As technology evolves and becomes more and more prevalent in media, educational institutions are having to shift their approach to learning.
Red & Yellow School has repositioned itself as a Creative School of Business, the first of its kind in South Africa. This means that the educational institution will now offer students and working professionals the commercial logic needed to grow organisations and the creativity needed to set them apart.
Creative thinking in broader business
“As technology influences our lives more and more, particularly artificial intelligence, there is increasing pressure on jobs, and the jobs of the future … are going to be in the fields where the skills needed are unique to humans. The most important business skill of the next 100 years is creative thinking, because it’s something technology massively struggles to do,” explains Rob Stokes, chairman of Red & Yellow School. The school is taking creative thinking, which it used to teach solely through the lens of marketing, and applying it to a broader business context, widening the knowledge of their students.
Bitcoin payment method
Due to student demand, the school also recently became the first educational institution in South Africa to start accepting Bitcoin as a payment option for courses. “Youngsters have made money from the cryptocurrency and have started asking ‘what will I do with this’, the smart ones are saying ‘I can invest it in myself’ … A few people came to us and asked if they could pay in Bitcoin. If students want to pay in Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies then we must facilitate that. A key part of innovation is responding to customers’ needs and this is an example of that,” says Stokes.
Key trends in media education
When asked what trends will impact media education in 2018, Stokes list three:
- User experience – conversion across all digital platforms. “The organisation that has the best user experience will be the one that can convert a lead to a customer at the best rate and that will be the organisation that wins”.
- A focus on blockchain. “People need to be asking, ‘what does blockchain mean for my industry?’ The blockchain is more important than the internet and it is going to have a sweeping impact across industries in ways that we can’t even imagine”. For those who are not ‘in the know’ about tech, a blockchain is a digital ledger in which transactions made in bitcoin or another cryptocurrency are recorded chronologically and publicly.
- Being transparent with trust – “The premium on trust and how we ascertain it and who we do or don’t trust is going to become much more important. For brands, having promises and sticking to those promises is going to become non-negotiable if you want to exist long term”.
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