McGraw-Hill Education: Product Manager – Student Innovations
Profession: Marketing -> Product Management
The McGraw-Hill Companies is driving the education, financial services, and business information markets through leading brands such as McGraw-Hill Education, Standard & Poor’s and J. D. Power and Associates. McGraw-Hill Education addresses virtually every aspect of the education market from pre-K through professional learning.
Using traditional materials, online learning and multimedia tools, we empower the growth of teachers, professionals and students of all ages. Our technical innovations are changing the way people learn, with e-books, online tutoring, customized course Web sites and subscription services. We are also a leading provider of reference and trade publishing for the medical, business, engineering and other professions. McGraw-Hill is investing in and committed to innovation, both in its business and in shaping the future of higher education.
The Learning Ecosystems Group is the team responsible for defining that vision of the future. We are building businesses that meet the needs of higher education students – products that can be directly marketed to students and to institutions, including our current GradeGuru product as well as the significant digital platform products in our short-term pipeline. The Learning Ecosystems Group is thus offering a unique and exciting opportunity for an experienced Product Manager in our New York City offices. The ultimate aim for this Product Manager is loosely to develop, deliver and monetize products/ services that will give students the tools they need to meet their course goals, as well as to drive the research, ideation and vision for new product(s)/ service(s) that are responsive to the needs of students.
Essential Accountabilities
- Manage and conduct research to understand and synthesize student tasks, presenting and sharing the findings across the MHHE business.
- Analyze market and product opportunities in the context of primary, secondary and competitive research. Continually collect, distill, and disseminate foundational research to inform product development.
- Build prototypes and/ or wireframes to define functional requirements that can be market tested to determine and prove market potential.
- Develop and thoroughly document/ articulate the vision and business case for the product(s) to gain buy-in from stakeholders across the organization. Clearly communicate a cohesive strategy and product road map.
- Drive product implementation in collaboration with vendors and business analysis and design partners. Build out the detailed functional requirements and design of the initial product/ service based on research, wire-framing, prototyping, user testing, experimentation and iteration.
- Drive the growth of the product/ service(s) over time, both in terms of the product road map/ functionally and customer base and revenues.
- Build out the monetization plans and business model elements to drive the product to ultimate profitability, setting aggressive targets.
- Ensure all resources are in place across the product and working in concert to achieve the ultimate success of the business, including analytical, design, technical and sales/ marketing resources as appropriate. Articulated accountabilities for team members for successful execution and delivery of the overall business objectives and targets.
- Work in collaboration with the existing MHHE sales, marketing and strategy team for maximum productivity, efficiency and product success as well as manage customer needs in collaboration with the existing MHHE customer service group
- Resource and lead a marketing team to drive rapid growth through a sound marketing and PR plan based on our understanding of our market segmentation motivations, our stakeholder interests, social media marketing tools, the power of PR and a grassroots, viral approach.
- Bachelor’s degree; Master’s degree preferred
- 8-12 years experience in related field, at least 2-3 as a lead product manager
- Proven ability to deliver…
Kiwa Media Group is an award winning media company developing iPhone/iPod Touch & iPad Apps, digital content for books, producing film & television programs & digital content for the mobile music industry. Kiwa Media also provides software solutions for ADR and Language Dubbing across the globe. The company is led by President, Rhonda Kite.
Kiwa Media Group brands include QBook, SingQ, VoiceQ & Kiwa TV & Film Production. Kiwa is a registered Mac OS and iPhone developer.
Example product –> QBook – Bringing your stories to life
QBook™ is an interactive read-along digital colour picture book format designed by Kiwa Media for young children. QBook is an eBook, iPhone and iPad app that combines a narrators voice with original picture illustrations and touchable text that is synchronised to highlight and sound when words are touched.
From DSC:
Let’s picture that you are a 3-4 year old…and your parents get you one of these iPads. You begin to learn to read like this using an app like QBook. You grow up knowing this type of technology exists and you use gadgets like this all the time. They keep you engaged…they give you control of the content, pacing, etc.
Now fast forward to college. You’ll quickly see why I preach the dangers of the status quo.
Podcast: William Rankin on Mobile Learning with the iPhone and iPod — Educause
William Rankin is Associate Professor and Director of Educational Innovation at Abilene Christian University. In this interview from the EDUCAUSE 2009 Conference, Rankin discusses ACU’s mLearning Initiative, which deployed mobile devices to the entire freshman class. This created unique opportunities to pilot applications, overcome challenges, and create partnerships.
Zinio, NACS Media Solutions Partner to Create First Collegiate Digital Newsstand — from prnewswire.com
Newsstand will offer 3,000-plus digital magazines and books of interest to college students through web portal. Options available for college stores across U.S. who wish to share in revenue.
NEW YORK and OBERLIN, Ohio, July 12 /PRNewswire/ — Zinio, the world’s leader in digital publishing, technology, distribution, and services, and NACS Media Solutions (NMS), a subsidiary of the National Association of College Stores (NACS), today announced a partnership to develop the first all-digital online newsstand directed specifically at the college market. Featuring 3,000-plus magazines and books suitable for reading through Zinio’s UNITY™ platform, which enables on-line or offline access on any PC, iPhone, iPad, and upcoming supported devices, the newsstand will break new ground by taking the world of reading to the platforms most popular with the Digital Generation.
The new collegiate digital newsstand, which will carry “Powered by Zinio” branding, will include a revenue-sharing arrangement for NACS members who wish to promote the site to their local college students. At a future point, Zinio and NMS anticipate developing private-label versions for NACS members who decide to deploy and promote their own digital newsstands.
This year’s presentations included:
- Articulating Assessment: Digital Storytelling for Digital Work
Virginia Kuhn, University of Southern California - How IT Rescued a $100,000 No Budget Project
Lou Rera, Buffalo State College - Kindling Students – HCC’s eBook Classroom Project
Lorah Gough, Houston Community College System; Laurel Lacroix, Houston Community College System - Partnering for a 21st Century Education
Holly Ludgate, Full Sail University; Sharyn Gabriel, Orange County Public Schools; Kathy Craven, Full Sail University; Michael Cardwell, Full Sail University - Plasma Playground: Innovative Ideas for Training Students Techs
Helmut Baer, Dartmouth College - Timelines Tell All! Peasants and Revolutionaries Don’t Always Agree
Molly Ruggles, Massachusetts Institute of Technology - Touchless Interactive Art in the Personal Computer
Seiji Ikeda, University of Texas, Arlington; Collin Hover, University of Texas, Arlington - Using Voice Tools with Students in Online Courses
Gail Krovitz, Pearson Learning - Which Castle is That? Geotagging as a Tool for Research and Scholarship
Jared Bendis, Case Western Reserve University
Innovation: Smarter books aim to win back the kids — NewScientist.com
“Children’s love affair with traditional books could continue in the
digital age by augmenting the written word with 3D interactive graphics.”
App/Books are in fact a new category of entertainment; a combination of book and software application that leverages the best of both mediums. An App/Book is interactive, it can have sound, video, animations. It is more like a random access film than a book in some ways. You watch or listen or interact with any part of the book at any time. Actually, that’s not even a good enough description. An App/Book is potentially more than an application, a book, or a film.