Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Guest: So I think that there's work to do that is not hard work. It's just like being thoughtful and planful at the work that you're already doing that can tackle those questions and portray diversity or whatever it is that you're looking to do without doing it inauthentically because the risks are too high to be called out for that, to have that when people are going to hear about retention on the other side too.
[00:00:31] Host: Welcome to the EdTechConnect podcast, your source for exploring the cutting edge world of educational technology. I'm your host, Jeff Dillon, and I'm excited to bring you insights and inspiration from the brightest minds and innovators shaping the future of education. We'll dive into conversations with leading experts, educators, and solution providers who are transforming the learning landscape. Be sure to subscribe and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform so.
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[00:01:01] Host: So sit back, relax, dive in.
[00:01:08] Host: Today we have Georgie Cohen. Georgie serves as the Vice President of Digital Strategy at OHO Interactive, a full service digital agency based in Boston, Massachusetts. With nearly two decades of experience in digital content, she dedicated her career to enhancing online engagement for universities and various organizations. Her professional journey began in journalism, including a three year tenure in the dynamic online newsroom of the Boston Globe. Transitioning to higher education, she held pivotal roles at Tufts University and Suffolk University, where she spearheaded digital communications initiatives. In 2011, Georgie Co founded Meet Content, a resource aimed at empowering institutions to create and maintain effective web content. A recognized thought leader, she frequently shares her expertise at industry conferences. Georgie's passion lies in crafting sustainable digital strategies that resonate with audiences and drive institutional success.
[00:02:11] Host: So welcome to the show, Georgie. I'm really excited to have you today.
[00:02:15] Guest: Thanks Jeff. I'm excited to chat.
[00:02:18] Host: So your career started in journalism at the Boston Globe?
[00:02:22] Guest: Yes.
[00:02:23] Host: How has that background shaped your approach to digital strategy in higher ed?
[00:02:29] Guest: So it's funny, I was a journalism major in college and at the time I switched to journalism because I thought that it would pay better than creative writing. Fun fact, it doesn't really pay better than creative writing. At the same time I was learning journalism in college, I was a very, very nerdy person. I was very online at the time, which meant like BBS's and like use that and like the web is in its infancy at that point still. But as I got on through college, I got more and more into web design and learning about things like that and online journalism. And so working at the Boston Globe, I was actually in the newsroom for Breaking News So my job was half like breaking news and half like helping put the Boston Globe online. So it was a fascinating time. From 2001 to 2004, working at Newsroom, there was a ton of stuff happening. And the most important thing that I've taken from my journalism background into this work is the power of a good question. Because the story you're going to get is only as good as the questions that you ask. And you have to go into anything. So whether you're writing a story for a newspaper or you're doing discovery for a website project, you have this moment in time where you can learn and learn. It doesn't just happen. People aren't just going to throw the most important information at you. You have to find ways to extract it. So cultivating curiosity into a practice has served me well throughout my career. And the other thing that working in news, it really helps you do is work on a deadline and work when there's a lot going on and being able to sort of bang something out. So that's a little more of a practical skill, but more fundamentally, just the power of inquiry and being thoughtful about that.
[00:04:18] Host: I love that when you have a podcast, I know that the importance, the significance of asking. Asking great questions, too. It really hits home. I've seen you at many conferences. We kind of have our circuit overlap. And I've watched you talk. And we have another thing in common. One of my first jobs out of college was working at a newspaper, but I wasn't in the newsroom. I was in the ad department, but way back in the day. I'm curious what you think the biggest shifts are you've seen, or one of the biggest shifts you've seen, how colleges are approaching digital content over the past decade.
