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Verizon talked us out of their products

Jonathan Halls Blog — Fri, 01 May 2009 08:04:00 GMT

How often do you find a large company like Verizon talks you out of buying their product?

This company convinced us that their product was not as effective as their competitor’s. And that getting hooked up to their service would be a logistical nightmare. They also scared us about the prospect of after sales support.

Let’s go back to the beginning

We wanted to get cable and hunted around for the best deals. Verizon and Comcast are the options we have in our area. Verizon offered a great bundle – internet, phone and TV for $80. So while I was in Europe teaching leadership communication, my wife calls Verizon.

They set up our phone line, gave us a date when the broadband connection would be switched on and then arranged a time for the engineer to come out to set up the TV. As I’m in Europe, my wife makes sure she is at home for the set time but she gets restless.

Unlike me, the Halls Family Official Sloth in Residence, my wife likes to run. And she didn’t want to just wait around for the engineer if he was going to be a couple of hours. If she had a general idea of when he was coming, she may be able to fit a run in.

I’m sorry but I have no idea

So she called Verizon and asked if they could indicate when the engineer would show up. Well, of course, they didn’t know because it was being done by a contractor.

(Nothing against contractors – I used contractors. But I have a lot against being unable to contact a contractor who is working with you.)

Anyway, we tracked down the contractor ourselves and guess what – they couldn’t contact the sub-contractor who was supposed to come to our condo. Apparently this sub contractor does not communicate by phone.

I guess he uses a paging device to let head office know when a job is done. Maybe it’s like the gadget taxi cabs have in their cars or the UPS guys use for signed delivery.

All the customer service people were friendly

The friendly chap – and they were all friendly – checked his computer and lo and behold found that the sub-contractor had actually checked out our condo. He had filed a note saying TV wouldn’t be possible.

Whoa! Why didn’t we know the contractor had been? After all, my wife was sitting on the other side of our front door waiting and she didn’t see anyone or even hear a knock on the door.

The friendly chap told her there was no way to contact to sub contractor to find out the real story. And the Verizon customer service folks tell us the same story.

Customer service folks did everything right

If you’ve made it this far down the page, you’re probably asking the question, how did they talk us out of their service? The customer service people seemed to be friendly and helpful.

Well, here’s the interesting thing. Verizon were perfectly nice about everything. Their customer service folks did everything that I suggest to communicators who have to solve a customer problem. They listened. They took note. They were even transparent and honest about the limitations they faced in helping us.

But apart from the warm and fuzzy bit, they couldn’t do a thing to resolve the situation. And most of the interaction was a waste of my wife’s time. We’re talking about 3 hours chasing people on the phone.

This three hours of phone conversations is also a waste of Verizon’s time. Because they had a willing customer and didn’t need to convince us or anything. They could have spent this time convincing potential customers of their products and services.

Don’t paint a jalopy and expect to sell it as a sports car

While their customer service was good, their internal communication was awful. It was a failure. It’s all very well making sure your customer service communication skills are up to scratch.

But if there’s a blockage somewhere else in the system, that makes any promise or effort by customer service misleading, it ruins the customer relationship.

Making an effort to achieve good customer service without making sure all the communication works is like spray-painting a jalopy, polishing it up nice and good, then telling someone it’s a sports car in mint condition. I’m sorry, it just doesn’t work.

You don't need to talk to talk someone out of your product or service
When we talk about communication, we often talk about the conversations we have, the brochures and reports we write and the emails we send. That forms part of the message. But this is based on then old industrial mindset toward communication which believed the message could be controlled.

The message is not what someone says over the phone. It’s more often what the company does or does not do. And as the old adage goes, actions speak louder than words.

The company’s inability to contact their contractor and find out why he filed a work report but didn’t knock on our front door, tells me that if they need to contact a contractor when I need help, they will fail.

The fact that the customer service people honestly admitted they were not able to directly contact contractors tells me their internal communication processes fail.

Actions tell the story very well
All of these things tell a powerful story that Verizon doesn’t cope too well with anything very complicated. Interesting, isn’t it? You see they may think the message comes powerfully from the mouth of their good communicators in customer service. But it is more powerful through the failed actions of its follow through.

There are three problems here.

