This interview was originally recorded on June 10, 2022, as part of Leoni Consulting Group’s All Things Marketing and Education Podcast.
Access this episode's show notes, including links to the audio, a summary, and helpful resources.
[Start of recorded material 00:00:01]
Elana:
Hello, and welcome to All Things Marketing and Education. My name is Elana Leoni, and I've devoted my career to helping education brands build their brand awareness and engagement. Each week, I sit down with educators, EdTech entrepreneurs, and experts in educational marketing and community building. All of them will share their successes and failures using social media, inbound marketing or content marketing, and community building. I'm excited to guide you on your journey to transform your marketing efforts into something that provides consistent value, and ultimately improves the lives of your audience.
Hello, everyone. I am Elana Leoni, and welcome to this week's episode of All Things Marketing and Education. Today, I am talking with Clara Galan. One of the things I absolutely love about this podcast is not me being the center of the show, because I've really never liked that. It's never been about me. It's really been about the space and the educators, but what I love, love, love is getting to reconnect with so many awesome, inspiring people, that when I think back on my life, I have just been blessed. I know Clara has a similar story, of just these wonderful, beautiful people in education coming in and inspiring us. Clara is no exception to this. We will be talking about all things community and creativity in education. Clara specifically will share about her unique journey transitioning into EdTech as an educator.
I know a lot of you that are listening are always thinking about, "If I'm an educator, how do I dip my toe into the world of Ed Tech? Is it right for me?" We'll get into a little bit of that as well, but let me tell you a little bit about Clara first and then we'll get into all the fun stuff. Clara currently leads educator community programs in product marketing at Adobe for Education. All of you Adobe for Education fans, she's going to talk a little bit about what she sees there in her role as it relates to creativity. Prior to joining Adobe, Clara has worked in education marketing for Amazon Kindle Education, Remind.com – for those of you that are regular listeners, Q, who is the CEO of Remind, was on our last episode. I hope you all, if you haven't listened to that episode, that is a great one to get insight on a very fast growing EdTech company – and, wait for it, she was also at Edutopia, the George Lucas Educational Foundation. If that sounds familiar, that's where I spent a majority of my career. Clara was actually the first ever hire I made directly from the classroom. She joined our marketing team, and she helped out with social media, and it was just a joy to see her grow and see her flourish in that role.
I mentioned that she was an educator. Clara began her career as a middle school educator in the San Francisco Bay Area. She taught ELA – English language arts – to middle-school grades, and ESL to international high school students. Clara, welcome. I'm so excited to have you on the show, and please let the listeners know anything I missed.
Clara:
Well, thank you so much, Elana, for having me. It's so great to reconnect and have this conversation with you today, and thanks so much for that introduction. Looking forward to diving in.
Elana:
Awesome. Well, why don't we start on a little bit about your journey? I think it's a good setup as well. Like I mentioned, there's a lot of educators on as listeners that are always wondering, "Gosh, this world of Ed Tech is so fascinating. I use it so much. Maybe there's a role for me, and maybe that's a way I can expand my impact." I'd love you just to walk through your career journey. I talked a little bit about all the companies that you've worked at, but in particular, I'm going to give you a couple of questions. You can choose which ones, but sometimes people want to know, how did you know it was time to leave? If you had advice for educators wanting to make this transition, what do you think you would advise them? I know that that is a very hard one as well.
Clara:
Yeah, absolutely. I think it was an interesting time when I transitioned. Elana, you were such an important part of that. I had moved to San Francisco. I'm originally from the Bay Area, but moved to the city shortly after finishing my master's program in English, specializing in English as a Second Language education. When I moved, I started diving into the EdTech space, and that was primarily driven by a lot of my students bringing new products to me. I wasn't as familiar with them. Looking at the curriculum for high school and making sure that they had what they needed to be prepared. As a part of that, I started going to meetups in San Francisco.
It was at the same time at – and I see you nodding your head, too, you are a huge part of this, when EdSurge started, and Imagine K12, which is now part of Y Combinator, was new to the scene. I think a lot of it was being in the right place at the right time. It was actually through one of those meetups where I was learning about these EdTech tools that I met the co-founders of Remind, who then actually had mentioned to me that Edutopia was looking for a new social media manager. That was where that introduction came.
But in general, I do think there are so many skill sets within classroom teaching that are so applicable to EdTech. The question is about seeing how your skill set fits into different roles within tech. I've had a lot of conversations with educators over the years advising them on what are the best next steps? I think the first thing is looking at what are the products that you're interested in, and at a higher level, what grade levels do you want to impact? Which thematic areas? So are you looking for a more curriculum-based tech product? Are you looking for more of the digital resources? Are you looking for something that's more helping processes and workflows? Then, are you interested in higher education versus K-12, and more specifically, primary versus secondary? There's a lot of options there, but I think the biggest piece is figuring out what are some of the roles within tech and how your skill set applies to those. It's about just reformatting your resume to ensure that your skillset meets those different levels.
