By HARSHIL KARIA
Online Strategist and Co-founder, FoxyMoron
When I got together with three of my partners to build FoxyMoron, I was all of 20. Armed with a lot of passion and enthusiasm, we started this little agency which has now mushroomed into a more than 75-strong digital outfit. Education was always a point of contention among us. Forget MBAs, none of us had even graduated when we started out. So being invited to teach a complete semester at a B-school was a bit of a surprise.
A lot of B-schools now offer students Internet Marketing as an option for their electives. Apart from being an opportunity for me, it bodes well for the industry. Expect smarter, more ready Marketing graduates.
Anyway, back to me. Recently, I was at this conference in Pune delivering a talk about Digital Marketing, and apart from students, a couple of teachers were there as well. One of them happened to be Dr Mita from the Symbiosis Institute of Management Studies (SIMS), who later requested me to meet their Director and give a demo lecture to see if I was fit to teach at SIMS. I did my usual routine about the digital space in India and how it is vibrant and buzzing and how the future is exciting. They were visibly impressed, which was great, but one of their concerns was: “You’re 24; younger than many of our students. How are you going to get them to listen?” I wasn’t sure, but said I’d give it a shot.
When you’re young and trying to build a company, you always face this question. I’d experienced a bit of that at work, so I knew it wasn’t going to be all that bad. Next, I prepared the course outline, which in itself was a huge learning. You’ve got 24 weeks and you’ve got to make it action-packed. What to include? What not to include? Should I just take the stuff that I’m safe with, or try things that I don’t know too well as yet?
Eventually, a lot of the stuff that I put in was stuff that I didn’t know particularly well. It sort of helped me get a better grip of things at work too. And speaking about the stuff I did know well to 50-odd people made me internalize it better. Grip it better. Present it better. For a lot of my lectures at Symbiosis or SP Jain or even a corporate house, what I’ve tried to do is let audio-visual speak and then add value on top of that. So if I’m speaking for 60 minutes, I make it a rule that 30 minutes are taken up by audio-visual material. I’ve always felt that nothing inspires better than work and cases - and if you’ve got someone who can give it perspective, it is magical.
Two of my favourite teachers were my Advertising and Culture Studies professors. The former exposed me to Indian advertising over the years, while the latter exposed me to films like Requiem for a Dream and made me listen to ‘Everybody’s Free to Wear Sunscreen’. I don’t remember any of the stuff I read in their classes. But I do remember the audio-visual experiences. And that’s what counts. What I’ve realized is that as a ‘teacher’, I can equip people with tools, but it’s more important to equip them with perspective, with material that can open their minds. So whether it’s a screening of ‘Art & Copy’ in class or taking them through a few of the top Twitter case studies all over the world and then asking them to make their own, or going really behind the scenes of why the Maybelline WTF campaign I managed to work on was successful, everything I do with their education has GOT to be an experience.
Feedback: harshil@foxymoron.org