1. The story we’re hearing is they can’t do the job very efficiently.

2. They haven’t got their internal communications working at all effectively. This is very poor.

3. Whether or not they realize it, they believe that good customer service can polish up poor service.

Can’t just do communication at the front door

A lot of companies get gung ho about customer service and train their people to be great communicators. This is a perfect first step but unless the communication continues once you walk in, no customer will ever feel welcome. Good communication has to be followed up by a serious review of internal communication channels both at a formal and informal level.

Our verdict?
So what are we doing? I’ve emailed my wife from Croatia to suggest that if she’s happy, we should just go on a fast from television. DVDs work fine for us and we have the Internet for news and YouTube for sensational 'tele' moments.

Verizon wasted their customer call center’s time on us. They frustrated us which means we’ll no doubt share our story with friends considering cable. And they lost potential revenue. Sure it doesn’t sound like a loss at first, but think about it.

Verizon loses in more ways than one
Eighty bucks a month is $960 over the year – almost a thousand dollars. Money they could have made if their internal communications worked. Money we may now spend on a trip to Europe. Four or five subscribers pay someone’s salary – can they really afford to be so complacent?

Communication can turn your company’s reputation around but it has run through all your company so what the salesroom tells the customer, is what the company delivers. Make sure your actions tell a better story. And make sure your communication culture is company wide.

Customer service has a lot in common with airport security

Jonathan Halls Blog — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 18:13:00 GMT

The customer service offered by some companies has a lot in common with airport security. It's designed to stop you getting through to someone who can help, by making the process of connecting as uncomfortable and inconvenient as possible.

And just as airport security is not designed around the traveller's experience or comfort, customer service systems are often not designed around the customer or resolving issues. They're designed despite the customer and designed to make things convenient and easy for the company.

An experience I have just had with my British bank, Lloyds TSB, is a case in point. It felt just as bad as, "sir can you please take your shoes and belt off then step through the X-Ray machine - we need to search you while your laptop is taken out of your bag."

Unfortunately this morning's experience with the Lloyds TSB Customer Care system was not unique because it's happened to me time and time again over the past decade I've been banking with them both personally and for my business. And I've experiences it with other organizations too.

I recently received a letter from London from my business banking manager. She wished me well as I moved to the United States and ran through a number of regulatory details I needed to attend to before the end of April. But I needed to ask her a quick question. The question had nothing to do with how much money I had in the account or any personal data. It was simply about a legal requirement one has to follow with regard to closing bank accounts for limited companies and I needed to know some more.

The person I wanted to talk to is really good
Now my business manager in the UK is actually, really good. She knows her stuff and whenever I talk to her, she is more than helpful. She almost always does what needs to be done fast and effectively. But the problem is, I more often than not, can’t get to talk to her. But it’s not her fault.

This morning I picked up the phone to call her. The only number for her, my branch or anyone else in the bank is a customer service call center. This seems to be the trend these days - call centers. Well, today a pleasant chap named Shazatt answered the phone in their call center after I had been on hold for four or five minutes.

But the system was designed to stop me talking to her
I feel sorry for people like Shazatt. Because while they are generally courteous and professional, they have to come up with fancy methods of avoiding my questions which are usually along the lines of, “is this the way you would like to be treated?” While they desperately want to agree, they’re not allowed to because it makes the bank look vulnerable.

I told Shazatt that I didn’t need any specific account information. I was simply calling to talk to my business manager in relation to a letter she had sent me on a matter of banking regulations.

However, Shazatt told me I had to pass a security test first – I couldn’t talk directly to her. That’s right, I had to answer questions which I easily knew answers to like what was my mother’s maiden name. And then other’s which I had no clue about. Such as, “you had a transaction in Las Vegas on February 9 for the sum of twenty two pounds and eighty pence”. Of course I had spent dollars not pounds so I had no idea – was it a taxi, hamburger or book? This was simply to respond to a letter she had written me. What has gone wrong, here?

Getting through airline security is easier than getting through to some service providers. My bank manager knows me. She knows my history. She knows that I am a direct, honest, plain-speaking Australian. But instead, Lloyds wants to beat Heathrow Airport Security on discomfort levels when providing services. Surely it does not have to be so.

But not all systems are bad
Imagine my surprise when I signed up last week with American bank, Wachovia. I got just what I’d always dreamed about from a bank – productive customer service. And it was because they didn’t stand a Rottweiler – the customer service call center – between me and my bank manager.