I usually tell educators, and not to go into too much detail, but what are the different roles that companies frequently hire for that teachers can move those skillsets over? That could be sales. That could also be relationship management. Working with different districts, customer success, making sure that once somebody purchases the product that you're helping those individual accounts get onboarded and have the right resource and the right professional development. It could be marketing. It could be a lot of the work that I do in product marketing, thinking about specific campaigns for back-to-school, what's the language that resonates with educators? Or it could even be product management. That's really shaping the product roadmap, doing user research and figuring out what the engineers on your team are going to build next based off of customer feedback.
I think the biggest next step is making sure you can get an internship, or even starting to create content for other EdTech companies. One of the first things I did even prior to joining Edutopia was reaching out to EdTech companies I knew and loved and saying, "Hey, I'd love to show you how I'm using this tool. I would love to write for your blog. I would love to share this on my social media channels." All of those things, I think, having that experience right off the bat is helpful. Then, of course, there's more traditional routes like MBA programs, where you can do an internship and get those pieces.
But going back to your original question about when I knew it was the time to transition. Again, to be honest, I was in the classroom for four years, looking at many educators I work with have decades of experience. Even, at some times, I'm thinking, "Oh, I'd love to go back and just even teach a couple classes to continue my experience." I try to be in classrooms as much as possible. But really what excited me was the EdTech space and seeing a lot of teachers that were becoming entrepreneurs, and wanting to be part of that journey to connect teachers to entrepreneurs and developers, and make sure that what entrepreneurs were building were really resonating for the classroom.
Elana:
Yeah. Thank you for touching on all those questions. I know it's a lot, but in the beginning, you talked about the importance of meetups and just getting out there. I think that's so important. I know it's a weird time right now where we have meetups. We don't have meetups, but there are always ways to connect socially to the EdTech scene. You can get involved on the Twitters, the hashtags, hashtag EdTech, hashtag EdTechchat, but there are meetups still going on in EdTech, too. Just get your Google on and meet and mingle and get to conferences. That's going to really help you. That helped my journey a lot. It helped Clara's journey a lot.
I love how you went into the specific roles because people ask me that all the time. I feel like this could be a podcast episode on its own, of just what are the roles I see educators naturally going towards and naturally inclined to with their skillset. You touched on all of them. I think a flag for you, educators, going out there and not looking for internships but going for a full-time, if you're not crystal clear on the role you want, and I get a wishy-washy, "Oh, I think I could do this, or that," it shows me that we would have to do a lot of professional development to get you to the right path. For the right candidate, that might be OK. But in general, what Clara said was spot on, is try to get some experience, try working beforehand, so you know your lane before you go full-time.
Clara:
Yeah, absolutely. As you said, Elana, it's all about those connections, too, those meetups. One of my favorites is EdSurge, which is now a part of ISTE. They have a link to all events that are happening. In addition, if there is a conference coming up in your state – so I'm originally from California, CUE was a big conference – then you can go and just even chat with vendors on the expo hall floor and share how you're using their tools, provide feedback. I think it's all a great way to start building those relationships.
Elana:
Absolutely. In our Show Notes, we will add a link to all of those. ISTE now owns EdSurge, but they do have a link for meetups that we'll include. I'd also recommend looking at EdCamps, too. Those are mostly all educators, but it's really good to hone what types of tools you're really passionate about and learn about EdTech, and collaborate with educators there as well. We'll put those links in the Show Notes as well. I love that you moved into the classroom. You came into Edutopia, which for many people that don't know, is a private operating foundation and we were, like, media, right? We were just like, "Let's create awesome resources for educators to react to and adapt in their own classroom environments."
But making the shift to Remind and then Amazon, TenMarks, or Kindle Education, how was that transition? You honing in as an educator, having some experience at Edutopia, what were the things you could lean on where you're like, "I'm going to use my educator skills for this, this, and this." Then, conversely, where did you feel like you really needed to professionally develop and level up to get into this fast-paced world?
Clara:
Yeah. I think one of the benefits of working at a company like Edutopia – I've known other colleagues that have worked at Common Sense Media, any kind of nonprofit organization that is focused on content and resources for educators – is that you touch upon a lot of different products. You get to meet a lot of different people. You also get a pulse on the online spaces, what are the products that are really popular? What are the products that are resonating with teachers that are doing really well in the market? From there, I had met originally at a meetup the Remind team when they were really new to the scene. They had just raised their seed funding. This was a time in San Francisco when there were a lot of companies that were raising a lot of money building teams. That was especially with the Imagine K12 incubator, which has since moved over to Y Combinator.
When I first started, the biggest asset I brought to the team was my knowledge of, one, teaching and learning, but two, just the community. Being able to share how to connect with teachers online, how to have organic growth. Making sure that teachers were able to find the product organically. Whether that was through social media channels or through word-of-mouth marketing. It's really understanding that marketing jargon and that marketing terminology, because I studied literature, I didn't study marketing, I didn't study business. A lot of this I just learned on the job.
