Leading Links 2021 – Issue 8

We’re back with another round of resources to help you grow and improve your learning business. 

To help make this a true learning tool, we encourage you to actually schedule a little time on your calendar to read the newsletter, explore the links, and reflect on how you might apply any of the insights or tips that seem most useful to you.  

We also encourage you to forward this newsletter to others at your organization and perhaps schedule some time to come together and discuss.

Now, onward. First stop, a couple of current and upcoming initiatives to highlight:

• The State of Virtual Conferences 2021: We recently wrapped up our survey on virtual conferences and will soon issue a new version of The Virtual Conferences Report. If you would like to get that hot off the presses and hear our overview of the findings, join us for a free Leading Learning Webinar on October 14. 
  
• On-Demand Learning Platform Demonstrations: Through ReviewMyLMS, we also recently hosted Live Review, our annual Learning Platform demo event. Recordings are now available. (Please note: registration is not open to employees of companies that make and/or sell a learning platform.) 

September Links
Here’s what we’ve rounded up for this month. As usual, we relied on the Tagoras Learning Business Maturity Model to categorize these.

[Leadership] 7 Questions that Change the Way People Think
We’re big believers in the power of questions and knowing how to use them effectively. This brief post from Dan Rockwell at Leadership Freak offers seven that we agree are useful. Useful to ask of yourself when you are making decisions. Useful to ask of others. 

[Strategy] Developing a Future-Fitness Focus
We’re also big fans of unlearning, and it’s a concept that’s at the center of this guest post from Janet Sernack on Human-Centered Change and Innovation. When you think about it, unlearning is usually essential to effective implementation of strategy, which generally requires changing something about how you have previously done things. What will you and others at your learning business unlearn to create a future-fit organization?

[Capacity] How to retain more of what you learn at work
Of course, while we sometimes have to unlearn old practices, we often have to learn new things to take ourselves and our organization’s forward. With that in mind, we’re doubly thrilled to see this Fast Company piece from Jen Lewi, who leads learning at the School Nutrition Association, because (a) it offers valuable guidance, and (b) it’s written by a learning business leader we know and have had the pleasure of interacting with through Leading Learning events. Kudos to Jen! 

As a good article to pair with this one, we also recommend Learning as Investing: 7 Skills That Pay Off in Any Job from Scott H. Young. Read both articles and – just as importantly – share them with others.

[Portfolio] The New Buzz Term: Cohort-Based Courses
While the concept of cohort-based learning is hardly new, it is enjoying a strong resurgence. No doubt this is partly do to the large amounts of passive, self-paced e-learning that got foisted on the world as a result of the pandemic. It is also, no doubt, fueled by the launch of a new cohort-focused learning platform by founders of Udemy and the altMBA. 

While we don’t agree it is the panacea it’s being made out to be, it is an important approach for learning business to consider and potentially add to or expand in their portfolio. So, here’s an an in-depth overview of the cohort-based online course approach and here’s a detailed guided to creating and delivering cohort-based courses. We recommend reading and discussing them with a cohort of peers or colleagues 😉

[Marketing] Build a Better Pricing Strategy Around Your Webinar Offerings
We never of tire of pointing out that pricing is fundamentally a marketing tool. It plays a key role in communicating the value you offer (or don’t offer) and it directly influences how you will be perceived in your market. In the world of Webinars – where so much is free – that goes double, maybe triple. This Associations Now article does a nice job of sharing some key data and related lessons from a survey we recently did on how organizations price their webinar registration fees and sponsorships. 

As a companion to this article you may also want to see How to Price Educational Products – 10 Tips from 20 Years of Experience.

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That’s it for this edition. If you find Leading Links valuable, please share it with a colleague who may also find it valuable. (And, of course, they can get their own subscription here.)