[00:04:51] Guest: It's interesting. I feel like the shift that we're seeing is in a few different ways, and it's slow. It's very gradual. This isn't like suddenly everyone's got it right because there's still a lot of challenges. But I think there's a few shifts. One is, and this is what the smart institutions are doing, they're seeing the importance of value over volume, that it's not about just creating content and that we wrote content and created stuff and put it out there, and that is good. We have done our job, and that is the end. No, it's. That's a means to an end. And if you don't put out the right content, then it doesn't matter. So being more thoughtful about not just publishing, but what you're Publishing, how you're distributing it, what it's doing for you, like that is the direction that institutions are starting to head. I think it depends on the organization, but there's more of a shift. That's a critical shift because resources are few and far between and the stakes are at an all time high. So to be able to work efficiently, integrate, impact is extremely important. One of the biggest trends that I see really is you just think about how long the web has been around. Like I said, In 97, when I started college, it was just in its infancy. Um, so you think about how long the web has been around and, and colleges historically, I think, you know, they, you had these like PR teams and then they kind of sidecar on like some web person and that, you know, I think some teams grew in a more integrated way, but a lot of teams that I worked on and other teams that I've worked with, the web was never fully truly integrated. It was still kind of like a thing. So you said you had like PR and you had the magazine and you had the web over here. Instead of being an integrated function, like an evolution of the work, it became a team and people. You had graphic designers who were never upskilled to understand HTML and CSS and things like that. And then you had your edu and it just became a place for stuff, for sites. And it's like, oh, your cousin's roommate wants a site. Yeah, sure, here. So it's the poor stewardship of the organization aligned to the evolving kind of digital expectations and needs really. And seeing the digital space as a business critical landscape for an organization and then having these digital properties that just kind of like people creating stuff without a plan. And suddenly you have hundreds of micro sites and Suddenly you have 90,000 pages on your Edu domain and suddenly you have. And then you're like, why is my search not working and why is my SEO bad? It's like, well, you know, you don't need to hire, like, yeah, you can hire people to help you, but like it's not like we're going to input a tool and it's going to fix it. Like these are problems that go back decades if you think about it. But it's because of like the failure to think about digital as a system and to think of it as like a team of like these four people. And then just looking at it as like, oh, it's easy to do. I can publish anything and I can do this stuff. But not seeing the cost of that ease. I wrote an article about this in Inside Higher Ed last year, where it's kind of like this reckoning where institutions, some institutions are beginning to look around like, oh, it's like the morning after the party where you wake up, you're like, there's pizza boxes everywhere and beer balls. You're like, oh, this isn't good and mom's going to be home at noon. I got to clean this up. But, you know, I think seeing that this is having a business cost, there's inefficiencies, there's, you know, failure to evolve as an organization, sort of still relying on legacy platforms, a lack of systems thinking and planfulness in that way that is having impacts on the efficacy of the team, on the efficacy and the impact of the communications. It's causing budget drain. There's a lot of negative impacts to that which are not always immediately apparent, but are there? So I feel like there's more. Yeah, for a while, it's like, I've worked at OHO for 10 years and for a long time I was like, hey, can you redesign the website? Can you redesign the website? It's like, yeah, totally, we can redesign a website. And now we're getting handed these, like, kind of hairier problems that are not just a website. It's like, digital is here. What do we do? And it's kind of a mess. And that's the right. You know, it kind of sounds like an inarticulate question, but it's an important question to ask because, yeah, a lot of institutions, both large and small, digital can be a mess. Right now. There's just different people, different entities buying products and the governance is messed up. So, you know, that's that shift that I see is beginning to sort of wake up to that and realize that there needs to be more accountability to making sure that we're being planful and thoughtful about the edu.
[00:09:54] Host: You talk about the, the harrier projects or requests. I always think of like the school coming to you and saying, we needed, we need to increase our digital engagement. We need a digital engagement platform. Or like, okay, what do you. What do you mean?
[00:10:08] Guest: What do you.
[00:10:08] Host: What are you talking about? There's so many ways you can interpret these terms we have now.
[00:10:12] Guest: Oh, yeah.
[00:10:13] Host: Earlier on in your response, you talked about it's not done when you create the content. That's so true. Like, we're the victims of our success from 10, 15 years ago when we implemented these CMSs that are now. We haven't really governed them very well. A lot of, you know, there's just so Many people managing pages, it's hard to wrangle those. But I've spent the last few years of my career focusing on the discovery of that. So we've created it all. And now you talk about web redesigns. I talk a lot about that, too. Is like, okay, how do we make sure the right person gets the right content at the right time when It's. We have 90,000 pages on our website. How do you, from Oho's perspective and agency perspective, talk about, you know, optimizing content discovery?