One of the biggest, maybe I would say challenges, that I had moving from nonprofit space to a fast-paced startup like Remind was just learning a lot of the product terminology, sprints, knowing how to communicate to an engineering team, really understanding the product roadmap. A lot of times, for example, in community and marketing, we hear from teachers, "Oh, I really want you to build this. This is what I need for my students." We'd be like, "This is amazing, an idea." You go back to the product and engineering team, and then they level set with you and say, "OK, this is a really important feature. We do need to build it. However, this is the product roadmap. This is the resources we have in engineering. This is how long it's going to take."
I think it's just familiarizing yourself with the product roadmap experience, how you can put in future requests to be built. That's from the community standpoint. Then, overall, just as a business, when it came to Remind, they were growing very quickly. We were a very highly visible company with a lot of venture capital backing. Knowing how to leverage that network of people that were in the Kleiner Perkins portfolio, meeting other marketing managers, and just really understanding how we needed to meet specific growth needs. That was a crash course in all of that, and I learned a lot, a lot at Remind. Then, from there, what I realized is that I didn't have any experience in a bigger company. A lot of the people that I was working with at Remind were coming from Facebook and Google and other big tech companies. There was an opportunity at Amazon. I had met the then-GM at a conference who was building up a marketing team for their Kindle suite of products. At that time then, I decided to move over, and I think it's really good to get some of the corporate experience side as well, just to understand how things function in a bigger company that might be a little different from a startup space.
Elana:
Yeah, that's interesting, because Remind was the epitome of a fast growing startup. You have all these acronyms thrown at you, and engineers, and then you're thrown at a bigger company like Amazon, and now Adobe, too. It's really interesting to hear that. I think sometimes educators go into startup environments or even corporate environments, and because they have people that have backgrounds from Google and Facebook, there's a tendency for them to shrink a little bit and say, "Oh, I'm not as good." Or, "Oh, they're this and I'm not that." For those of you educators that might be thinking about that, and you might transition into those experiences, just own your expertise, I beg you, because you have something that nobody else has. For you to be able to, what Clara was saying earlier around speaking to the audience, knowing them, how to approach them, that is invaluable beyond anything else. Sure, what you can do is say, "OK, what do I need to professionally develop in in these areas?" But just don't be so humble that you discredit yourself.
Clara:
Absolutely. I think all of the other pieces from a business standpoint, especially if you're in sales or marketing or even customer success, which is really your expertise as an educator, you can learn all those things. Teaching is by far the hardest thing I've ever done, that you have that expertise. You've gone to school for many years to really study that and become an expert in that. The one thing I've realized over my career is, I'll never forget the first day that I stepped on the Amazon campus, and I thought, "They chose me. I'm so lucky. I'm here in this position." But then, as I've grown in my career as well, you realize that you have such a unique perspective, especially if you've been in a classroom working with students. You know better than anybody else on your team who the end user is and who teachers are and how to communicate. You have a really powerful experience there.
Elana:
Yes, yes. Speaking of educators and communities, you have done a great job of building educator communities. I know that sometimes in your role, that wasn't your primary role, but you are a connector at heart. You love educators as much as I do. They gravitate towards you as well. I think when I was talking to our friend Nick, he's like, "You and Clara are the only ones that I'll do things for, by the way." For those of you that want to hear from Nick, he was also on our show, and we'll put him in the Show Notes, too. But you have this gift of bringing people together, and bringing them together as it relates to a brand as well. I saw you do that with Amazon and Adobe, and building up a team that do that as well.
Can you talk a little bit about your journey of building educator communities? Maybe a couple of stories for people that don't understand the power of community, because some people that are listening are in our EdTech professional world, so they might be leading EdTech companies in the exec level. They might be running marketing or sales or growth or whatnot, and they've heard a community, but they really need to understand its benefits a little bit more.
Clara:
Yeah. I think the education space is so different from any other product space or technology space. I found this at Amazon and even at Adobe, to some extent. We have a more in-depth education team now, we've really grown a lot. But sometimes when working with individuals from more of a business background, they approach EdTech tools like they would anything else. They're selling a suite of software products for a business or even retail goods and schools. Teachers and educators – if you're a teacher tuning in, you know this – are very wary when it comes to for-profit companies coming in and saying, "This is the silver bullet to solve all of my students' problems." I think that it's really critical how you communicate your product to schools, to school leaders, and to educators.
First and foremost, you have to have everything rooted in teaching and learning and pedagogy, and making sure that this is something that is meeting the goals of teachers and meeting the goals of student learning outcomes. Really, what community does is it provides a place for teachers to come and gather and share best practices with one another that then ties to your brand. I really see it as a mission. For example, at Adobe, our mission and vision is to really equip the next generation of lifelong creators, and nurture and help them grow. One of those pieces is that we have to make sure that the community and our group of users connect to this vision with us, because then it becomes so much more than a brand. It becomes a movement. It becomes like, "I identify with this brand."
