This month's topics: - Our Top Prediction for 2013.
- Plus FREE Nine Shift webinar Wed Jan 30. Last month over 3,000 visitors, a new record!
Content marketing: Find your story
"Content marketing is a way to find your story," says Michael Weiss, a leader in web marketing and a SuperStar presenter at the big annual LERN conference in San Francisco Nov 20-23.
He also teaches a UGotClass online course on content marketing. Weiss continues, " Then use content to engage your audience. If your web site does not tell a story, you will lose your customers. So much of the Content Marketing strategy focuses on the story - meaning what you want to say to your audiences."
You save $100 by registering by August 1 for the conference. And you can check out his online course here.
By a 20:1 margin, continuing education executives said the marketplace right now is expanding for continuing education. Surveyed at the LERN Executive Leadership Institute in Tucson executives said we are still in an era of frugality, with cost controls and greater need for efficiency and productivity. Nevertheless, they overwhelmingly said the opportunities are out there for greater income, registrations, growth and new markets.
Don't fall behind. Get more hot new sessions with the latest keys to success at the big LERN annual conference in San Francisco Nov. 20-23, 2013.
Top Challenges for CEOs Right Now
Staff issues dominate the top challenges of lifelong learning program executives right now. Some of the leading executives in the field, gathering at the annual LERN Executive Leadership Institute in Tucson, voted on the top challenges for 2013.
They are all staff related. In order, here they are:
1.Managing productivity;
2.Motivating staff to change;
3.Creating a culture of accountability;
4.Having a focus on outcomes
One Year Business Plan Now Critical
Greg Marsello, LERN's lead consultant, says having a one year business plan is now critical. "The One-Year Business Plan sets very specific division programming, marketing, sales, and operations direction and pushes the division to be more accountable," he notes. Marsello will be doing a new session on the topic at the big LERN annual conference in San Francisco.
Greg Marsello at the Executive Leadership Institute this spring. The next one will be April 23-25, 2014, in Tucson.
LERN in Slovenia
LERN Vice President Julie Coates, right, visiting with Ema Perme, left, and Irena Benedik, two LERNies in Slovenia, in Ljubljana last month
Flatten that pyramid. In order to serve business in the new economy, programs will need to be structured and operate like new economy businesses, LERN leaders Greg Marsello and Wm. Draves told the executives at the Executive Leadership Institute this spring.
To illustrate the point, Brandon Tucker of Ann Arbor, MI, reported his program recently completed a project to help cake maker Jiffy flatten their organizational structure.
Some LERN members are reporting that staff are working from home informally and behind the scenes. And office workers who fear telework now sometimes tattle to institutional superiors about those working from home.
The telework movement will continue. As one LERN Institute participant said, "Everyone knows you can't get any work done in the office."
Telework can work. Carla Hixson of Bismarck, ND, reports an institution wide policy she helped initiate and encourage that supports telework for staff.
Social Media for Contract Training
Some LERN members are reporting that staff are working from home informally and behind the scenes. And office workers who fear telework now sometimes tattle to institutional superiors about those working from home.
