Woman connecting with her computer at home and following online courses, distance learning concept

Training Courses and Certification Make Dollars and Sense for This Digital Age

by Media

“WWD, The Economist Launch Education Offerings,” read last week’s MediaPost headline. These were just the latest media companies to jump on the online education/certification bandwagon. But smaller publishers may be leading the charge. I spoke with Lesley Ellen Harris of Copyrightlaws.com and Bob Coleman of Coleman Report to see what’s driving their success with online training courses.

“For our training, we do 8-10 weeks of hour-long courses, but we break each one up into 5 or 6 10-12 minute segments,” Coleman told me, speaking about their successful Coleman online training courses for the small business lender niche. They do four seasonal semesters; the winter quarter started on Feb. 1.

“We give reading assignments, homework, credit underwriting [assignments]—‘You drive down your street and see a commercial building, maybe a veterinarian or a standalone restaurant. What do you think it’s worth?’ We take questions—used to do that during office hours, but now that’s evolved into the daily web show [Coleman Report Live] where questions are put up on the screen.” Not only does this give people live interaction with experts, but it also provides marketing for the training courses, which cost between $695 and $1,295. They had 440 people watching yesterday for the 1 pm show.

When it comes to media companies and publishers diversifying revenue, online training and certification programs continue to trend up. Once started, they’re relatively easy to manage—especially as the platforms get better—can give new roles to your staff, reach a big audience, not require a huge investment and thus can be successfully carried out by companies small and big. Some other recent examples:

WWD teamed with the Parsons School of Design and the education platform Yellowbrick to produce Fashion Business Essentials—an online course delving into industry trends. The course provides 15 hours of instruction and project time in five modules. Students completing the program receive a noncredit Completion Certificate from Parsons. They are also using the courses to bring more diverse voices into the ranks.

The Economist has launched The Economist Executive Education, bringing “the rigor and intelligence we apply to our journalism to the growing world of online education,” says Bob Cohn, president of the global brand. Created by Economist journalists, it was developed in collaboration with GetSmarter, a brand of global education technology firm 2U, Inc. (Great to see the content team involved in that way, especially with events mostly sidelined.)

AM&P Network member Money-Media has their own ThinkTank website that allows users to earn continuing education credits toward a CFP designation (Chartered Financial Planner) by reading content on their website. “Our system is unique because we don’t require the user to answer test questions at the end,” Dan Fink, Money-Media managing director, said in an email. “We worked with the CFP Board to allow us to eliminate test questions, and they agreed because our technology utilizes time-on-page, along with other user actions (such as mouse movement). As a result, we can ensure users only get credit for active reading time and can’t game the system.”

Copyrightlaws.com offers a variety of online courses—many geared for about 12 weeks—that students can self-pace on. They range from 21 Virtual Ways to Build Copyright Awareness in Your Library or Organization ($199) to Licensing Digital Content ($749) to the Copyright Leadership Certificate ($1,499). “All the assignments are directly related to issues,” Lesley Ellen Harris told me. “We began using Thinkific in the fall as an experiment, and we have moved most of our courses to Thinkific now. All students love it as do I. It offers just enough features to customize a bit but is simple both for trainers and students.”

Harris calls Thinkific “a one-stop shop for teaching. Students get through the materials at their own pace, supplemented by an online discussion that I moderate,” she said. “I’ve learned that a full hour doesn’t work. You have to end at 10 to an hour now or people leave. Plus you can’t just talk for 50 minutes, so we have breakout rooms and I’ll get questions [that people submitted in advance] going. We’ll do polls in Zoom, maybe a true-false or multiple choice. Those are simple to set up. I don’t even have to be in the breakout room. If they’re having a good discussion, I don’t want to disrupt them, but I don’t give them that long either.”

As these examples show, these courses are not the bar exam or CPA test—the key is the learning, the engagement and the dollars, not making it too hard to pass. For Copyrightlaws.com, there’s a final assignment and then 20 questions and a digital certificate. Coleman asks students to write a credit memo or take an open-book exam of 100 questions; pass and they receive a nice plaque in the mail.