One of the most powerful speakers I still have heard to this date was the community team from Airbnb at the CMX Summit that I attended in San Francisco. This probably was back in 2014 or 2015. They were sharing the whole vision of Airbnb and how it became so much more than a product that helps you find a stay during your vacation. It was a place where you could belong anywhere. It was a place where you – they even were to the point where they had their community managers and users of their product marching in the streets to change legislation. It's incredible, and that's what a community does. A community builds brand affinity. It actually helps to shape what your brand stands for.
I think as people that are more on the EdTech side and in product, we have to be very wary and listen to our community, what are their values, and how do we take that feedback from our user group and shape the whole branding of the product. Then, make a space for community members to be able to come in and share with one another and show that they are connected to the brand and resonate with the brand. But then also, that in turn builds word-of-mouth marketing, and even builds an organic team. You can scale your team. If you're one marketer, you can have then hundreds of teachers that are then going out and sharing your product with other schools and with other organizations. Teachers learn best from other teachers. If I have someone from my community that's going to go into a conference and present, teachers are going to listen to that individual much more than they would listen to me or listen to anyone else within the Adobe team. Community, I think, is one of the most powerful mechanisms for growing your brand and growing your product within the EdTech space.
Elana:
Yes, yes, yes, ten million percent yes! For those of you that are longtime listeners, our first-ever episode was with our director of community – or we call her our Director of Joy – Porter Palmer. We talked a lot about communities and our experience growing them. They provide so much joy to your brand in so many ways. If you're interested in the types of communities, so Clara was touching on a couple of them, they actually have a full model called the SPACES model. We'll drop that blog in the Show Notes so you can say, "Gosh, what are all the different ways I can have a primary focus of my community and how that can align with my brand objectives and what your audience wants?" Never forget your audience at the time, and how do we transition them into community members. Just a little extra context for people that want to dive deep into the world of community.
But you were so right, Clara, when you talked about it becomes a movement. A couple, like maybe my first or second year at Edutopia, I didn't have any experience in community. I knew what it was, but I was in charge of email campaigns and I was building up a membership. In essence, what I was doing is not building up a membership, but I was building a community and I didn't know it. We used verbiage like "join the movement." All these educators would write back going, "Yes, movement." I'm like, "I don't know what they're joining, what movement?" But they were so invested in it. That was the signal that they were ready to really form a community and go further and be what you call those ambassadors. Because at the end of the day, you can speak eloquently about your products, but it's nothing like an educator saying, "Here's exactly how I use it in the classroom, and here was the impact on my students."
Clara:
I think that's spot on, and on the teacher's side, so that was more from a business standpoint, but from an educator's side, sometimes teachers feel isolated in their classrooms. They don't have the opportunity always to go and see what the teacher down the hall is doing or what lessons they're teaching or what activities worked with different students. If you have a community where teachers can come in and say, "Hey, I tried this lesson and this is the product I used, but I might – this worked, this didn't work. Does anyone have feedback?" That becomes their place where they can get resources and ideas on a consistent basis. Especially if it's virtual, it reaches anybody in the world.
Elana:
Yes. You've had some experience with multiple companies, either being the point person or helping grow a team of communities. Can you talk to me about just when people say – you're reflecting back on your career of helping build education communities, are there a couple of stories that stick with you that you're like, "Oh, man, I will never forget this."
Clara:
Yes. Even the program I'm working on right now, the Adobe Creative Educator program, that has been one of the biggest milestones in my career. When I started at Adobe, I started on the higher education team working with higher education faculty that were teaching digital media subjects. So, graphic design, video editing, animation. I didn't really have a background in that. My background comes from K-12, but I was really excited to just dive in, and I learned so much. These leaders in the community are incredible. It was amazing to see what they could build using Adobe tools. I was just in awe every day learning from them, creating opportunities for them to present at conferences, facilitating online spaces. Then, just really providing a megaphone to the larger community of what was working and how they could be inspired. That was really exciting.
But one of the things at Adobe is, when I started a little over four years ago, is that Adobe started to introduce tools like, at the time, Adobe Spark, which is now Adobe Express, that were web-based and available for anyone to use. I know actually my introduction into Photoshop was when I started at Edutopia, creating social media graphics, and had to teach myself how to use layers and how to use all the different features within Photoshop and Illustrator. For a lot of teachers, maybe they don't have the time to learn more robust tools. They want to create quickly. They want their students to be able to communicate visually, whether it's with video or a webpage, or a graphic, and Express allows them to do that. They can just log in on the web. They can use Chromebooks for it as well, and create with templates, and it really easily introduces the concept of layering, changing out different images, different graphics, has a whole library.
