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BIMS Speakers to Provide Perfect Road Ahead for Agenda Setting for 2023

by BIMSMedia

As the clock struck midnight Dec. 31, some reveled, some watched the end of a thrilling football game and some slept, but we said, “The true countdown has just begun! Our Business Information & Media Summit (BIMS), Feb. 23-24 in warm and wonderful Orlando is less than two months away!” We’ve been previewing this first, in-person BIMS since 2019 with Q&As from our incredible lineup of speakers. Here’s a big-picture, best-of from those interviews.

You can register here and now for BIMS at an incredible 20% discount
using the code BIMSNEWYEAR at checkout.

How do you see the workplace evolving in the next half decade?

Terri Travis, VP, human resources, Industry Dive: The 40-hour work week will evolve and won’t look the same in the years to come. Workplaces will need to remain flexible to recruit and retain team members. I don’t envision workplaces returning to a pre-2020 model. The “hybrid” model—meaning in-office some days and working remotely on others—will continue. Video calls, messaging and other engagement platforms, or other technologies, will be an integral part for companies to keep a strong level of employee engagement with their teams spread across the country and globally.
In the Feb. 24 closing keynote, Travis will appear on a panel addressing The Future of Work in B2B Media.

What internal challenges need to be overcome, in a universal sense, to implement a [technology] strategy?

Rhonda Wunderlin, SVP, performance marketing, Questex: The strategy needs to be driven from the top so that there is one ultimate path that the entire company aligns to. Once the vision is set, the biggest challenge that companies face is the ability to bridge the gap between the vision and the day-to-day implementation. Ensuring there is a strong project manager, a detailed project plan (that is appropriately resourced) and realistic timelines is important. That said, transparency and consistent communication of milestones are also critical.
Wunderlin will be speaking Thursday afternoon in a session titled Enterprise Tech Spending Starts With a Coherent Business Strategy. Are You Focused Enough?

What’s your topline take on the state of B2B media for 2023?

Chris Ferrell, CEO, Endeavor Business Media: How 2023 shakes out for B2B will largely be determined by the underlying industry being served. I expect a ragged recession that impacts certain sectors significantly and others hardly at all. I do think that events will continue to rebound from the Covid downturn and that if events aren’t at or exceeding 2019 levels in 2023 then there is something wrong with the event rather than a hangover from Covid. Overall, I think the B2B industry is healthy. There are lots of companies doing interesting things and providing great content for their audiences.
Ferrell will also be speaking Thursday morning, Feb. 23 in the General Session titled Outlook 2023: A CEO Panel.

How have you developed the products that have become National Journal’s main revenue driver?

Kevin Turpin, president, National Journal: “We always start with asking our members questions like, ‘What’s keeping you awake at night this year? What new things are you investing in that you didn’t invest in a year ago, that you didn’t invest in five years ago? What’s the number one priority that your boss is asking you to complete this year?’”
Turpin will join Travis and SHRM’s Nick Schacht to close out the summit with The Future of Work in B2B Media.

 

What are the media products most in demand by marketers?

John Lerner, CEO of Breaking Media: Any marketing solution that leverages first-party data and/or contextually relevant content is in high demand. We get a lot of feedback that marketers are fed up with waste. This applies to the entire marketing funnel, even at the top. We are laser-focused on targeting appropriately for all marketing programs.
Lerner will be speaking Thursday morning at the session, The B2B Digital Advertising Surge—Will It Continue?

 

 

Media Library (6)

SIIA Submission on Indian Digital Personal Data Protection Bill

by Policy

On behalf of the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA), we appreciate the opportunity from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (the “Ministry”) to provide additional feedback on the draft Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2022 (the “Bill”).

Read the full submission here.

Thank you for the opportunity to share our views. We look forward to continuing to support these efforts with India to ensure effective, secure, and robust cross-border data flows that enhance global trade and accelerate innovation.

Please direct inquiries to: Paul Lekas, SIIA’s Senior Vice President for Global Public Policy, at plekas@siia.net and Divya Sridhar, Senior Director for Data Policy, at dsridhar@siia.net.

Matt Ausloos Emerging Talent

‘We Needed to Get Information Out’; IMPACT Award Winner Matt Ausloos Talks Podcast Explosion

by IMPACT AwardsMedia

“We tend to average like 400-500 downloads and have had many that have hit a thousand within six months, which is pretty good,” SIIA 2022 IMPACT Award winner Matt Ausloos, manager of publishing for the American Health Law Association, told me recently. “That happens when we release a podcast around a late-breaking event—and this is health law so there have been a lot of those lately.”