Now, I’m new to America. And there may be people with different experiences than mine but I still can’t believe how good it has been for me.

Last Friday I opened an account for our new business at Wachovia here in the US. I met the business account manager and she set everything up for me last Friday. The only remaining thing after meeting her was activate my online banking. This is something she can’t do – for security reasons, I had to respond to an email and then go online in my office.

Direct access = direct success
As I left her office on Friday afternoon, she said, “Jonathan if you need anything call me – here’s my direct line. If something doesn’t work, I’ll make sure it’s fixed for you.”

Well, I got back to my office and followed the instructions in the email to set up online banking. But the process didn’t work for me. So this morning, I called my account manager. No call center or airline security process here. Just a direct call to the person who knew me and could help me with generic information. Five minutes later it was fixed.

Wow. What a breeze. How do some companies get it right and other fail so miserably?

Even the cable guy offered direct access
I had a similar experience with the cable company. I called them to set up cable internet for my company and spoke to a chap who gave me his direct phone number and email address. Unbelievable.

There were a few hiccups along the way with the installation and guess what? I called him direct, he knew what I needed and sorted things out. No call center. No wasted time having to explain to different call center agents what I was calling about. Just direct to someone who remembered and was able to help.

So what’s my point? America has better customer service than Britain? Hah, I’m not getting into that conversation.

Customer service may benefit from pulling down customer care systems
I think my point is that there may be more value in approaching customer service from a perspective of pulling systems down rather than building them up. I've been in organizations where they spend time working out complicated workflows and touch points for their customer service systems but never talk about the personal relationship.

And usually, the businesses with the complicated workflows and call center models end up acting more like airline security stations than customer care centers. And their systems slow down and sometimes close off interaction between companies and customers.

Some customer care systems are too big to fail

It's interesting that in news reports and media commentaries of late, we're hearing the phrase that some companies are, "too big to fail".

These are the companies that were allowed to get so big in the fat times of economic boom that should they fail today, they would criple the economy here in the US and by ripple effect elsewhere around the world.

Some customer cares systems are too big - so they should fail
I can't help but think that some customer service systems - epitomized by the call center mentality - are in exactly the same boat.

They're too big to be really helpful in doing anything but cause customer frustration through sluggish performance and high barriers to providing help. which in turn causes anxt within the call centers where morale drops because staff only ever deal with disgrunteled customers who make work-life miserable. And it all spirals down from there.

It would be better for customers if these big customer service systems - like the one at Lloyds TSB and other places - did fail. Because that failure may just cause them to morph into an organization that provides more localized and personalized customer care where customers are at the heart of communication.

Amateurs Give Professional Trainers a Bad Name

Jonathan Halls Blog — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 15:57:00 GMT

Last month I complained that some amateur media trainers are giving good trainers a bad name. These trainers suffer two problems that give professionals a bad name.

1. They’re trapped in the industrial mindset of traditional media which, as most of us know, is slowly dying. They’re teaching yesterday’s tricks for tomorrow’s world. Go figure.

2. They think they can train but they don’t understand the science of learning. And learning is a science.

Last month we discussed the first problem, today we’ll look at the second.

Trainers equip learners with skills to do a job
When an organization hires a trainer, they are buying skills for their teams. These skills somehow link to the organization’s objectives – maybe it is expressed in monetary profit or in social value.

I was told by a participant at the end of one of my training sessions that I’d saved her organization $5000 because she could now do the tasks she was going to hire contractors for.

This is the sort of value trainers need to offer. What makes it sweeter is that when an organization buys training for a group of staff, they are buying skills that last way beyond a contractor’s consulting time.

Amateur trainers are unable to leave their client with the confidence that that organization is better equipped to do the task.
Professional trainers understand the science of learning along with how to change and improve performance and can do so confidently.

How to spot an amateur
There are a lot of amateurs out there who proudly offer training services. While some of them are good, a lot of them are not. In fact there are a number of things they regularly get wrong. Here are three.

· Curriculum

· Delivery, and

· Organization

In this post, I’m going to touch on curriculum.

Curriculum – link it to the job
Two of the biggest mistakes amateurs make is designing curriculum around their experience and getting the grammar wrong.

An important question needs to be asked that strikes at the heart of a trainer’s values as a professional. Who are we doing this for?