When that was introduced, we didn't have a community or any kind of programming for K-12 teachers. We did have a sales team that went into K-12 districts, but there wasn't any kind of brand affinity. When I'd go into classrooms, teachers would say, "Oh, you work at Adobe? Don't they do PDFs?" Or, "Oh, they do Photoshop, but why would I use that? I teach English." It was a big role to help shape that brand narrative and create a community where teachers could come in, learn the basics, and feel that Adobe was really creativity for all. It was applicable, no matter what subject you were teaching, no matter what grade level. This is something you could use. In 2020, we launched the ACE program, Adobe Creative Educator. Now, we have over 40,000 teachers that have enrolled in the program. We have a virtual summit. Every day I'm on Twitter and on our Facebook group interacting with the teachers. Then, we also use a third-party platform called Influitive, where teachers can go in and we have different challenges, and they can earn points and redeem them for different prizes. It's been really fun to build that community, but then also be able to connect with some of the educators and thought leaders from previous roles as we're moving more into the K-12 space.
Elana:
Yes. Thank you for giving an overview of how community can start and evolve, too, because we always talk about, "Make sure you've got a strategy that aligns initially with what does your organization want to do? What does your audience want to do? Then, what's your initial capacity?" Porter and I call that the magic middle to start, but always start small. Then, like you said, feed those people, get those amazing stories. If you do community right, and this is going to sound a little dramatic, but I swear it's not, it will save lives. It will change lives. Porter talks about this a lot, but with her experience of almost a decade at Discovery Education Network, the DEN, one of the biggest education communities in K-12, she saw lives being saved.
Especially when Clara talked about teachers being isolated, there is no better time to help educators feel less isolated. We run a community to fully just support educators right now through one of our clients, and it has saved their lives a lot of times, tenfold. It has changed, fundamentally changed who they are because they feel like they have support. Again, we have to overlap that with your brand needs to make sure it's strategic and that we're growing and you can continue funding. But there's just so much benefit for community, and Clara, when you talked about Photoshop and layers, that brought me back. I haven't used Photoshop since then, but we were creating social media images from Photoshop because at that time Canva didn't exist or Adobe Spark/Express now. None of that existed.
Clara:
We learned on the go.
Elana:
It was so funny. Let's talk a little bit about more creativity and education, because you hit on a little bit, where you can really see educators using specifically your product, but you also see them in other instances, because community, it's not like they're just talking about your product. They're sharing about all the cool things they're doing in education, too. But I have been continuously wowed by educators' use of doing so much with also just a little bit. The system has forced them to do that, which I obviously don't agree with, but it's created such an innovative mindset of like, "Oh." Then, they collaborate and selflessly give to each other in communities, too. Can you talk to me a little bit more about what you've seen around creativity, and if Adobe in particular has stance, or you in particular have stance around where creativity should be emphasized more in the curricula?
Clara:
When it comes to creativity, one of the myths that we have as, sometimes as students, but even sometimes as educators, is that it's for the arts, or either you're born creative or you're not born creative, and it is messy, it's a creative personality type, and that's really not true. Sir Ken Robinson once said that creativity is as important as literacy, and it's true. One of the skills that we look for, especially in hiring in Adobe, is can someone look at a problem and think about it from multiple angles and come up with a solution in a creative manner? That's really creative problem solving, especially as students go into higher education or go into the workforce. They might not know all of the issues that they're going to encounter. We, as a society, don't know all of the issues we'll encounter. Who knew that COVID was coming in a global pandemic? A lot of the solutions around that take creativity, they take being able to connect different ideas to one another, iteration, and coming up with a creative solution in mind.
I think creativity is really important in our education space. When it comes to what I've been seeing within school districts – I can speak from the Adobe standpoint – it's pretty incredible to see what even kindergartners, first-graders are building within Adobe Express, within Page. One of the examples I love sharing is I saw in the UK, there's an educator who had his second-graders go out to their local deli, interview the deli owners, take pictures, and then write out the menu, and they created the website for the local deli. It was great to see the authentic audience and how easy it was for them to create that on an elementary side.
At a higher education or more CTE high school side, there's an educator I work with in the Netherlands, Matthijs Clasener, and he leads a Character Animator competition every year. With Character Animator, it's really easy to create animations, even if you've never created animations before. It actually maps your facial structure and your movement and automatically puts it onto different character templates. Students were creating different videos, animations, and just even seeing what 17-, 18-year-olds were creating was pretty incredible, what the technology allows students to do. I'm also seeing a lot in augmented reality, too. There's other tools, obviously, out there besides Adobe, but one of the tools that we work with is Arrow and students can bring even different structures for science or labs, and they have even the anatomy of a frog right there. They're able to do that without all of the messy components. It's incredible to see where education is moving. I think creativity is such an important part to be able to prepare students for the future.
