#BehindtheSelfie with... Chris Rawlinson

Take that Ellen, my crack team is going to change the world!

1. Where do you live, work and play?

Rawlinson: Cape Town, WWW, Europe.

2. What’s your claim to fame?

Rawlinson: I once sold so much wine to the tech world that the brand became known as the official wine of Silicon Valley.

3. Describe your career so far.

Rawlinson: ‘Varied’ could be a fair description. I’ve designed intelligent homes; flown commercial airplanes; helped build wine farms; helped build the geek community in Cape Town; taught digital marketing at universities, despite never having attended one myself; helped run innovation with Ogilvy & Mather, and now I run an edtech company.

4. Tell us a few of your favourite things.

Rawlinson: Travel, music, my team and new technology.

5. What do you love about your industry?

Rawlinson: I loved adland, it’s tough but never boring. My old boss Gavin Levinsohn once said that any other job in your life will seem pedestrian after working in advertising and I agree. As for the edtech world… ‘love’ is a strong word at the moment, I got into it because I believe there’s hard work to be done and a revolution to win. Education needs to work much better for the digital world we live in and if I can help shape that, it would be an honour.

6. Describe your average workday, if such a thing exists.

Rawlinson: Up around 9am, emails and admin in the morning, anything requiring deeper thought after lunch as I’m not a morning person, and any long tasks that need no distractions after 10pm till around 2am.

7. What are the tools of your trade?

Rawlinson: Pen, paper, Macbook Pro, iPhone, internet and an insatiable curiosity.

8. Who is getting it right in your industry?

Rawlinson: I love Khan Academy for adding a playful side to learning and any talk by Ken Robinson.

9. List a few pain points the industry can improve on.

Rawlinson: Online learning is generally long, way too academic and boring. It’s not enjoyable to look at, has slow feedback loops (i.e. did I get that right?) and is often just a digital version of what is taught in textbooks.

10. What are you working on right now?

Rawlinson: Designing some courses on Startups, Fintech, Design, Digital Marketing, Advertising, IoT and Innovation with some interesting global brands that have to remain a secret for now...

11. Tell us some of the buzzwords floating around in your industry at the moment, and some of the catchphrases you utter yourself.

Rawlinson: The buzzwords I would love to be going around are ‘gamification’ and ‘behavioural economics’. The phrase most repeated in our group is: “The best design and creative work is normally a process of reduction, not addition.”

12. Where and when do you have your best ideas?

Rawlinson: Around 12am-2am.

13. What’s your secret talent/party trick?

Rawlinson: Networking and introducing marvellous people to other marvellous people.

14. Are you a technophobe or a technophile?

Rawlinson: Safe to say I’m a technophile.

15. What would we find if we scrolled through your phone?

Rawlinson: No dead bodies.

16. What advice would you give to newbies hoping to crack into the industry?

Rawlinson: There are only three rules to advertising:

1. Nobody cares about advertising.
2. In order to be successful you must get noticed. If you’re the same as everyone else, you will pass like a ship in the night.
3. If you want to be successful for a long time, you need to add value.

So for adland, stand out, be proactive and add value.

Simple as that. Connect with Rawlinson on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, email him at moc.sesruoc24@sirhc and visit the 42courses website for more.

*Interviewed by Leigh Andrews.