Components for Coleman courses—sessions get released every Tuesday—include training videos, reading assignments, quizzes and a Q&A session. Bob Coleman is in the process of refilming all their course videos for the next semester. They will change up a bit, he said. “Last time I did one whole course, and [the other instructor] did one. But now we’re going to cross-pollinate, do some interviews with experts, engage in dialogue—instead of just a lecture.”

Even in companies that are consumer-oriented, the B2B bent is obvious. After their first six-week course, “The New Global Order: How Politics, Business and Technology are Changing,” starts in May, The Economist’s second course will focus on business writing.

Chemistry

Recognition Programs Energize Members, Bring in Revenue and Add Diversity But Must Be Followed Up

by Media

“One of my favorite events is on the day we have our symposium—hearing the TED-style talks of the Talented 12,” Bibiana Campos Seijo, VP of C&EN Media Group and editor in chief, C&EN, American Chemical Society, told me this morning, recounting their 2019 fall meeting and the program that celebrates young chemists throughout the world. (Pictured is that group from 2019.)

“I got to the room and was talking to Paula Hammond”—head of MIT’s Chemical Engineering Department, a member of the C&EN advisory board and was guest editor for C&EN’s special Trailblazers issue last month—“and in walks Frances Arnold, the 2018 Nobel Prize winner in chemistry and only the fifth female ever so honored.

“‘I know you didn’t invite me, but I’m here,’ she said,” Campos Seijo continued, recalling her delight. “I think she stayed for two of the four hours. Someone asked her later, ‘Did you enjoy it?’ She said yes, and that she’s part of a foundation that gives awards and put forward one of the names of the Talented 12—and that person eventually won! So she was sourcing us.”

The excitement in Campos Seijo’s voice is palpable—even virtually, more than 1,000 people watched those talks last year. When done right, member recognition programs such as the Talented 12—and two others I expand upon here, Putman Media’s Influential Women in Manufacturing and ASCD’s Emerging Leaders—can be huge win-wins for organizations. And as C&EN demonstrates, the publications departments can either run the whole program or at the least play a vital role.

But the “done right” makes all the difference. What these three organizations do so wonderfully—exemplified by that in-person (remember that?) anecdote from 2019—is that these programs do not just move on to next year once the people are selected and recognized. They are integrated into publication roles, TED-style talks, podcasts, webinars, advocate and leadership programs, and other organization-sponsored activities. Given that the people selected are a diverse group in all facets, they will also provide new voices and viewpoints to those activities.

The Talented 12 “identifies and celebrates young chemists working in academia, industry, and government, who are just beginning to put their innovative and transformative ideas into practice.” Campos Seijo believes it is important that the 12 represent those three areas, and are diverse globally as well as the more obvious ways. Each selectee gets an excellent profile written about them by the C&EN staff. Here’s an example:

“Mireille Kamariza wants to make a difference in neglected diseases around the world. As a first step, she developed a quick and cheap test for tuberculosis (TB) while still in graduate school. Kamariza was 17 when she moved to the U.S. from Burundi in search of the American dream. But even then, she says, ‘I don’t think that I had quite an understanding of where my career would take me.’”

And while nominees—there were more than 500 last year, including some sent in by other Nobel Prize winners—do not have to pay to enter, revenue comes in through an established sponsorship with Thermo Fisher Scientific. “They’re one of the largest instrumentation companies in the world, so they really like the idea of reaching younger members globally,” Campos Seijo (pictured here) said. “They love [the program]; they don’t interfere at all.”

The people selected also love the program. “There was one winner from a few years ago,” Campos Seijo said, “who told us that before winning, ‘nobody knew me last week. Now I’m sitting at my lab getting all these applications to join the lab.’”

And as mentioned above, the relationships continue. There are collaborations between the Talented 12 winners, sometimes even ones from different years. Winners are invited to give talks, be emcees at events, and serve as associate editors for some of the ACS journals.  “I’m obviously very proud of what we have achieved here not only because it recognizes young, global talent in the chemical sciences but it also attracts [that] considerable sponsorship package,” Campos Seijo said.