Elana:
I think first of all, Sir Ken – rest in peace, Sir Ken – I think he was one of, when I grew up in my career in K-12 education, he was always saying that about creativity and the need for creativity and creative thinkers. Like you said, we need people that don't follow instructions, but can come up with innovative solutions and do it in a fun, unique way. That is real across every single profession. That is fundamentally what I look for as well, and I test for is, "Are you a creative thinker? Can you take something and go beyond and do it in that unique creative spin?" It's so important.
I think when we think about the classroom, you hit on so many great points, but the umbrella is, how can I use technology – or maybe even not technology and go old school art – but could create a story, be a storyteller? You can show your mastery of a knowledge through creativity in so many ways that actually stick more to learning, and it's not this memorization and it goes away. I see a lot of that being displayed with teachers and getting more momentum when we call it around digital storytelling. It doesn't have to be, but it becomes this beautiful moment where students can own their own learning and become storytellers. It really hits back to a lot of George Lucas saying that teachers are one of the best storytellers he's ever seen and encountered, but what if we can transfer that? I see this movement for actual students becoming storytellers. They're using all the things you were talking about in podcasts and creating music, all of the things, which I couldn't even imagine in school, having all of these tech tools.
Clara:
I know, I wish we had that in school. I see what students are creating now, and it's incredible. It's what many, maybe higher education students that were studying graphic design or in their first year out of university, kids are creating that in middle school now, so it's pretty incredible to see.
Elana:
Yeah. Reflecting, when Sir Ken was talking for decades about creativity, and people like Tony Wagner and so many more, we're talking about creativity and the need for it in classrooms. Sometimes I would lack the connection to actually how to do it practically if I'm an educator, and we're like, "Oh, yeah, head nod. Amazing. Yes. That's nice. How do I do it?" I remember asking Tony Wagner a question in this big theater. I'm like, "Do you have anything?" I didn't mean to say it this way, but basically I said, "Do you have anything practical I can walk away with so I can implement it in the classroom?" He couldn't because he was so used to talking about it theoretically. Now, we have so many tools that, immediately when you were talking, I'm like, "Oh, yeah, you can do this, this, this, this, this." If you're an educator listening, pause, maybe stop the recording and think about how you could incorporate more storytelling, more creativity in just an average assignment. What are you doing now that you can build on?
Clara:
This is the exact conversation we had as a team when we were coming up with the Adobe Creative Educator curriculum for our Level One and Level Two course. So many times you hear people talk about creativity, and it's these big lofty terms. I'm like, "Great. What does it look like? How can I do this tomorrow in my classroom?" Those are the key things that we tackled in the Adobe Creative Educator Level One course, because we want to tie everything back to teaching and learning first, and product second, because that's how educators can know how to use the products efficiently in their classroom.
Rebecca Hare, if you're familiar with her work, she's the author of the book The Space. She's on our team now. She created this incredible curriculum that essentially walks through how do we define creativity? What does it look like in classrooms very tactically? How can you assess creativity? That's a huge one that is very challenging and an informative assessment. How do you evaluate for creativity and of creativity? It's how are you evaluating creativity in the process as the student is going through the process of their project, being able to pivot, iterate, think creatively. Then, the end project, what is the rubric that you're using to make sure that you're evaluating the different creative components of a project? Then, we talk about classroom culture, how do you build a classroom culture that is safe for creativity? How do you encourage students to be able to fail along the way? It's a really great course. That's something I'm really proud of our team for creating. Hopefully, that answers some of those questions.
Elana:
So many answers, so many answers. I would say, one, that's really exciting about Rebecca. I remember meeting her in so many events in ISTEs, and was like, "This woman is talented." She's doing some really cool things, and I'm glad you swooped her up. It started to make me think, as you were talking specifically about the course and how to assess creativity, is that so much times we used to think about this, and we potentially still do, depending on your level of familiarity, but of technology being an add-on and not a core specialty. I see the same thing happening with creativity. It was like, "Oh, if we have time, maybe we'll add it on." But for it to be a core value and to have it thread throughout everything you do, it starts with culture, like you talked about.
I know we can talk about creativity forever and communities forever. But I want to loop back a little bit to your journey, because I know educators are still like, "Wow, how did you do this?" We talked a little bit about your journey, but I am personally curious about what's next, too. Where do you see your unique stamp in your career? I know this is big, and sometimes when I ask people this they're like, "Oh, God." What do you hope to accomplish? K-12 is such a beautiful space for impact. What continues to drive you in this space?
Clara:
Yeah. My journey at Adobe has been really amazing. I've met a lot of incredible educators around the world, even when I first started in the role. I was traveling to all of our international offices, putting on events for our core educator community. Even just personally, that really opened up my eyes to education systems all around the world. I really want to continue working in that and supporting educators within our Adobe Creative Educator program. Then, in addition to that, given my background in EdTech and also in education, I'm really interested in connecting with EdTech startups that are thinking about their journey into education. Like, how can they connect with educators? How can they brand their product specifically?
