 Peer learning is What happens in the world of work? Here's the quick story as to why I understand this idea of peer learning When I started my career there were people who actually were called secretaries and they actually filed things they actually typed things 2025 years ago. There were actually people called bosses. They didn't have jobs. They actually bossed bossing was their job Managing was their job. Leadership was an art. They did things changed too fast today So now bosses are people who tell you once a year what they want done Hope you figure it out the rest of the time and Expect you I mean expect you to learn how to do it from everyone else around you So the ability to learn from others is a core Competency of success in the business world. It's the most important thing people in business do today And it is so not talked about It's so not well understood and yet such a core competency We should be gifting all of our students if at all possible to feel good about and understand how important it is So that's why peer learning is an essential part of a curriculum process As you have people passing through their fore or however many years we have the opportunity to work with them here at Western Washington so that they understand that this is a skill they'll be using for the rest of their lives students are expected to put on the Shoes of someone that I know because I've been a marketing person They're gonna have to work with for more in their careers than they may imagine The essence of understanding diversity as I have learned it through professional life is to Understand where somebody else is coming from and the best way to do that is to be asked to take on the mantle of someone You are not and so that part of the exercise I think is number one highly realistic and number two very helpful It is a skill the writing of a creative brief with a branding essence as the core learning experience is one of the most Important fundamental skills that most students in the marketing profession will need And they need it quickly I've received emails as quickly as day two of someone on the job at a major firm Who wrote back and said oh my god? I just did the creative brief exercise It's probably one of my most treasured emails because that was my validation moment that that it was really a core skill I think the biggest thing I learned from this is how This experience or this creative brief the assignment itself Is a real-world experience for us because my sister is an account executive And you know I was talking to her about oh, I'm doing this creative brief assignment You know we have to go speak to creatives there that's a role-playing assignment, and she was like yeah, I do that I do that my job, so I think I think it's really great that Professor Stone could bring a real-world situation into the classroom and That's where It's directly applicable to to the to real life And I think that's that's what I learned out of this the biggest thing I would say I Love the fact that students provide feedback to one another number one because I think it's a better learning experience But number two because that's how the world of work works today 360-degree feedback has become a norm and I Know how much that is a challenge for people who have never been asked to provide feedback to one another There's also a particular quirk within the marketing profession which makes peer feedback so important The output of a creative brief is what most of us would think of as a commercial or a bus stop ad or a really cool radio commercial or a fabulous video on on YouTube all of those things are the output of this process and When you ask someone to give their heart and soul to create that beautiful ad that we all resonate to That's really the output of lots and lots of false starts that didn't go so well And the only way you get great output in the marketing profession is to be able to give good feedback and be able to receive good feedback and That means non defensively with deep respect for one another and this Exercise to a large degree emulates that and has worked successfully in that way one of the hardest things that For me was reviewing my peers It's the sitting there is a creative Watching others perform knowing how hard it is to put together presentation and then when you go back and reread as just what was I thinking they put so much time into it and It's the regret. I think that was the hardest thing ever Yeah, I was horrible had to grade them on terms in terms of relevance though, which was which was actually one of the main takeaways of the class was Making your brand relevant. Yeah, making everything you do relevant. Yeah So it was the chance to get the feedback a true feedback without Having our career at stake without losing the project and that's great still stressful But great. Yeah, well the grades were at stake and that's a little scared. Yeah, we all did That's another thing. I forgot to mention is that you you are also getting all this feedback You're not getting feedback just from the professor, which is usually how it is You're getting feedback from 35 people, which is everyone has a unique perspective and it's big. It's abundantly more clear How you did your strengths your weaknesses of the presentation because of all this feedback that you get it's unbiased it's objective and Very often it's very honest and as soon as as long as you incorporate it Into your strategy as a marketer into your thought process learning process It's great