Vocational trainers are hired to help people do their job. We equip learners with the skills they need to perform their job to a standard of excellence.

That’s why curricula must be structured around the job and its workflow. I see a lot of amateurs teach from their personal experiences rather than the organization’s new workflows.

Does this mean we de-value the trainer’s experience? Not at all. It’s her experience that enables her to get details in the curriculum right.

Smart organizations link workflow, training and performance reviews together. This way the training is designed to help people do their work better and get better annual reviews.

Curriculum – ‘write it right’
The second issue for curriculum is that it needs to be properly written. One of my pet peeves is that so few people understand how to write a curriculum. And it’s something I see time and time again.

There is a professional grammar for writing curriculum. It’s designed to make the whole learning process easier for both the trainer and the learner.

A good curriculum enables you to do a number of things including:

· better plan your learning delivery strategy,

· create clarity for your learner,

· evaluate and fine-tune your success as a trainer

· assess your learner’s performance, and

· provide better handouts

But guess what? Many trainers either don’t know how to write it or they are too lazy to get the detailed work done first. Getting your curriculum done right makes it easier to develop and deliver training.

In vocational learning, a curriculum is structured around learning objectives. They are also known as behavioral objectives and learning outcomes.

Learning objectives should describe the task the learner can perform at the end of the training and the standard to which it will be performed.

A lot of amateurs don’t get the importance of describing a task. They talk about knowledge, skills or attitudes required to do a job.

Knowledge, skills and attitude are all important elements in task performance. But to be sure someone actually learns to perform a task, the task needs to be described as an action.

If you’re looking at curriculum and see the word “understand” used throughout, you can bet the curriculum writer doesn’t understand learning outcomes. Task descriptions need an active verb.

If you want to learn more about how learning outcomes should be written, look for Mager’s theory on behavioral objectives.

It’s a science, not witchcraft
I think that poorly structured and poorly written curriculum gives professional training a bad rap. I meet managers who think training is a witchcraft rather than science. They think learning events have little to do with their company’s day-to-day operations. And they fail to see that training is in fact the tool they need to improve performance, especially in hard times.

Unfortunately, these managers can’t be blamed for their misconceptions. There is every chance that amateur but well-intentioned trainers have helped create this perception by providing vague workshops that don’t have a properly written curriculum. One that fails to link to an organization’s goals and objectives.

Training is not a vague, folksy witchcraft where trainers hope for the best. It’s a well researched social science that equips professionals to predict results and stand by what they offer.

We'll discuss the other two issues - delivery and organization - in later posts. In the meantime, if you’re hiring a trainer, make sure she or he can talk about curriculum and the science of how your learning is put together.

Frequent Question: do I chop an interview?

Jonathan Halls Blog — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 17:35:13 GMT

A learning manager from Texas pulled me aside during a seminar earlier this year to tell me he had some questions about ethics.

He’d interviewed a subject matter expert for a learning podcast he was creating and the expert waffled on an on, regularly going off topic.

In fact, while a small part of his interviewee's comments was relevant, most of it was a self-indulgent rant.

“I don’t want to offend him by not using the interview or cutting it down too much, " he told me. "But I’m worried his comments are too long and too vague. They may turn the listener off.”

I don’t believe this is an ethics issue. It’s an accountability issue. And it's a question that worries a lot of people who are new to media production.

It's especially tough for "nice" people who don't want to offend people they have personal contact with during the production of their podcast.

My answer to the learning manager's question is in the form of a question. Who is your podcast for? If you can answer this question your decision becomes very easy.

If you're producing the podcast for your guest, well let him waffle on. If you're doing the podcast for yourself and you can put up with the digressions, don't cut the interview.

However, if you're doing the podcast for a listener, it's a no-brainer. Use the parts of the interview that are relevant to your podcast and its purpose and chop the rest.

I have difficulty understanding why people don't create podcasts for other people so in my mind, I'd be chopping out every part of the interview that is irrelevant. I wouldn't want to waste my listener's time and drag her through wasted waffle.

It does bring us back to an issue that new podcasters need to grapple with. And that is, how do you deal with interviews that don't make the cut?

The first thing is to toughen yourself up and get used to throwing irrelevancies on the cutting room floor.