Putman’s Influential Women in Manufacturing

“Don’t be afraid to ask for the roles you want. Be prepared, though, to co-invest in your future by accepting the positions that will get you there. That may mean embracing risk by taking tough positions—the ones your peers are afraid to accept or the ones that move your family across the world. In other words: the roles you never imagined taking!”
—Joanna Garcia Sohovich, Chamberlain Group

That snippet comes from an eBook put together by the amazing Erin Hallstrom, digital and content strategy director for Putman Media, to celebrate the 20 2020 honorees in their Influential Women in Manufacturing (IWIM), an innovative program that honors women who are effecting change in manufacturing and industrial production.

Now in its fourth year, IWIM succeeds in many ways—celebrating key Putman customers, amplifying the voices of women in a field where they have been under-represented, creating a new speaker pool for podcasts and webinars, and offering advice to the next generation (which the eBook focuses on).

Hallstrom asks each of the honorees this: What advice would you give to women entering the field of manufacturing?

“Never stop learning,” advised Cindy Jaudon, regional president, Americas, IFS. “Even after being in the industry for over 25 years, I’m still learning new things. Manufacturing is an ever-changing industry full of complex processes and procedures that will challenge you to leave your comfort zone. This is where a strong network of diverse thinkers will prove invaluable.”

“I feel small when I look at all [these women have] been doing and all they do for their companies,” Hallstrom said. “You can see how excited their companies are. I just get excited that someone enjoys it.”

She also runs the judging, which had to go through almost 100 nominations last year. In the past, they’ve received a formal proclamation from the governor of Illinois, and Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) wrote a commendation. “…we just wanted to honor women making a name for themselves,” Hallstrom has humbly said.

It’s also important to get support from the top. “I am proud that Putman could play a role in shining a light on the extraordinary work being done by so many women in the manufacturing field,” Putman Media CEO John Cappelletti has said about IWIM. “Our hope is that their achievements will inspire other young women to join this dynamic industry and be a part of creating manufacturing’s exciting future.”

The program has changed lives. “Not only the honorees, but our own,” Hallstrom wrote in a past year’s blog. “We saw the profound effects of amplifying women’s voices and connecting an alliance of women who were impacting the world in their manufacturing careers… IWIM was born out of a need to amplify and connect, and I’d like to continue that pursuit.”

She has. When we talk about member or customer engagement, what can be better than recognizing—and energizing—an entire faction of your audience that has mostly gone unnoticed? If a publisher or media company can hear from women like Garcia Sohovich and Jaudon, then beneficial outcomes will take place.

ACSD’s Emerging Leaders

Often, good photography and design can make a page and program shine. ACSD’s 2020 Emerging Leaders Directory looks like it came straight out of central casting. But then you read who these esteemed people are and learn that they are so much more than pretty faces. Here are a few:

Sabrina Claude McGahee, superintendent, Old Redford Academy School District, Detroit.
Carrington Faulk, marketing teacher, Newport News (Va.) Public Schools.
Chanel Gaither, president and founder, Minorities Achieving College Success, Wilmington, Del.
Alejandra Garza, fourth grade head teacher, Latin American School, Monterrey, Mexico.
Damion Lewis, senior administrator of professional learning, Wake County Public School System, Cary, N.C.

“Elevating educational leadership is the heart of what we do at ASCD, and our emerging leaders exemplify leadership at its best,” ASCD CEO and Executive Director Ranjit Sidhu said in a September 2020 press release. “These educators strengthen our community and our organization. We are excited to welcome our new class and look forward to working together in the years to come.”

Again, that last phrase stands out—this is a partnership that will continue. The ASCD Emerging Leaders program features educators who have been in their field for 5-15 years and who have made an impact as leaders in their schools, districts and communities.

They are enrolled in the program for two years and invited to participate in multiple opportunities, including, when circumstances allow, attending the invitation-only Leader to Leader convening, writing for ASCD publications, and hosting the ASCD podcast. There are also avenues for leadership opportunoities in the association. ASCD adds that “alumni from the program have become ASCD authors, faculty members and board members.”

These Ideas Spotlight Social, Innovation, Talent and Tech – and Can Be Adapted  

by COVID 19Media

It’s Ideas Wednesday. The American Chemical Society gives a nice twist to the 35-under-35 genre. Copyrightlaws.com gets big audiences with their Zoom On Ins. We like quizzes, and PMMI Media Group does it well and with purpose. And insideARM puts their Innovation Council to good use with a Think Differently series.