[00:10:56] Guest: One of the things that we always try to do is root whatever we're doing and understanding, like, the why and the who. Like, what is this trying to achieve? Whom are you trying to engage with it? Like, before we get into thinking about the content itself and looking at anything, it's really about understanding to what end is this serving and making sure there's clarity around that piece. And then the answers to those questions are going to really guide what you do next in terms of what needs to get cold or consolidated or restructured or changed, the hierarchy or rewritten or whatever needs to happen, removed, added. It's having that foundation really set. And I feel like some organizations, again, sort of leap to the need to create something to solve a problem. And oftentimes the real problem is just a lack of understanding or just sort of taking a pause and being like, what are we doing and why? What is this going to achieve? And then equipping yourself to measure and understand the outcome of that, to know that putting something out in the world is not the end of the story, it's only the beginning of the story. And if that entity, that piece of content is infused with purpose, then that gives you something that you can measure and understand. Okay, we're hoping it would do this. This did or didn't happen. And then get a feedback loop of like, how do we do this better in the future? Do we do less of this, more of this? We do it differently. And I think that's the piece that smarter organizations are getting clued into, is understanding that it's not just about pushing the stuff out there. If you want to sort of build that optimization piece, first you start with purpose and focus and thinking about audience, and then that shapes the product, and then it's the measurement loop that you understand, did the product, what that purpose was, set it out to do.
[00:12:46] Host: It's tricky, right, because we have so many audiences. It's not just prospective students, right? We have all these donors. We have even, you know, internal audiences. And this content is spread across websites, portals, platforms, directories. So I want to dig in just a little bit here and say, like, one of the strategies that I always talk about that I've really seen schools scrambling to right now is optimizing their site search on their, on their pages, not just their website, but having a cohesive search. What are some ways you're kind of solving this complexity of higher ed? So many subdomains, audiences, Personas, lack of digital governance. Like, what's your take on kind of some specific strategies for that?
[00:13:28] Guest: I think governance is at the crux of a lot of it, because if you have poor governance, that's going to lead to having a big bloated site full of random stuff that's going to clog up your search. Poor governance will mean that you don't have policies that don't just let anybody create anything, right? So I think fundamentally it's about, like curing a disease, not fixing a symptom, right? All of those issues that you have with your website, with your findability, with your content, with whatever, it all comes goes back to something organizational like, that's like a huge fundamental belief that I have. We can, you know, improve how search works and we can do content audits and we can recommend, you know, how to sort of organize and call content differently and things like that. But if you don't want things to occur, you really have to think, look at your habits, right? It's like, what are our habits as an organization for how we publish and how things get done and make sure that we're being attentive to those processes and those policies so that we're being, again, thoughtful stewards of the digital space and not just letting things happen, because that's the root issue.
[00:14:34] Host: The step forward always seems to be coming back to clean up your content. And that's really foundation for digital governance, right? How do we do that? Well, we got to have like the right team and processes in place. So think of AI now. AI is reshaping all these digital experiences. You know, I think again, for AI, we need to be doing this. But how do you see AI enhancing or possibly complicating higher ed's approach to digital strategy?
[00:15:00] Guest: I think where it can complicate things is when people look at it as like a panacea. Right. I listened to your conversation with, with Joel Goodman previously and, you know, his idea of like, you know, being a critic or a skept. And, you know, I think I'm definitely not an, I think enthusiast was the other term that he raised. Like, I'M cautious. I don't think there's anything that is like a foolproof solution. So I think the complication is organizations putting all their eggs in that basket. Like it's a magic, you know, magic solution that's going to fix everything. And it's not like it's a plug in that you add to your site and then magical things happen. Like there's fundamental things that you have to think about, which is the stuff that's like not sexy. And let's like talk about like content structure and things like that that people don't want to talk about. But like if you want findability through generative search, traditional search, like, you know, chat bots, like anything like that, it's like, okay, is your content good? Is it up to date? Is it well structured? Is it clear? Like that's what's going to help you at the end of the day. But there's a lot out there right now, a lot of hype, a lot of tools and a lot of, you know, I think noise that distracts from really understanding. It's like there's real consequences to the environmental aspect, the labor aspect, like the intellectual property aspect. There's real concerns that I don't think we can ignore. And I'm not saying I think that there's value to it. I think that there's ways to use that to help build efficiency into our processes, to use time for other things. But I think if institutions who profess to have values about sustainability and things like that just sort of go all in on a tool that where those are major concerns. Like I don't think it's a good practice to be blind to that. I think we have to be open about it and not pretend that these things aren't happening. But be like there are trade offs, there's trade offs of driving a car, right? Like if I drive my car, it's going to be really convenient for me. But there's an environmental trade off. I have to be thoughtful about that. Just like we have to be thoughtful about AI. It's like, do I want to take that trade off? You know, is it worth the investment basically? So I think the complication is just rushing in and seeing it as a cure all and not being true to really I think many institutions values and just being thoughtful and also not understanding the work that is going to take to really help those solutions be the most successful for you.