I've heard it said that of the major current affairs programs on television, for every 20 minutes of shooting, they use 15 to 20 seconds. Take comfort if you feel you're short-changing your guest because that's what the best do.

Also remember that by chopping out their irrelevancies you're making them sound more concise and it improves their image. You see, it's a win-win.

The second thing I recommend is something I learned when I started out as a radio interviewer. Never promise a guest that you'll use their interview or all of it in your podcast. Never guarantee anything.

Tell them that you're gathering information and hope to use their comments. Manage their expectations. And make the decision to use or chop their interview based on whether it achieves your podcast's aims.

Principle 1: Locate your bullseye

Jonathan Halls Blog — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 14:06:00 GMT

Before an archer can win a competition, s/he needs to locate the target. On a shooting range, her target is the bulls-eye.

This is no different for communicators. Their target isn’t a bulls-eye but something like attitudinal change or new knowledge. Their tool isn’t a bow and arrow, but a carefully crafted message. But they’re shooting for a target.

If you want to create a terrific podcast, you need to have a target to shoot for and be clear about what you’re aiming for. What’s your bulls eye?

Some of the best media content is created by producers who explicitly know what they want their content to achieve. Their bulls-eye might not be a round target but a carefully defined editorial goal or purpose.

Each and every technique they use to communicate will have been chosen because they’ve carefully calculated how it will help them achieve their editorial purpose – or hit their target.

Such techniques include words, music and sound effects.

Create a learning outcome first

In the learning profession, our bulls-eye isn’t an "editorial purpose" but a learning outcome.

A good learning outcome follows a very specific grammar. It explicitly describes the task your learner will be able to perform at the end of her learning.

It describes the context in which that task will be performed. And the standard to which that task will be performed.

This is the first thing you need to do to create a phenomenal learning podcast.

What is it that your listener should be able to do when he or she finishes listening?

In what context will they perform this task? And to what standard will they be able to do it? Before you even start planning your podcast, you need to be really clear – actually very explicit – about what learning you are trying to achieve.

A question about your podcast

Once you’ve located your bulls eye - that is explicitly described the task you want your learner to perform - you need to ask a few key questions before starting production.

The most important question is: is audio podcasting the most ideal learning method to achieve your learning outcome?

If you’re teaching someone to lay ceramic tile, audio is probably not the most effective method. Consider video instead. But sharing a new sales technique might be.

I meet a lot of enthusiastic types who blindly believe that audio podcasts will save their world. OK, perhaps that's an exaggeration.

My point is a lot of people falsely believe that podcasting is suited to every learning situation. It's not. Audio is great for narrative. But it's lousy for complex detail.

The key to successful podcasts is knowing when they're going to work for you and when they won't. Professionalism is typified by the discipline not to use audio when it clearly will not help you.

Once you have determined that audio is the best method, you need to break your task down into easy to learn chunks of information. We'll look at that in another posting.

Recap

1. Explicitly describe the task your learner will be able to do at the end of your podcast. For example, "identify potential barriers to selling life insurance…"

2. Be explicit about the context in which this task is being performed. For example, "…to Generation X teachers…"

3. Be explicit about the standard to which this is performed. For example, "…to increase closing rate.

4. Ask yourself, is an audio podcast really the best method for your learners to learn this task? If it is not, consider your alternatives. If it is the best method, it’s time to consider our next principle – that will come in another post.

Learning podcasts: is there a standard structure?

Jonathan Halls Blog — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 13:14:00 GMT

Everyone agrees podcasts are great for learning. But what structure should they follow? After teaching a large session on podcasting at ASTD’s TechKnowledge in Vegas last month, I was asked if there was standard way to structure learning podcasts.

Well, no there isn’t. And in fact, if there was a standard structure to follow, a lot of learning podcasts would be pretty boring. You know what happens in boring training session, right? People go to sleep. It’s no different for boring podcasts.

Your podcasts need to be lively and interesting. You need to use techniques that will draw in listeners. For example, your spoken word content needs to be tight and well scripted. And you need to have a very clear editorial strategy.

Learning podcasts follow a didactic narrative

Learning podcasts are very specific in their focus. The narrative is didactic. They are not their to amuse, inform or entertain but to teach. To be successful, you need to use very specific techniques.

Learning podcasts need an editorial strategy that is tweaked to didactic narrative. Not surprisingly, we can do this by combining media and learning psychology.