Ausloos transformed what was a fledgling idea—a podcast which produced only 17 podcasts in FY 2019—to a “robust content offering that released two episodes per week on a regular schedule, totaling over 100 episodes in FY 2022, and driving thousands of dollars in podcast sponsorship revenue.” As producer, he does all the technical details, working with colleagues and myriad speakers to curate, record and edit high-quality content for a significant following.

He also manages the volunteers and content produced by AHLA’s 17 Practice Groups. This involves roughly 200 items of content per year that must be acquired, edited and published. He also innovated their most popular magazine feature, Top 10 Issues in Health Law, into a multi-channel experience, releasing 10 podcast interviews with the authors—and following up with video versions on their YouTube channel. In addition, he pursued a series of diversity-focused, cross-association podcast collaborations for a series called Career Journeys in Health Law.

In this second Q&A in our IMPACT Awards series, Ausloos talks more about his podcast work:

Ronn: I was really impressed by your work with the podcasts. Can you talk a little about that journey and where you’ve brought it to now?
Matt: Our Speaking of Health Law podcast channel started early in 2018. We just had like one podcast per month, maybe two. The onset of Covid is really what catalyzed our podcast channel. We’re an association dedicated to health law professionals. Most of our membership base is attorneys, but we also serve anybody who works in the health law field. so when the public health emergency was declared and the government was issuing regulation after regulation—and everything was so uncertain—we needed to get information out to our members and the public as quickly as possible. Literally beginning in March 2020, our podcast channel exploded, and we went from one or two per month to several per week. It was just the best way to get that timely information out to as wide of an audience as possible as quickly as possible.

And how did that influence your business model?
Matt: That harnessed things a bit because we started bringing in more sponsorship of our podcasts, and the pandemic showed us what our business model was going to be. There are so many ways to do it. It’s kind of what works for your organization within your content strategy. We rely heavily on sponsorship and sponsor support and have had consistent growth in sponsorship revenue YOY… Our sponsors actually work with us as content partners and developers. We allow them to develop what the topic is, and go out and get the speakers that they want subject to our approval. I work with them to guide the process and set the standards. But I do give our sponsors and our speakers a lot of leeway because they’re the experts in the field. And I think that’s really attractive to them.

That makes a lot of sense but does it ever cause problems for you?
Matt: It’s rare. There have been times when we’ve had to pivot on a topic with a sponsor because they may have veered into advocacy. We are strictly non-advocacy and non-partisan; we’re an educational organization dedicated to educating people on health legal topics, and those are just conversations that you have to have. We don’t allow more than one person per organization to participate. So there are some red lines. We give them latitude, and we haven’t, by and large, had a whole lot of issues.

What stands out that you’ve been working on recently?
Matt: I’ve been working with an attorney—she’s a long time member of AHLA and specializes in women’s health—on a series of podcasts, called After Dobbs, which is the Supreme Court decision back in June that overturned Roe v Wade. It had massive implications, obviously, and it’s something that our members need to be aware of. We were proactively looking for people, and she pitched us some topics. I literally recorded a podcast with her early today, where she interviewed a physician who specializes in reproductive medicine. We also did a podcast with her on providers and women’s health. We’ll also do one on the impact on underrepresented communities, and one on privacy. So it’s all about finding those synergies; when you can, you can create really good content. I try to maintain an open door policy [for ideas].

And you do all the technical stuff?
Matt: Yes, all the setting up and recording. I do have a colleague who helps with content development at times, but otherwise, I pretty much do everything. That’s how it is with small associations. People tend to wear many hats. In addition to the podcast, I’m associate editor of our magazine and manage all the practice group publications. Our practice groups are volunteers who, based on a certain practice area within health law, [help us]. So we have a fraud and abuse practice group that deals with fraud issues, a labor and employment group and so on.

Do you appear on the podcast?
Matt: No. There’s a pre-recorded message that my colleague does for us. I refer to her as the voice of AHLA because she appears on every podcast intro and outro. She actually also developed the music for me. If it’s a sponsored podcast, then she records a special sponsor message at the beginning which gives a little description of what they do. I’m totally behind the scenes. Again, we give a lot of latitude to our sponsors or members who are hosting, and [encourage] involvement from our practice groups.

How long are the podcasts typically and how do you measure them?
Matt: They vary but generally anywhere from 25-45 minutes, based on the conversation. I almost never edit the podcast for time because, to be frank, I don’t want to butcher the audio and make it sound unscripted. If people are listening and they’re ready to tune out, they’ll tune out anyway. But I like to just let the conversation go to its natural conclusion. We use Buzzsprout which is a pretty popular podcast hosting platform. It tracks the stats for us.

It’s all so impressive, Matt. Congratulations again!