[00:17:26] Host: Yeah, that's great advice. And you mentioned Joel's episode. That was episode 23amonth or so ago. So if you like what you're hearing today, go back. And the one with Joel is a great conversation too. I think the message I got from that too was stop talking about yourself. Universities talk about your, your customers problems. So with AI, like you and I have been at the same conferences and seeing like all these tools coming out that are kind of like, they're really, they seem magic and like, wow. And you see people, audience saying it's polarizing now, like, wow, that's great. But how do we deal with the ethics of this? Like, how are we going to reduce hallucinations? Like, they see it, they can see kind of the potential. But we're so far over here, like kind of behind the times. To go jump that far is not a very high red thing to do, but it's fun to aspire and see what's possible, you know.
[00:18:16] Guest: Yeah. And I think that, you know, a risk is that, you know, if there's an institution that is struggling and like, it's like, wow, we need butts and seats. Like, we need this, we need that. I think it can be tempting to see that as like, this is what the people want kind of thing. And this is going to be really great. But I think what you're saying before about focusing on your people, on your users, what do they need? What do they want? Just answering those questions, delivering relevant information. And that's where the data can help you, right? Is understanding that user research can help you understand that. And I think that those are fundamental, critically important things that can directly deliver ROI without having to sort of, you know, go down the path of like a fancy tool. Necessarily the.
[00:18:57] Host: What I'm seeing with AI, the most success right now, and one of them is out of industry, I'll say is the kind of this data analysis. A company called Ninja Cat is doing incredible work where it's almost like a $300,000 a year data scientists they've replaced with an agent to interact with large data sets for like car manufacturers and financial institutions. So these executives can say, give me last quarter's report. How did Dallas compare to Tennessee? Boom, boom. And let's just. So it's just incredible. So I'm seeing that. But also on the other front with I talk about content discovery with search. If we start in the back end, like with the company I work closely with search decks on the back end, we can start using AI to even connect it with a human layer. So like, hey, AI is suggesting this in the back end. Let's connect some dots and see. Do you want AI to connect, you know, provide these results. And we're seeing a lot of success in that way. So if we start in the back end, I think it's a good way for higher ed to start. And this whole generative AI, let's give some answers in this kind of format, I think that'll kind of be there someday. But if you look around, there's not a lot of that happening right now successfully in that way, you know, yeah.
[00:20:02] Guest: There'S a lot of, there's a lot of liabilities there. And I think that that way of looking at those, those technologies is helping with the data crunching and helping the humans do better work. Right. Because I'm going to have a better handle on our outcomes or what's happening or having a layer that's going to help me help do some of the thinking before I then deliver a solution or interface with somebody or whatever. I posted about this on LinkedIn recently where I'm like, there's so much tendency towards disintermediation lately. And as someone who, like, for so much of my career has been preaching about authenticity and the value of authenticity and again, going back to the idea of institutions, stop talking about yourselves and let your students talk about themselves and their experience. Like, hey, I'm a sophomore, I did a cool thing. I'd much rather see that than we're the best college, right? But there's so much happening now between AI and other sort of things that are getting in the way of those authentic perspectives. Obviously we have a lot of what's happening with the government and a lot of those policy changes. Institutions are feeling cautious to sort of curb how they talk about their communities and changing that. So it's sobering to see those shifts. And I think now more than ever, I think we have to be finding ways to elevate authenticity. So how can, if we're going to be using these technologies, don't put them in between you and the people. It's more important than ever to be connected to your users, to be connected to your community. So if you're going to use those tools, let them help you do that with greater ease and don't put them as a way wedge between you and the people who are trying to engage with you.