In this post and series of posts over the next few weeks, I’m going to suggest five principles for creating learning podcasts that justify your time and energy.

Once I've done that, I feel I can answer the question I was asked at ASTD in Vegas. So on the back of those princples, I’ll share a structure you can follow that will help make your learning stick.

Once you follow my structure a few times, you can adapt it to your specific needs, based on these five principles.

Five principles

Here are the five principles I’d like to suggest. These are:

1. Locate the bullseye – define the learning outcome

2. Avoid indigestion – break your content into digestible chunks

3. Go 3D – use multiple modalities to bring your content alive

4. Be a content scrooge – make sure every piece of content achieves your learning outcome

5. Hammer it home – use stylistic repetition to make the learning stick

Some media trainers are giving us a bad name

Jonathan Halls Blog — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 05:18:00 GMT

I’ve always been as passionate about training as I have about media. Which is why I get worried when I hear more and more stories about trainers who confidently peddle second rate media training like snakeskin salesmen of yesteryear.

Firstly, not anyone can teach
My first worry – and we can talk more about this another time – is that a lot of media people think they can easily become a trainer. While some can become trainers without too much effort, many unfortunately cannot. Because training and learning is a science, not something you can just wing.

To constantly deliver good training, you have to understand things like curriculum and the grammar it conforms to, how different people learn, how to construct learning methodologies that play into different learning styles, and the importance of people being able to transfer learning into everyday skills.

There are volumes of credible academic research that take the discipline of skills training from a quack’s line-of-work that anyone can try, to a professional field. But hey, as I said, we’ll talk about that later.

Secondly, the world has changed ... in case you've been asleep
My second worry is that a lot of media trainers are failing to see the changes taking place in their industry. This came to light over a pint of beer I had with a terrific television trainer in my old local pub in London.

This trainer was approached by a media training company to deliver editing and camera training for some magazines making the transition to multimedia.

The woman who ran the company was an accomplished media professional who had worked in traditional media.

She had never created any websites and didn’t profess to understand interactivity or social media. But she was delivering training in how to make web video and audio. “Because I’m an audio and video professional,” she said.

My mate asked her how she approached the teaching of Web video. “Oh it’s just like teaching television,” she said.

Believe it or not, web video is differnet to television
Anyone who thinks web video is like television probably belives we're not in a worldwide recession right now.

“But Web video is not television,” my friend said. “It’s a new medium.” She objected, probably because she didn’t realize how different they are.

(Of course I could list the differences in terms of production, distribution and how people view Web video right now. But I’m not going to list the differences because that’s not the point of this post.)

The Media is up for grabs
My point is that a lot of media trainers don’t get the fact that the media world is changing. And the world we’ve been comfortably working in over the past few decades is changing radically. So much so that the future of media and content is up for grabs. Anyone who sees web video as television is seriously out of date. And has seriously misunderstood what’s going on.

Marshual MacCluan was said to have said in the 1950s that television as a maturing medium was driving forward looking in the rear vision mirror. He was referring to how TV producers back then were still thinking in terms of stage productions when television enabled producers to do so much more than point a camera at some activity on a stage.

A lot of media trainers are teaching future talent to look in the rear vision rather than go out and create the future. They’re teaching television production methods that will very soon be out of date. What works on TV does not necessarily work on a computer screen. Or a cell phone screen. And these changes are happening so fast that there are no guidelines, no set practices to follow.

We're writing the rule book ... now
There is currently no rule book. We’re writing the rule book for our media future now. Well most of us are except those being hoodwinked into learning the old rules that worked when there were only four TV channels and you could safely rely on someone watching for more than 90 seconds.

There’s nothing wrong with learning traditional production and editorial rules if you test them against the dimensions of new media. Because so much of what we’ve learned can inform what we do next and save us time and energy, allowing us to focus it on new ideas. But the future is about tomorrow, not yesterday.

I shouldn’t get worried about trainers teaching new media out of the traditional media rule book. It’s good for my business, right? I can offer truly competitive training? No it’s not. These trainers are bad for media training in general because they slow down development and give the rest of us a bad name.

Creating the future is what media training must be about today and especially this year as we chart our way through an uncertain future. And that should involve teaching principles, identifying trends and exercising critical reflection into where the media is going. Not teaching what worked yesterday.