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5 ways to avoid category exhaustion at your church
Mark MacDonald Religious CommunityJesus said we'd be known for having love one towards another. That's quite a brand! Different communities have different needs and interpret love differently. That's how churches can develop different brands and still feel uniquely different. It always comes down to defining your audience. The biggest issue that occurs on a branded path is boredom. Be careful that your brand doesn't stay in such a narrow lane for an extended period of time or you'll experience category exhaustion. Here are five ways to avoid category exhaustion.
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Planning for summer: Keeping emergent bilinguals, multilingual students…
Erick Herrmann EducationMany, many students around the world will not return to school until the fall at the earliest. Researchers are predicting that there could be great learning losses due to students not being in school, despite our best efforts to continue instruction through virtual or distance learning. The effect of emergent bilingual and multilingual students could also be significant. Yet there are some ways we can attempt to keep students engaged in learning, or at the very least engaged in continuing to build relationships with us as teachers and the school community.
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Get personal with your brand marketing
Sheilamary Koch MarketingUncut, vulnerable and camaraderie were words that Ann Handley, Wall Street Journal bestselling author and chief content officer of MarketingProfs, linked to successful brand messaging during these times of COVID-19 and sheltering-in-place. Handley's keynote at this year's Content Marketing Conference (CMC) reached me in my living room after the Boston-scheduled event was quickly pivoted to an online platform. While I can't claim exclusivity, this close-up (and suddenly free) opportunity to connect with top marketing gurus had me feeling like I’d won the lottery.
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Associations: An indispensable partner to members
Dan Tjornehoj and Bob Harris Association ManagementAssociations must forge through the pandemic, realizing they are needed more than ever to guide and support their members. Stop to think about it. The essence of association existence is to work as a group to address the needs of members. This is an opportunity for associations to be their best. We are positioned as a trusted confidant with members. Our value is to "ask," then "listen" to members' challenges during this unprecedented time.
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Infographic: A look back at the evolution of data and cyber protection
Dave Kostos Science & TechnologyData storage has come a long way since the first hard drives in the 1950s stored just 3.75 MB of data and weighed a ton. But the explosion of data and cloud-based technologies in the last two decades also means cyber protection is more vital than ever. This infographic looks at how data has evolved over the last 65 years and what lies ahead in the field of cyber protection.
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How to shift your marketing messages the right way as COVID-19 restrictions…
Lisa Mulcahy MarketingAs a marketer dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, you've learned to pivot on a dime — a strategy that has served you well and will continue to serve you well in the future. It's essential to look ahead now, though, and begin the process of tweaking your message to your customers in a timely and sensitive way. Sensitivity and customer consideration should be the hallmark of your strategy at this time. It's key to focus on the following five key planning points.
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How to build a team of innovators
Chuck Swoboda Business Management, Services & Risk ManagementAs increasing competition, new technologies and evolving customer expectations continue to disrupt nearly every industry, business leaders are turning to innovation as a way to keep their companies relevant. The standard solution is to create teams that focus explicitly on innovation. The problem? Most of these teams struggle to innovate, often delivering incremental improvements at best. Simply telling a team to focus on innovation won't suffice. You need to thoughtfully select people with the right mindset for the team.
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Study: Healthcare insurers are missing significant communication opportunities…
Scott E. Rupp Medical & Allied HealthcareDespite the continual conversations and protests from payers and some health systems claiming their patients can't understand transparency with insurance plans and pricing, health plans have a member communication problem, a new study says. The J.D. Power 2020 U.S. Commercial Member Health Plan Study shows that this communication challenge is growing worse in light of COVID-19. While communication issues may not be mutually exclusive to pricing transparency, it seems there's a much bigger cultural issue.
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Conflict is hard. Virtual conflict is harder.
Cathy Bush, Ph.D. Business Management, Services & Risk ManagementConflict between co-workers is a fact of life. If you work with people who care about the mission of the work and who are invested in doing it well, there’s a good chance there will be conflict when each person tries to offer ideas and contribute to group decisions. Even though conflict can come from a good place, it’s definitely a challenging part of work life, and it can lead to the rapid demotivation of your employees. In a virtual setting, poorly managed conflict can push teams to the breaking point.
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Innovation, cloud solutions will drive the future of manufacturing
Bambi Majumdar ManufacturingHistorically a conservative industry, the manufacturing sector must now be more agile and innovate at a higher level in the years to come. The industry has been bombarded with new and unprecedented challenges and has had to pivot in record time during the coronavirus pandemic. There have been supply chain disruptions, factory closures due to COVID-19 cases, and delayed launch schedules. Some oversight processes have been stalled and raise quality issues that need to be solved immediately.
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