is the former CEO of the SNHU Online education program and was the co-founder and VP at Six Red Marbles.

In this episode I also speak with Deo Mwano who is a lead learning coach at CFA. His personal journey is remarkable but no more so than the 100s or even 1000s of educational journeys that he and his team help CFA students accomplish.

“Deo Mwano joined College for America at Southern New Hampshire University in January of 2013 as a Learning Coach and was part of the original pilot program launch. The coaching team and he developed the coaching model with a focus on the student experience. His focus was on helping students adapt and succeed in a personalized online competency program. He learned how to work with a diverse group of students and had some of the first graduates.

Today, Deo is a Team Lead Learning Coach. He develops student success skills through coaching and training other coaches and partners. He oversees coaching development strategies by researching and conducting studies on other effective coaching methods. Deo works closely with employer partners to customize the coaching support to the students’ environment.  His experience with College for America has strengthened his ability to help a wide range of people achieve their personal goals.”

Dan talks about several educational leaders he admires, like Santa J. Ono (@prezono) from UC, and Paul LeBlanc (@snhuprez) from SNHU. I’m a particular fan of Dr. LeBlanc for many reasons including that I am an SNHU alumni. Being a leader on social media doesn’t mean filling their Twitter streams with lofty quotes; often it means reaching out to rank and file members of the community and being simply accessible to students.

While Dan says he reached out to as many as 150 individuals, all of the folks in the book were initially contacted via Twitter. College and University presidents who use Twitter are not only setting the pace for their institution and their community, but also making themselves role models for all types of enterprises including businesses and non-profits.