Usage of social media in business education at the Aalto UniversityJari Salo, Professor of Marketing

Editor of Journal of Digital Marketing

Associate Editor of Journal of Information Technology Research

Aalto University

Aalto School of Economics

Professor of Marketing, Head of Department

Oulu Business School

University of Oulu

Department of Marketing

Bled econference Jari.salo@aalto.fi

• To shed some light on the social media usage in teaching

• To prepare students and teachers to understand the challenges related to social media usage in teaching

Objective

• According to Kaplan & Haenlein (2010) social media can be defined as

• "a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, which allows the creation and exchange of user-generated content."

What is social media ?

• 5 in-depth interviews with teaching staff of Aalto School of Economics, Department of Marketing (ranging from 40min to 1h30min)

• Senior lecturer Erik Pöntiskoski responsible for number of courses e.g. Product and Brand Management, minor study program Mediabizlab (mediabizlab.fi) in collaboration with several companies

• Joel Hietanen: Principles of Marketing & video ethnography Master thesis group

• Elina Koivisto: PhD student/lecturer

• Mikko Laukkanen: PhD student/lecturer

• Antti Sihvonen: PhD student/lecturer

• + own experiences of teaching over 30 different courses (+ having a degree in pedagogy / teaching)

Methodology

• Established in 2010, Aalto University is strongly future-oriented while at the same time building on the combined 300-year-history of three highly-regarded universities. It was created by a merger of the Helsinki School of Economics, Helsinki University of Technology and the University of Art and Design Helsinki.

• At the Aalto School of Economics, (formerly HSE), The Center for Innovative Education (CIE) is dedicated to the advancement and implementation of innovative education in the university. It was founded May 13, 1996. CIE is working in eLearning support, managing eLearning systems and teaching faculty training and education. The CIE also co-ordinates the Finnish Virtual University activities of the HSE.

• Similar centers for improving education exist in all Finnish universities

• Technologies are bodies of skills, knowledge, and procedures for making, using, and doing useful things" (Merrill 1968).

History of ”improving utilization of technology”

How we did things before 2010Tools (in adopted order)

Issues (+/-) for students

Issues (+/-) for teacher

Issues (+/-) for school

Learning outcomes

Webpage Privacy issues-public, Download material,

If knowledgeable easy to use

Easy to admistrate (cost to serve etc)

Passively if at all achieved

Secured webpage with a discussion group

Security, Download material, discuss with other students

If knowledgeable easy to use(deliver material, discuss)

Easy to admistrate (cost to serve etc)

A bit more active , maybe other studens views are visible

Optima (intranet) Secured, material available, discussions, return excercixe, teachers comments and other students comments

If knowledgeable easy to use (deliver material, discuss, usually teacher had to force students to discuss)

More resources needed for educating teachings, helping when needed. Altogether admistrative cost are higher

A bit better outcomes, other students are posting general comments and specific comments for exercises and teachers are participating on discussions

• Common thread in all education tools described above• We forced students to

• Download material, • Read and comment materials• Submit exercises (cases, summaries, learning diaries)• Comment others exercises, (group 1 comments group 10 and vice versa)• Post own comments / ideas

• Results:• Students are forced to do things, its not fun, small number of students are

active if at all. They get small reward yes, but for most its not interesting enough or motivating enough

• Side note to discussion groups: Some of the FB generation of students were not familiar or did not know or felt awkward to utilize old fashioned Fishbone discussion groups (where moderators and pseudonyms are used).

How we did things before 2010

After 2010 (in some programs and courses)

• Linked to course webpage

• Purpose: Teacher can up-date on the go what is going on, easy to post emerging themes, issues, and happenings,

• e.g. visiting lecture from Nokia has the new gadget with him at the bar Nolla if u like come and see the device and discuss with managers before the product is launched

• Posting links, re-tweeting important issues

• Student benefits: More interactive, fun and fresh information and possibilities to participate in ad-hoc events

After 2010- Twitter

• In some cases students have established Facebook page and a group for a course and later invited teacher(s) to join

• In other cases teachers are establishing Facebook groups and students are joining (usually younger teachers!)

