​In our working life most of us know a good relationship with colleagues, suppliers and clients is a good thing. It can be the difference in being great and just being OK– whether this is company performance, winning a contract or just enjoying the work we do. The same goes for most of our relationships through life – relationships with our teachers, friends and family.

Most of us also know that one of the most powerful drivers of behaviour in the world of social media is the need for affirmation when we are doing well or commiserations when things are harder. Then there are life events, world events and everything else in between that get shared and commented on- felfies being a new example!

For an education company, the trend here is a compelling one: we have good relationships with our students, our partners and with each other. We also structure our courses so that they make use of social interactions between students and truly embrace the notion of teacher as lead-facilitator. This is a good start and the challenge now is two-fold:

1. How do we build better informed networks and

2. What is the best way for our students to access this information?

The first challenge is the easier one to focus on – it is what we are doing now and includes using smartphone / App technology to connect in with communities of experts and practitioners in an easy and unobtrusive way. It is also about making the links between the student communication tools and the virtual classroom as easy as possible to access and use.

The second challenge is harder because everyone has their own communication and learning style preferences. This is why we engage with prospective students to understand how they want to be communicated with as much as what they are looking for. In a world where most are time poor, we think this effort will result in a richer conversation with students and this too is a good thing.

For Chisholm Online, studying online is about the effort and reward as much as any other type of study is – the difference is that we can go that extra yard both because our students deserve it and also because we are helping them to achieve. The fact that they will then recommend us to their own network of friends, family and colleagues is proof that we are doing this well and will be to the long term benefit of all those we connect with.