The those who can and those who teach lie

free guitar lesson

You’ve heard the saying ‘there are those who can, and those who teach.’ Well, this is the greatest hoax of all time, well, maybe not all time, but it is definitely a hoax.

I’ve known people who are the worlds greatest at something, and can’t teach it.

I’ve known people who can’t do it, but teach it better than anyone who has ever done it.

I’ve known people who can do it, and teach it just as well.

I’ve known people who can’t do, or teach – but for some reason try to do both. (avoid these people where possible).

Here’s the thing, doing and teaching are both important. Two different skill sets. Add to this that two different students might have a completely opposite experience learning from someone…. one might love a teaching method which the other hates.

Arbitrary statements of truth are the real problem here. What works for one person might not work for another. What we need to do, is be smart enough to make up our own minds and forget the cliches, especially when it comes to making personal connections.

Follow me on SnapChat – search ‘Sammartron’ for more business insight.

Fail with pride

I teach Marketing At Melbourne University on a part time basis. One of the things I try to do is stretch my students thinking beyond the traditional marketing arenas. It seems every week we are going through another consumer goods example, or the car industry and lately social media. This week I tried something different and I had a massive fail.

The task was for students to pick a market dominated by 2 brands, and to discuss the points of partity and difference, and how the brand communications and positioning vary. After the students gave me the expected brands:

Herald Sun vs the Age

Facebook vs Myspace

Coke vs Pepsi

Nike vs Addidas

I thought I”d mix it up and asked the group to discuss Capitalism vs Communism.

In the first instance I had to convince the students they were actually brands, and it didn’t improve much from there. The idea fell on deaf ears. It was so far outside of their expectations on what marketing is (consumer goods, shiny products and TV advertising) that they lost interest. I ended up spending the remaining 45 minutes of the tutorial explaining why they are both brands which are managed exactly the same way corporations manage them. It was meant to be a discussion. I failed.

After the initial disappointment and embarrassment wore off, I was pretty happy with it. I’m glad I tried to stretch the students. I’m glad I tried something different, and maybe next week, their minds will be more open.

Startup blog says: Fail with pride.

twitter-follow-me