[00:21:42] Host: That's a great point. It's a good. I have a comment to segue to our next question, which is it's this, this fear of AI within higher ed, where, you know, there's tools out there now where we can translate things into different languages and then, and make it Appear like somebody is talking another language. If they don't know that, it's very easy. It's really, I think it's kind of amazing. And I was kind of throwing some ideas out to some, to some universities, like, hey, your university could deliver a speech in your international students native language.
[00:22:08] Host: It's really easy.
[00:22:09] Host: Let's just. You could do it this way and you explain that. And there's this big question of ethics, like, should we be doing that? You know, I'm very much like, we should try these things and do it. You know, what if we put a disclaimer that this was generated by AI, Is that so bad? You know, Matt, your president, some presidents.
[00:22:25] Host: Might not want to do that.
[00:22:25] Host: Some might, but the reaction of such so much hesitancy is just where we're at. It's kind of a really, It's a temperature of higher ed that like, yeah, we can do it, but I don't know if we should be doing that. And I think that's almost kind of low hanging fruit. That's kind of my, my perspective of it. But that's what we're kind of that industry we're in.
[00:22:41] Guest: You know, I think that's a lot of the questions nowadays. It's like, yeah, we can, but should we? Right, right. I think that's, that's in a lot of ways, like there's, there's a lot of sort of aspects of life nowadays where that's the main question is like, well, we can do that, but should we do that? And it's like, yes, we can spend an hour or less and use a tool to have the president of my college give a speech in German or in Urdu or in Mandarin Chinese or whatever. And I can do that, but do I need to also if the president gives an important address and they're a native English Guestnd you want to offer translations to.
We're working with a college right now, or they have a lot of their students also speak Chinese and Vietnamese and Spanish and a couple other languages. So we're talking about translation modules and things like that that you can generate a audio translation and a transcript of the translation as well, but it doesn't have to be in that person's. It doesn't have their mouth saying like, that's like a clever neato thing that doesn't need. It's unnecessary. Right. And it creates confusion. So it's like, yeah, let's provide that in different languages. Like that. If that's a need to provide content in different languages. Yeah, let's do that. Let's use a tool to help us do that and engages our audience. Do we need to do, like, the clever trick? Is that going to add value? Is that going to really help or add clarity? And I would argue no, but providing the audio and the transcript in different languages, yeah, that could add value. And if an AI tool could help us do that more efficiently, then, yeah, let's look into that.
[00:24:14] Host: Well, let me throw one more example at you. So we've all been in the seat. Well, you have and I have. I'm sure that the university is looking for the perfect photo to show diversity. Right. We need the right people on the admissions book, the representation of our ideal community. Well, now we can just create it with midjourney or Dolly or it's just much easier to do that. Is that the direction we should be going?
[00:24:37] Guest: Absolutely not. 100%, no. I feel like all that university has is its community is what it is.
I think people are very smart and savvy. The students. Percent of students and their families are very savvy consumers. And we've done a lot of user research about that, have touched on topics relating to diversity and portrayals of diversity on websites and things like that. And when you have, like, you know, some rainbow couture, one arm in arm from, like, different races, like, people hate that. People hate seeing, you know, token, you know, sort of like, oh, there's your token sort of black student that shows up on all these pages or things like that. Like, you know, they even notice, like, small details. Like, worked with a Catholic school once and there was like a classroom shot and we were just like, doing some or testing. We're really asking about the photo, but they're like, oh, I see a crucifix on the wall of that classroom. And that's really meaningful to me because I'm very into my faith as a Catholic. And that says to me that this is a very serious place where your faith is taken seriously. I was like, oh, that's really interesting and valuable to know. It's not what you're asking, but I feel like it's too much of a risk to alienate and to effectively lie. Like, there's so many institutions that they have aspirations to be diverse, right? And we worked with a lot of schools where they struggle with that. It's like, hey, we're not where we want to be, but we're doing this work to become more inclusive again, these are conversations had maybe, like, within the previously, not necessarily in the past month, but just to say it's like, hey, our reality does not match where we're aiming to go. So what we always advise is like, don't misrepresent yourself, but tell the story of progress. If Your faculty was 10% of color five years ago and is now 20% of color, share that and share that. It's because of the XYZ initiatives that you had. Make sure that in your editorial planning, you're including stories and experiences from students of different backgrounds. Right? So I think that there's work to do that is not hard work. It's just like being thoughtful and planned about the work that you're already doing that can tackle those questions and portray diversity or whatever it is that you're looking to do without doing it inauthentically because the risks are too high to be called out for that, to have that when people are going to hear about retention on the other side too, right? If you sell a false bill of goods, and we've heard about this from schools, if people then get to campus like, whoa, this is all white kids. Like, I'm gonna go.
