It has not even been a week, and my head is spinning with ideas, takeaways, and notes for what I can bring back to my classes and work in the USA.
Traveling and seeing the world opens your eyes more than anything you could ever imagine. As I entered this journey to spend some part of my sabbatical down in Australia and New Zealand, I had some things in mind I’d like to accomplish and do.
It’s truly been an amazing learning experience for me so far.
Here are some things below I wanted to share with you about my experience so far in Australia:
Learning the USC class structure. Karen and I have been sitting down and not only brainstorming new ideas for new social media classes for USC to offer, but also see what they are doing so far.
What has been interesting has been the overall class structure in terms of not only what is covered, but assessing the work of the students. For example, all classes have three assessments (range of exams, papers, and group projects). This is the max they can have their students do, which I think is interesting. For my social media class back in the USA, I have about six or so items I grade my students on.
The other aspect of the classes here in Australia is the fact that the classes are not pure face-to-face or online, but more blended. Meaning, during the class, lectures are recorded and students are able to join the class live online. However, if students face-to-face want to experience the online component of the class, they can.
All of these discussions have been happening all on the USC campus, which is truly gorgeous! It reminds me so much of California with a Hawaiian twist to it. It serves around 3,000 students here on the main campus, and everyone has been SUPER friendly and welcoming to me!
What is also amazing is during the time I am here, I have been awarded the title of Associate Adjunct Instructor for USC! Truly honored with this title!
Experiential learning embraced across ALL classes. When I was sitting down with Karen and reviewing the classes she offers at USC, she explained to me that all of her classes, from the first social media class to the management senior level and social media internship classes, all have students working with clients.
Imagine – by the time you graduate from school, not only do you have several classes under your belt in social media, but you are walking away with an undergraduate degree (yes, an undergraduate degree) working with at least 4-5 clients. This shows the nature and overall culture of having experiential learning as a core fundamental component to embrace for your students. I was super impressed to see this!
The clients too range from small businesses to large entities, and even some from outside of Australia. For example, Karen is going to be taking a few students to India to help out four clients on their social media practices. This is truly next level – what a great learning and professional opportunity here for these students!
Social media is embraced by all disciplines. I loved having the chance to share how researchers could use social media not just for research purposes, but also for personal branding. Karen had arranged and coordinated a workshop session for me to do with several professors at USC.
It was a great session filled with questions on how to analyze certain platforms and tools (had to give a shout out to tools like Talkwalker, Zoomph, Klear, and Mentionmapp!). I also discussed the importance of how it is key to brand your work, and why this is important. I discussed how I use Adobe products (like Adobe Spark and Adobe Premiere Rush) in my classes and what we were able to do last year with The Breeders’ Cup.
Adobe (they truly are the best!) has also been a HUGE tool that everyone was talking about as well. I had many different professors ask me about Adobe and what they are doing for their products and how to integrate them into their classes. I was thrilled to be able to talk about my experience with Adobe and what they have done to really help build a strong bridge between education and practice. Plus, I did let them know they were going to have a higher education event in Melbourne (will be speaking there in March!) they may want to check out.
I also thoroughly enjoyed the conversations I had with individual professors who had questions for me about their work. Everyone had a lot of enthusiasm for what they could do with the field, and everyone thanked me for taking the time to share this with them. I thanked them because I was learning already so much from being here!
It was truly a win-win situation!
It’s all about having balance. In the USA, we seem to have this mentality we have to be hustling 24/7 or if we are not working, we are not doing what we are supposed to be doing. I have always believed we have to have balance – you can do the work if you focus on this 100%, but then you have to embrace other aspects of your life to be able to come back at full force.
Since arriving in the Sunshine Coast, it has been clear there is a strong sense of balance and how taking the time to take breaks and see things from a holistic perspective, is quite refreshing. While Karen and I have been working hard on our projects and other activities, we have had the chance to take some time to punch around some ideas!
Exercise of course has been another thing that we both enjoy – and Karen took me to a boxing class before our lunch meeting regarding an industry event. We had a blast – great workout and time to even still talk about ideas for social media!
Perception of USA marketing influencers. There are some things that are quite the same when it comes to the US and Australia, and that is when influencers come into play. This has been a big topic this week for us.
I was prepared to be asked questions about the USA in other capacities, but the most reactions I got were pertaining to influencers in the USA, particularly those who pride themselves as marketing and social media influencers.
During a Future of Media event we went to in Brisbane, we got a sense of the current state of influencers and how they are being used here in Australia, but also in the Asian markets and beyond.
What has been very interesting is to hear the experience here with the professionals in Australia with US influencers, particularly in marketing and social media. Some have been good experiences, and then there have been some that have raised some eyebrows. I am not going to name any names here, but it was surprising to hear these experiences and how this has impacted the views of how marketing and social media professionals (who claim to be influencers) are viewed in the USA.
On the other hand, there are other professionals who have major fan clubs down here in Australia because they are the real deal and they are offering value to the community. Dennis Yu, Brian Solis, and Mark Schaefer were three who were mentioned many times about what value and great work they bring to the table. You three have some major fans here in Australia!
Summary
While it is just the first week being here in Australia, I have gained and learned so much. It’s been really rewarding to collaborate, learn, and work on all of these projects. There are going to be several other activities and events in the work, which I am very excited about, and will keep you all posted on this!
Have a great day, everyone!
Best Wishes,