Talented Twelve. Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN) has been published by the American Chemical Society since 1923. Subscribers get a magazine, RSS feeds, archives access, a mobile app, tailored newsletters, a podcast—Stereo Chemistry—and a voice product that “delivers daily chemistry news highlights to your Amazon Echo or Google Home smart speaker.”

What caught my attention this week is their Talented Twelve program. “Nominate a Rising Young Chemist to Be One of C&EN’s Talented 12 for 2021. Help us identify early career scientists doing research that will have a global impact.” Knowing this organization you can be sure that this will be a very diverse dozen. The program is presented by Thermo Fisher Scientific, so that’s a nice sponsorship.

Looking back at their 2019 class, C&EN also does a fun, informational page on the group, asking their favorite dish to cook (best answer – Bangladeshi kacchi biryani), number of patents filed (27), languages spoken (9) and surprising skills (wrestling – from Markita – and violin). Each also gets their own profile.

Reach out and learn copyright. Or in the case of last week’s Zoom On In, the relationship between copyright and contracts. Lesley Ellen Harris of Copyrightlaws.com has been hosting these every few weeks for a couple years now—yes even before Zoom absconded with our lives.

Zoom On Ins are free, 20-minute virtual copyright sessions and part of Copyrightlaws.com’s initiatives to make people more aware of copyright law. Harris told me this morning that 200 registered for last week’s session, and 150 attended. That’s a very good percentage, and a smart way to build interest for her paid online courses

“I really nurture [my audience],” she said. “I email them, ‘Don’t forget to come!’ I keep in touch with them—I just want to keep building the copyrightlaws.com community. Actually, I only did a medium marketing effort on this one.” I asked her what other benefits Copyrightlaws.com gets from these.

“Several things. They’re great for my students. In the bigger picture, they’re great for our alumni—they can keep them up to date. They’re great for the public to get information. For us, we can build our list and nurture our current list. It’s good, practical information.”

The sessions are at 1 pm Eastern, and Harris gets attendees from all over the world. “Global has always been important,” she said. “Think about not just what you’re doing now but how people’s habits have changed moving forward.”

Ask Me Another. Quiz: Are You a Social Media Smarty? asks PMMI Media Group. Not only are quizzes proven winners for engagement, but most of us could use help when it comes to social media. So this quiz is particularly well-positioned.

“With email challenged by competition for the inbox, marketers are having to up their game on social,” they write. “Do you have what it takes to succeed? Test your social media smarts with this brief quiz.” There are five questions, and I did not do too well. So I signed up for their monthly Marketing Insights email newsletter “for latest research and tips!”

Another question asks: Which will get your brand in front of the largest group of active prospects? The final question asks us to choose an image that Company X is planning to run in a Facebook ad. I feel better when I see that 82% got it wrong. I am not alone. At the bottom, you see this button: “Learn how PMMI Media Group can help you reach the right audience with your next campaign.” Oh, you can also take the quiz again. Is that cheating?

Other media company quizzes I like: the Financial Times, Education Week and Kiplinger. And Lessiter Media has a good article titled 3 Ways to Use Quizzes in Your Marketing Strategy.

Good thinking. Innovation is often talked about but not made intentional enough. InsideARM dispels that notion with their ongoing Think Differently series. “Written by or recorded with members of the iA Innovation Council, the series of articles and videos showcases thought leadership in analytics, communications, payments, and compliance technology for the accounts receivable management industry.”

Ray Peloso, CEO of a technology company called Katabat, wrote the first 2021 article. “Great innovation is usually a series of incremental lessons honed through relentless discipline in a rapid cycle environment where “speed to insight” or “speed to fail” is the most valuable objective,” he writes. “Disciplined people, disciplined thought, disciplined action; Identifying and discarding bad ideas on the road to winners is crucial. Shortening the timeline from initial idea to winner is a massively powerful concept that separates great innovators from the rest of the pack.”

A program like this energizes their Innovation Council so it’s a real thing, provides paths to innovation, positions InsideARM as a thought leader and builds engagement.

If you have any suggestions for future Ideas Wednesdays, please send to rlevine@siia.net. Thanks!