I moved to Spain. It's been two years now. I can't believe it. I'm really familiar with the EdTech space in San Francisco. But I was curious to learn more about the EdTech space here in Europe. I've been going to a lot of meetups just to understand, even from an Adobe standpoint, like there are so many incredible design schools in Barcelona. How do we connect with them? But also, I'm interested in mentoring EdTech startups. I just recently joined the mentor board of SEK Lab, which is a EdTech accelerator program here in Spain. Then, I'm also be going to London EdTech Week in – I think that's in two weeks now, right before ISTE – just to connect with other EdTech startups and continue that opportunity for mentorship. Because I do think I have a unique perspective in that. Just to even be at an early-stage startup in San Francisco during those times, there was so much that I learned from that and then going into corporate. It's really energizing to meet with early-stage founders as they're going on this journey and have so much to learn, but also are working so hard and so eager. I love connecting with them and doing that.
Then, other than that, making sure that I have time to go into schools as much as possible, as here in Barcelona, we work with several different schools, including the American school. I've gone there a couple of times to just sit in the classroom and listen. But I do think, in the future, I would really like to at least have part of my role be in the classroom, just working with students, even if it's one course, being able to connect with them.
Elana:
Yeah. I think about my journey, and I'm like, "Shoot, when I retire, I'd love to be an educator or do it part-time at some point." Because there's so much, I think from the outside it's a little bit grass is greener, right? It's just like, "Oh, they get to see this. We get to see these students in that direct impact." I can't imagine a more meaningful position than being an educator. I get to see that from a national perspective, you get to see it from an international perspective. There is that, like, a little bit of FOMO going on. Then, as it relates to EdTech startups, I am 100% with you. I get so much joy being an EdTech mentor and being able to talk to them and help them through because we've been able to see it. We were like, it's nice to be able to get them when they're young and say, young as the early age of startup, and help them and guide them in ways that I wish that we all had when we were in the thick of it, and to connect it a bit to community. I would say that the fundamental thing I see EdTech startups struggle with the most is that they're not connected to their audience as much as they should be. Community can help you – people. And all startups do this beyond EdTech, they prioritize community later than they should. It hurts them because they don't have that pulse and that connection that's very deep in relationship with their audience.
Clara:
Yeah. Also, if they don't have that connection, it also hurts education, and it hurts teachers and students. That's part of what drives me in a lot of my work, even working with early-stage startups or mentoring, is that I know that if they take the time to sit down with teachers and go into classrooms, one, their product is going to be better. Obviously, from a business standpoint, they'll be more successful, but it will actually help teachers and students more. They'll be building products that are meaningful to those groups of students. I think it just really supports both ways.
Elana:
Yeah. This is another topic we could talk about forever, but the number one thing I tell educators or EdTech startups is just, like, slow down. Sometimes you have to go slow to go fast. It's OK if you're building community, and it's small and you only get a couple of hours, but you're maintaining that relationship that will come back tenfold down the road, so slow down. I know we have a lot of considerations with funding and all of that, but even stories with Amazon, it's like, "No, I'm building this at the pace I need right now. I'm slowing it down intentionally to scale and go faster down the road."
I thank you, Clara, for being on the show. The one question we ask all of our guests is around inspiration. Right now, gosh, we started this podcast almost a year ago, and in the middle of the deep of the pandemic, burnout and life in general will just continue to be a struggle, a struggle but also complemented with joy, right? Because once we have that struggle, we can really understand what joy truly is. But what keeps you going in the midst of all of it? You have a very heavy career, you've got a lot going on. There's a lot of responsibility. We're in the midst of isolation, teacher burnout. What keeps you personally going throughout all of this that inspires you?
Clara:
Really, it's the community. Every day when I log on, it's not like any other role. I'm interacting with teachers all around the world on a daily basis and hearing their feedback. I see screenshots of student work. Like, "Thank you. This worked so well in my classroom." That human element is really what drives me. Quite frankly, I don't think I could be in a role that doesn't have that, because you just know that you're really making an impact.
I know because I had looked at the questions previously, but one of the books that I recently read was The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker. I think as community managers, it's a really helpful book, especially for thinking about virtual meetings and in-person meetings. That did also, when I finished reading that, refueled my, "OK, I need to rethink how I'm connecting with teachers online." Because it really emphasizes the importance of being very thoughtful and pointed of who you're inviting to your gatherings, how you're structuring them, how to make people feel really heard and valued. I think a lot of times, when we're in our roles, and even as teachers, it's a helpful book as well, because if you're in the day-to-day, you're like, "OK, logging onto Zoom again. I have this class. I have this lesson." Or if you're, those who are tuning in that are marketers, it's like, "OK, here we are on another customer call." Or webinar, like really thinking about, "OK, for each one, who is my target audience for this? How do I make it so that every person who is in this room feels really heard, really valued?" Even these little touches within a community that you can do, like handwritten invitations or some follow-ups that you're featuring them in your presentation. There's so many little things that you can do that even though they sound small, they do make a difference and add up, so that's been inspiring.