So we can't just be thinking about, get them in the door, but. But keep them in the room too.
[00:27:24] Host: So, you know, I totally agree. I feel like in the spirit of authenticity, haven't we already been in this boat with just the usage of stock photography?
[00:27:32] Guest: Yeah, 100. It's the same thing, just.
[00:27:34] Host: Just a quicker version of it. Now we can cross that line easier, right? So let's go into, like, how do we track our success in higher ed? Like, what are. What do you think are the most meaningful ways the university can measure the success of its digital strategy beyond just web traffic?
[00:27:49] Guest: I mean, web traffic is. I'm not gonna say it's meaningless, but it's not the end result. Right? Because again, going back to that idea of purpose, the goals that you have should not really have anything to do with the website. The goals that you have might be to increase awareness of, like, your brand identity, your brand pillars and your. Elevate your reputation. Have yourself better known for your research. Convert, get students in the door, get more students in these programs. Get people to come to open house, get more funding, get more donors. The goals that you should be thinking about have nothing to do with the Internet. Now, the Internet, the web traffic and the conversions and all those things are going to help tell you if you're on track to achieve those broader goals. But I think that it starts with that sense of purpose, and that's how we think about measurement, is like, what are your business Goals, what are you trying to accomplish here? And then what are the metrics that are going to help us understand if that's working? And are you also set up to measure that effectively? Again, it's thinking about being purposeful and planful as an organization and being equipped to sort of put out content that aligns to that strategy and then really, truly have understand if you're achieving that. And so having a measurement practice that is set up in a way where if you're being smart and you're creating content, you're doing it in a way that's cross platform. Right? So something is happening. We've thought about it from the social angle and the news angle and the magazine angle and the YouTube angle and whatever makes sense for the story. Maybe video doesn't make sense. Maybe it should just be only video. Right. We're being thoughtful about the content. We're putting it out there. Everything is set up and to be tracked accordingly. We're able to understand comprehensively how this story performed across different platforms. It was amazing on LinkedIn. It bombed on Facebook. That tells us something about our audience. Right? So it's that maturity and you talk about sort of like where you know, where hire needs to go. It's. It's building that maturity to be able to not just put great stuff out there, but to really understand truly how great it is by learning what it does out in the world. I always think of a story as like a little person with a backpack going off to like war or something and then they come back and it's like, oh, did you win the war? Like, look at the medals on their chest. But like, you know, it's going out there is like sort of the. I've used it before, like the foot soldier of your brand. Like going out there into the world to be like, hey, look, we're doing a cool thing. But you know, how are you going to understand if that's actually working?
So it's being. Having to have some maturity around how you're thinking about the data collection and the measurement and tying that again to what you're trying to do as an organization. Not, oh, well, I got a thousand page views. Like who?
To what end? Like did they bounce? Like what's.
[00:30:43] Host: I love the so what question that I get from leadership. Well, that was really a fun conversation, Georgie. I think I'm going to end it on that great advice and perspective and I will put links to Georgie's LinkedIn and Oho Interactive in the show notes. And it was great having you, Georgie.
[00:31:01] Guest: Thanks, Chef. This was a great chat. Appreciate your time.
[00:31:04] Host: All right. Bye. Bye.
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