Woman connecting with her computer at home and following online courses, distance learning concept

‘Blowing Our Model Out of the Water…’; for Some, Virtual Events Have Major Virtues

by COVID 19Media

“How you define events is really the key here,” Orson Francescone (pictured), head of FT Live, told us at BIMS in December. “If you’re a trade show organizer then trying to go digital is tough. If you’re a conference organizer trying to go digital, it’s easier. We’re really good at delivering content.” As all of us get better at virtual events, the lure of the bigger audience should incent publishers small and big to keep at it.

“Can I give you some numbers?” Francescone, asked during the events Power Panel at BIMS 2020. “FT is a newspaper, and we reached a million subscribers a year ago. Our strategy is to drive subscriptions and we’re doing that very successfully. Events were always a big part of that strategy because subscribers who attend events tend to be better engaged [and bring] longer lifetime value.

“Last year we had 24,000 delegates at our conferences. [In 2020] with 220 online events”—plus three more December events were still to come—“that’s webinars, conferences and award shows, we’ve had 160,000 ‘digital delegates.’ So suddenly those numbers are kind of blowing our model out of the water in the sense that we are bringing in a huge funnel of new subscribers into the FT machinery. That’s a very attractive proposition to someone who owns an integrated media platform like us.”

Taking a quick look at the FT Live events homepage, I count 17 virtual events in March, from Women in Technology on March 3, to FTWeekend Digital Festival – Spring Weekend on March 18, to the New Leadership Conversation on March 25. Obviously, we all can’t be the Financial Times, but in a way their idea of cultivating a more global audience can work even better for a publisher with less resources.

Here’s some advice from experts who have experienced success with virtual events.

Keep it short. “The most important thing we tell clients first is [keep it] short,” said John Capano, SVP of Impact XM, an experiential marketing agency, in a recent EventBuzz podcast. “If you’re talking about a keynote that would usually last a half an hour or 45 minutes, [now that might mean] it’s 8-12 minutes. You’re just not going to keep people virtually.” Matthew Cibellis of Cibellis Solutions suggests thinking through a sponsorable monthly series, rather than one or two big annual events as a means of engaging attendees and sponsors.”

Be interactive. “People want to feel like they’re interacting with another living being,” said Shaul Olmert, CEO of Playbuzz, in an article on Huffington Post. “As such, content needs to provide users with interactive material that actively engages them. Playbuzz “Story” enables publishers to “present the content of an article in a series of interactive formats (think polls, flip cards, quizzes), text and visuals. With this format, people spend an average of 3-4 minutes per visit.” Adds Capano: “Say I’ve got a half-hour experience that I’m creating—the audience is an important part of that experience. So yeah, I’m going to deliver some content, but in between the content, what am I going to do to get that audience engaged? And it’s just being thoughtful about that, based on what is the content? What is the event? What is the audience? And what is their appetite for that?”

Choose the right technology. “A lot of folks end up picking their platform before they answer any of these questions and then they realize the platform can’t do what they want creatively,” Capano said. “And so we’re always telling our clients, start early and figure out these questions about what you want this event to be and how you want to engage. And then we’ll go find the right platform. There’s a million platforms. Sometimes the cart gets before the horse on that one.”

Showcase your content people. Of course, FT posts all the big names first for their Spring Festival like Diane Von Furstenberg, authors Martin Amis and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and, wow, the London Symphony Orchestra. But then they follow with FT staffers like wine columnist Jancis Robinson, editor-at-large Gillian Tett, How to Spend It editor Jo Ellison and drink columnist Alice Lascelles. (Wine tastings may still be virtual’s biggest draw.) Put your people front and center—this is a time to showcase them to a bigger audience.

Help your audience do virtual better. Last July, Questex produced the first REMOTE: The Connected Faculty Summit event. They hosted 26,000+ live attendees from 155 countries and 722 universities and colleges, with 2500+ questions asked to presenters and 47,000+ networking chats. The idea was “to provide a forum to identify and promote the best possible pedagogy, techniques and tools by faculty for online and blended learning and to help faculty design the most engaging experience for learners.” They did not hesitate in scheduling the 2021 all-virtual edition. “We’ve learned so much in the last year,” writes David Levin, the event’s producer. “Student behaviors and expectations have changed. Workplace and professional practice have been significantly reshaped. We can do SO much better for our students NOW than we could in January 2020.”