Then, on a personal level, I'm really trying to get outside as much as possible. I've been doing a lot of hiking, going to the beach, especially during the pandemic. Before, I think I forgot how much I love being outside. When everything was closed, every day when I was in San Francisco, I'd walked to the Golden Gate Bridge and back from my apartment. Now, I'm continuing that here, making sure that I'm outside.
Elana:
That was awesome. I just want to emphasize the point about the littlest things make a big difference, especially in K-12 education. For people that are new coming into EdTech that might be listening, know that you're coming into a profession that isn't generally acknowledged consistently in a positive way. That is a shame, and they're not used to even just the littlest gestures of appreciation. In one of the communities we're building, we do CARE packages with handwritten notes. If somebody's going through something and showed their vulnerability in the community itself, we send it to them. I can't put it into words how much it's affected them, of like, "You see me. We haven't even met in person, but you all are the only people that I fully can feel supported and feel seen and heard." Those words are just so important.
Clara, thank you so much. This has been a joy to have you on and see your journey. I hope to have you on again, and you can talk about more of your journey, but let people know how they personally can get in touch with you. Then, we'll share all of the resources you mentioned in the Show Notes. If you want to share any additional ones, you can talk about them and we'll put them in the Show Notes.
Clara:
I'd love to connect. If you're on Twitter, I'm @MsClaraGalan, so M-S-C-L-A-R-A-G-A-L-A-N. You can also email me on my Adobe email. It's G-A-L-A-N@adobe.com. We do one quick plug, we have an education summit coming up after ISTE. It'll be July 26th through the 28th, open to any educator. We have some incredible keynote speakers like Danielle Feinberg, who's from Pixar, Dr. Byron McClure, who's a school psychologist. We have Al Thomas from ISTE, and many others that I'm really looking forward to hearing their presentations. You can register for this summit at Adobe, so A-D-O-B-E dot L-Y, slash E-D-U, capitalized, summit. If you have questions about that, feel free to email me, but we're looking forward to hosting that virtual event, and really fun. We have a virtual DJ that's joined us in years past, so it's a fun virtual dance party, too.
Elana:
Nice, and that event is free, that summit?
Clara:
It is free for anyone who wants to join.
Elana:
Great. We'll put that link in the Show Notes as well, too, because I know web addresses when we're speaking audio and you all might be running or in the car, know that we'll put it in the Show Notes. The Show Notes for this episode will be at leoniconsultinggroup.com. That's consulting with two Gs, consultinggroup.com/24, so that's two-four. All of the resources, we also go in and talk about the high level things that Clara and I talked about. If you just want a quick Cliff Notes of what we talked about and some practical takeaways, you can also read it, too.
Thank you all for joining us. I really hope, just as with every other episode you think about, "Am I thinking differently about the power of community, about the power of creativity and education? Has there been a mind shift that has occurred even slightly? Are there some things I want to walk away and do?" Just one thing. Maybe there's one thing in creativity, if I'm an educator, I want to bring back to the classroom. Or, maybe if I'm a marketer I can look and say, "Gosh, I think we need to rethink the way that we emphasize community and talk about how we strategically want to place it in the organization." Whatever it may be, you're always welcome to share it with us. We're on Twitter at Leoni Group. I hope this has helped you, and I thank you for listening. Take care, everyone. We will see you on the next All Things Marketing and Education. Thanks so much for listening to this week's episode.
If you liked what you heard and want to dive deeper, you can visit leoniconsultinggroup.com/podcast for all Show Notes, links, and freebies mentioned in each episode. We always love friends, so please connect with us on Twitter at Leoni Group. If you enjoyed today's show, go ahead and click the subscribe button to be the first one notified when our next episode is released. We'll see you next week on All Things Marketing and Education.
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Elana Leoni, Host
Elana Leoni has dedicated the majority of her career to improving K-12 education. Prior to founding LCG, she spent eight years leading the marketing and community strategy for the George Lucas Educational Foundation, where she grew Edutopia’s social media presence exponentially to reach over 20 million education change-makers every month.
Clara Galan, Guest
Clara leads educator community programs in product marketing at Adobe for Education. Prior to joining Adobe, Clara has worked in education marketing for Amazon Kindle Education, Remind.com, and Edutopia (The George Lucas Educational Foundation). Clara began her career as an educator in the San Francisco Bay Area teaching English Language Arts to middle school grades, and ESL to international high school students. Originally from the San Francisco area, Clara now lives in Barcelona and is interested in learning about EdTech startups and new student-centered collaborative school models.
About All Things Marketing and Education
What if marketing was judged solely by the level of value it brings to its audience? Welcome to All Things Marketing and Education, a podcast that lives at the intersection of marketing and you guessed it, education. Each week, Elana Leoni, CEO of Leoni Consulting Group, highlights innovative social media marketing, community-building, and content marketing strategies that can significantly increase brand awareness, engagement, and revenue.
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