Over the past semester, I’ve been grateful for the opportunity to participate in BEMM129, an experimental course offered by the University of Exeter. The course was taught almost completely online; but what really made it different was the role of learners themselves in building the course. Prompts for learner comments were scattered throughout the course content, asking students to express their opinions on issues covered or provide examples. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed scrolling through these responses and learning about other people’s perspectives. I found these discussion spaces particularly useful at points in the course which discussed concepts like the circular economy. These ideas can sometimes feel a bit vague and difficult to grasp, and having a wide variety of examples discussed underneath really helped me to wrap my mind around the concepts.
Another huge advantage of the learner contribution in this course was the variety of cultural perspectives that I was exposed to. The BEMM129 course alone had learners from dozens of countries on it – I won’t even mention the FutureLearn MOOC! Although I benefit from this diversity in regular university courses too, I found that, for whatever reason, people seemed to share more examples from their countries online. For example, I found Shiyan’s post about Vogue’s digital strategy in China incredibly interesting, and I doubt that I would have come across this information otherwise.
One aspect of this course that I particularly enjoyed was having people comment on my blog posts. I found that some of the comments on my posts were really probing and asked great questions. Many people pointed out facts or examples that I hadn’t come across despite doing fairly extensive research for the posts. These interactions prompted me to dig deeper, even after the assignment was submitted. This is in stark contrast to my usual experience of submitting assignments, which is essentially just ‘finish it and forget about it’. I also really enjoyed being able to see what other people wrote in their responses to the same question. Reading other people’s work gave me ideas about how I could improve my own in the following blog post, especially with regard to using infographics, videos and more: I was amazed by the creativity of some people on the course!
In the video below, I’ve summarised a few of my key takeaways from this learning experience.
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Sephora’s digital business strategy in Thailand – I asked Pawitra why she thought Sephora’s online selection is limited compared to their in-store range.
Vogue’s strategy in the Chinese market – Shiyan and I discussed whether the same ideas can be applied to different brands and markets.
Nespresso’s bid to stay ahead in a changing world – I shared my thoughts on Gig’s post and Nespresso’s branding.
Patreon and the death of the starving artist – I asked Alex about the sustainability of the Patreon model and the motivations of those taking part.
Digital Business Digest 