Parse the data, even while the event is going on. “There’s definitely more data that we were able to collect with the virtual event than with an in-person event,” Enit Nichani, vice president of marketing for North America at IGEL, told TechTarget. A reporting feature in vFairs—their digital platform of choice—enabled their marketing team “to see how many times a user visited a particular booth, what sessions they attended and how long they stayed for those sessions.” Use the data to even make changes during the event, if need be. Maybe some type of Q&A worked particularly well on the first day or a chatroom or exhibitor showroom didn’t. You’ll know.

Young people in headset listening to music flat vector illustration. Youth in radio studio recording podcast cartoon characters. Sound recording equipment, microphone, headset isolated design element

The Roles of Engagement: Podcasts Must Connect First, Pursue Dollars Later

by Media

In a Lunch & Learn we had last week, Nicole Racadag, managing editor at the American College of Radiology, spoke about their new podcast. “This was something totally new for our organization,” she said. “We launched the first season of the ACR Bulletin podcast in the summer of 2020. The first installation was on population health management, which had a lot of implications for our members, especially with the pandemic. In November we did [a series] on lung screening to coincide with screening awareness month.

“We are also going to look at branching out into doing some visual podcasts. Looking at stats the podcast has also driven a lot of traffic to our magazine’s website. It was downloaded more than 500 times in 2020 and it’s taken a lot of traffic to our landing page.”

I set out to write about monetizing podcasts this morning, but after looking at what our members are doing, it appears that building engagement must come first. The International News Media Association just came out with a new report concluding that “Connecting with listeners must initially be a higher priority than monetization.” However, they also write this: “Revenue from podcasts is growing and is predicted to resume pre-pandemic projections in 2021.” Sponsorships, subscription-only podcasts, transcripts, branded episodes and live events are paths to revenue.

Here are a few great examples I’ve listened to from members:

Interview industry luminaries. Steve Barrett hosts Haymarket Media’s PR Week Coffee Break every week, 15-minute chats with major people in their industry. He spoke with Linda Thomas Brooks recently, the new CEO of the PR Society of America. They also write a short article about the podcast to make skimming easier. Previous guests have been Jim Vandehei of Axios and Edelman’s new Los Angeles GM Jonathan Jordan.

Tackle big issues. Crain’s Detroit Business conducts several podcasts—most are around 20-25 minutes long. One series, Gist: Business Voices Out Loud, focused recently on leadership insights during the pandemic. “Wellness is becoming more important than engagement, because without wellness, no one is engaged,” said one of their expert hosts. Another podcast is just called Voices and another, Small Business Spotlight.

Provide “Thought” leadership. Erin Hallstrom does the excellent, 30-minute Food for Thought Podcast for Putman Media’s Food Processing Brand. She has fulfilled what she told me back in the fall, that they would do a lot more podcasts now “because we’re going to be stuck inside again this winter.” She added that “transcripts became a huge thing” as far as growing audience.

Be informative, use transcripts as a value-add. Spidell, a tax analysis and information publisher, has been doing their popular California Minute podcasts for a while now. These are closer to around 4 minutes. Interestingly, they offer transcripts only to subscribers.

Field questions. Early on in the pandemic, MedLearn Media increased their crisis coverage by boosting their podcast, Monitor Mondays—which just celebrated its 10-year anniversary—from 30 to 60 minutes. “Because of the pandemic, there was so much confusion to deal with and just a tangle of regulations,” said Chuck Buck, publisher. “So we would have 30 minutes of content with our regular panelists, and then field the questions, which just kept coming on a daily basis. We saw big audience numbers.” This helped MedLearn Media sell more subscriptions.

“As podcasting becomes as much a standard part of news media offerings as print and digital, publishers will have to change how they approach product development,” said INMA report author Paula Felps. She believes that “media companies are uniquely positioned to capitalize on podcasts as they have everything a successful podcast requires: compelling stories and information, professional storytellers, and an audience at the ready.” And, she added, “Where audiences flock, advertisers will follow.”

We also believe that’s true. Advertisers and sponsors are looking for more ways to engage with publishers, especially with events still quiet. So if you can build thought leadership, engage a bigger audience and create a popular brand, then revenue should find you.