• Some teachers don't want to be ”friends” with students still• Note that FB groups can be used without being ”friends”

• Teachers might perceive blurring of teacher/social me boundaries when interacting in FB while students don’t seem to bother (shared/private profiles)

After 2010- Facebook

• Purpose of using FB:

• Sharing material• Chat• Asking questions from teachers and peers is more easier and giving feedback• Commenting exercises• Students share links, tips and news about marketing and other current situations

• Students have strong netiquette as they only post relevant topics• Of course not all students are joining these groups and other means

of communication are needed• In Product and Brand Management class 30 out 50 students joined

FB group• As a result, students are roughly 10 times more active than in

traditional discussion groups or in e-learning environment (Optima, Blackboard, Moodle, WebCT, etc.)

After 2010- Facebook

• Questions to address: – Group size (25 vs. 300)– If 300 students its difficult to evaluate activity, thus smaller

classes are preferred while using FB

• Benefits from Consumer Culture class:• More active discussion, natural interaction platform for

students• Tips & links posted• Video material• Positive feedback from students• Secondary interaction platform

After 2010- Facebook

Aalto Department of Marketing (internal group)

• Netnographic approach (e.g. Kozinets, Valck etc.)

• Purpose: Industry specific insights or gaining managerially valid ideas

• Task: get to know logic of some group and actively follow one discussion group. What are professionals currently discussing ? e.g. in Philips healthcare, SAP group or in digital marketing group

• Participate and ask questions in discussion groups

• Prepare report

After 2010- Linkedin:

Some of my Linkedin groups

• Guest lecture: utilize existing video instead e.g. Ted Talk (time consuming – going though 100 “bad” videos

• Used in Principles of Marketing, Digital Marketing and Product and Brand Management

• Utilization in Product and Brand Management course:

• Task/purpose: How consumers / users are using products in their every day life ? Get insights into how users are utilizing products and how you can use that knowledge to develop better products

After 2010- Youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKZNdMSUmK0

• YouTube usage in Digital Marketing (Nokia case)

• Purpose: identify value drivers for updating SW of Nokia mobile phone

• End user benefits for updating the SW : e.g. longer battery life, better services etc.

• First, students create video illustrating benefits of updating Nokia mobile phones SW

• Second, use social media and any means possible (blogs, celebrities, FB, LinkedIn etc.) to drive traffic to the video (viral-e-wom)

• Three of the best campaigns were rewarded

After 2010- YouTube

• Minor study program: Mediabizlab- Few companies are funding but almost one hundred is participating- Program extended over one year- Courses last up to six months- Company specific research project (company-student-teacher meetings)

• Twice a month students are blogging about their research project that they are actively doing with one of the companies.

• Result: Other participating companies get • new information, • up-date to information about the project • teachers get to know students better and how students are developing and

progressing, • other students read fresh material and get new insights and comment and

extend ideas.

After 2010- Blogs

• Master thesis can be done with videography • Usually related to company needs (e.g. Valio Finnish dairy

producer – package design innovations)• Seminar leader PhD student Joel Hietanen who won best

video ethnography award in Advances in Consumer Research (ACR) video track

• 22 minute video (same as TV series without commercials) + text based thesis 30-50 pages)

• Currently 3 students in a group, two have graduated

• One of the graduates is a professional film maker • Is this easier for students ? No spent 6000€ on materials,

rental equipment, travel etc. + 50 pages of text thesis)• His work is submitted to ACR video track

After 2010- Video ethnography

• Challenges:• Firm specific research questions sometimes difficult to come by• Cost of equipment• Unfamiliar method

After 2010- Videoetnography

”Brothers in paint” academic videography(ACR best video award)

• Secondlife used for Lablife teaching experiment

• Swedish course for chemical engineering students

• Using avatars to learn Swedish language used in laboratories

http://sites.google.com/site/lablife3d/

After 2010- Virtual worlds

• 5 street virtual world

• Students experimenting with virtual world

• Doing a report on self-presentation with avatar, consumption, brands, music etc.

• Public and private discussion with other students and others in the virtual world 5 street

• 5 street teaching tied to research on virtual worlds: paper on self-presentation in virtual world submitted to ACR

After 2010- Virtual worlds

• All the tools used previously (optima, web pages, online education systems) are still used

• But also new social media tools are utilized

• There should be a purpose for using new tools

• FB is cool – its not enough

To conclude

• Students are not passive audience anymore

• We can engage them with social media • Searching knowledge• Producing knowledge (videos, blogs, raports…)• Teaching others• Trialing different marketing campaigns

To conclude

• Context - which course ?• Adopting gradually (one application for each

course?)

• Purpose: What learning outcome is aimed at ?

• Remember that students have individual learning styles

• Kinesthetic

• Visual

• Auditory

To conclude

THANKS !Q&A

Jari.salo@aalto.fi