In 1996, when I started working in the digital content industries, we all went to work and invented our jobs every day. There was no shortage of clients who were open to creating their first websites, so the industry was incredibly collaborative and there were networking events combined with various learning and development events almost every night of the week. Some of my most cherished friendships and professional relationships were developed during that era and at those events and through the organizations that planned and delivered them. Among those relationships I include Sandy Feldman who has designed and redesigned each iteration of my website for three decades now. Our friendship dates back to the days of Toronto Webgrrls and its various offshoots.
In the 90s, client education quickly became a huge part of every job in the industry. We had to confront an understanding of technologies that sprang from conversations business owners and executives had had with their nephews who had been busy on Geocities. Now? Client education is still the term we use, but it is too limiting for what content marketing writers have to do. We have to educate the entire market about why a new tool exists, which industry or niche it serves and how it works to deliver value.
Click on this piece about The Lean Suite to see how broadly the term client education has become in teaching the entire marketplace about new technologies and the tools they spawn. Here, the educational elements are embedded into a story celebrating their win in MBEC’s Scale Up Pitch Competition.