ActuariesWebsite

Awards Bring Deserved Recognition But Also a Way for Others to Benefit From Good Ideas

by Media

Submitting your exceptional work for the 2023 Neal and EXCEL Awards—the price-friendly Early Deadline happens this Friday for the EXCELs; the Extended Nominations for the Neals goes til Jan. 6—is a great way to earn much-deserved appreciation. But it’s also a wonderful way to get the word out to others so they can benefit from your ideas—especially other AM&P Network members. Here are ideas from 2022 EXCEL winners.

“The skill sets that I’ve found to be most important for actuaries on the job are… make themselves vulnerable, communicate effectively with each other, listen actively to each other, and also be empathetic to how others are feeling. I especially appreciate that now more than before.”

That quote comes from Nikita Sabade (pictured) in a video on the website for The Society of Actuaries’ Actuary Magazine website, which won a Gold EXCEL Award for the Best Magazine Website. The site features this section of Member Videos, where it’s impressive to watch Sabade and others, including Rolande Mbatchou who speaks about her journey from Cameroon to Paris to Chicago and the diversity she now sees in the field. What’s neat about these videos is that you click on the small box and it automatically plays it in the larger box.

These types of videos, which could be replicated for other under-represented communities in your niche, give the Society of Actuaries a terrific place to engage members and celebrate the diversity of their group. Here are more replicable ideas from the 2022 EXCEL winners (click here to enter):

Use your podcast to inform inclusivity. The 2022 Gold EXCEL Award winner in Best Podcast (Series) was the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association for its ASHA Voices: Gender-Inclusive Services. In one episode, Greg Robinson, a faculty member at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, “shares guidance on how to approach conversations on gender—including information on the ‘they/them’ pronoun—and provides history and context for the conversation.” In another episode later in the year, NCAA men’s basketball champion and NBA veteran Michael Kidd-Gilchrist joins ASHA Voices to “share his experiences as a person who stutters. He also discusses his related advocacy work he does through his nonprofit initiative Change and Impact.”

Create a marketing guide. How to Sell Your Science: The Art of Science Communication, a special guide from American Chemical Society’s Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN)—a winner of a 2022 Gold EXCEL Award for Best New Innovation—attracted 408 subscribers from 49 countries in just the first two weeks. The writers were all science communication influencers “that represent the diversity of our audience, and the tone is personal and inspiring through the anecdotes and advice they share.” The guide was part of four email-courses that generated significant revenue in advertiser underwriting, allowing C&EN’s sales team to price and sell branded versions. Even the sign-up page has a thank you ad for funding support from the Genentech Foundation.

Build your audience with a special week. American Health Law Association’s Health Law Week won a Bronze EXCEL award for Best New Innovation. Many of the sessions and events for that week—which took place June 6-10—are open to the entire health law community free of charge. More events can be added throughout the year, so trending topics can be covered. AHLA sells $500, $1,000 and $2,000 sponsorships for Health Law Week—and a sponsorship page lists seven sponsors for 2022. The schedule for the 2022 Health Law Week was jam-packed, with multiple recorded sessions each day, plus Harassment Training, and a Virtual Networking Happy Hour on the last day.

Highlight an underserved community. “This past May I earned my doctorate in physics, becoming the first Black woman to do so at Yale University. …Approximately 100 Black women have received a PhD in a physics-related field in the U.S…” Thus begins an essay from Brooke Russell on the Diversity and Inclusion site of Physics World, co-published with Physics Today as part of the American Institute of Physics’ #BlackInPhysics Week. The essay series was a Gold winner for Diversity and Inclusion Initiative Microsite in the 2022 EXCEL Awards. “#BlackInPhysics is a week dedicated not only to celebrating Black physicists and our contributions to the scientific community, but also to reveal a more complete picture of what a physicist looks like.”

If content is good, don’t be shy about advertising. Associated Bodywork & Massage Professionals won the 2022 EXCEL Silver Award for Best Single Episode for Old Man Psoas: “The Rebel MT” With Allison Denney. Here’s how the first minute and 20 seconds goes: “Anatomy Trains [a sponsor] is delighted to announce a brand new livestream specialty class on September 18th—Lumbo Pelvic Stability… This episode is brought to you by the Massage Mentor Institute…” When host Denney finally comes on, you can quickly hear why this podcast is cherished by patient listeners: “This is the Rebel MT Podcast where you’ll hear me forcibly colliding the worlds of anatomical jargon and humor… The loads of Latin and the gobs of Greek can make a cranium convulse. It is a little overwhelming to dip your toe into the sea of anatomical knowledge, only to find that it is a bottomless ocean.”