All Communications Articles
  • Audiologists address the gaps in newborn hearing loss screenings

    Sheilamary Koch Communications

    A child’s ability to hear and distinguish sounds is a critical component in his or her early language development. Unlike other deficits in the speech-language-learning realm that have a birth to 3 years old early intervention window, the critical window is much smaller for infants born with hearing loss. "If a child can’t hear, that child can’t communicate," emphasizes Jennifer Phelan, AuD, CCC-A, specialist in the evaluation, diagnosis and treatment of hearing loss in children at the Center for Audiology, Speech, Language and Learning at Northwestern University.

  • How to follow a plan implementation schedule at your association

    William D. Pawlucy and Robert C. Harris Association Management

    What follows is a real-life implementation process carried out by an association in the Midwest. Kudos to the board and professional staff for taking the new plan seriously. This thoughtful approach will keep future board meetings and committees on track while communicating value to members and prospects. Let’s consider that this planning session was conducted in January. A process for successful implementation began immediately upon adjournment. Here’s what occurred with an astute executive director within 90 days of the planning retreat.

  • Preparing for VBS and other summer church events

    Deborah Ike Religious Community

    The summer months are when many churches host Vacation Bible School, summer camps, and other events. While most of the staff's focus has been on preparing for Easter up until now, schools will be letting out within the next month or so. If you haven't started planning summer activities yet, here are a few quick tips to help you get started.

  • How to protect against cybersecurity threats in schools

    Brian Stack Education

    I’ll never forget the first cybersecurity attack I endured as a high school principal. It happened years ago, after I had to assign consequences to a tech-savvy student who regularly would hack into our school Wi-Fi network to access websites and social media platforms that, at the time, were blocked from student access during the school day. I remember the student being upset because he was trying to meet a critical deadline for his international business, and his two other partners needed his help to finish a project for their company. The three ran a company that rented and sold server space to gamers around the world. Mind you, my student had just recently celebrated his 15th birthday.

  • Is Twitter still popular, relevant, or worth it for businesses?

    Emma Fitzpatrick Marketing

    Most marketers rely on the big three social platforms to connect, engage and inform their followers. For B2C marketers, 97% used Facebook, 65% used Twitter, and 60% used Instagram, according to 2018 Statista data. For B2B, 89% used Facebook, 81% used LinkedIn, and 75% used Twitter. For years, Twitter has consistently ranked among brands’ go-to destinations for social media platforms. But did you know Twitter has 32% fewer daily active users (126 million) than Snapchat (186 million)?

  • Establishing a positive school climate meets the needs of English learners…

    Erick Herrmann Education

    It is clear that a positive work environment benefits everyone and allows for a healthy, happy, and collaborative environment where everyone can work to accomplish goals in a meaningful, engaging way. When it comes to schools, a positive environment not only benefits the staff but the students, too. This is especially important when we are discussing potentially marginalized populations in schools. We can best meet the needs of English learners, students with special needs, and other student groups when we consider their needs along with each of the populations of students in the school.

  • Podcast: Concierge PT and podcasting to attract patients with Dr. Karen…

    Jarod Carter Sports & Fitness

    Between running her cash-based practice in New York City, recording her thriving Healthy Wealthy and Smart podcast, and co-founding the Women in PT Summit, Dr. Karen Litzy is one busy person. In this short interview, I get Karen’s thoughts on hiring new employees for her concierge practice, how podcasting has changed her life, and how my listeners might start their own patient-generating podcasts.

  • Are Lexile reading-level scores flawed?

    Howard Margolis Education

    The progress of many struggling readers is undermined by slavish adherence to Lexile reading-level scores. Though I haven't observed that a majority of teachers, learning consultants, and school psychologists are subservient to these scores, I’ve observed it far too often to think it’s rare. In contrast, it’s obvious that Lexile scores, flexibly used as tentative guides, can advance decision-making but cannot take the place of a highly knowledgeable and insightful teacher’s observations. Essentially, Lexile scores are produced by readability formulas that analyze the difficulty of texts, such as passages, articles, and books. To do this, they analyze the length of sentences and the frequency with which words occur.

  • How to optimize your webpages for voice search

    Emily Johnson Communications

    Voice search is not merely a passing trend. It has now gained wide popularity, as it is more convenient for many users to speak with an assistant than to type. To keep up with this change, search engine giants like Google and Bing are moving towards semantic analyses and natural language processing from a keyword-centric approach. That means voice search is already a part of key search results. To stay ahead of the competition, make sure your webpages are voice-search optimized with these eight tips.

  • Business lessons learned from the Boston Marathon

    Roberta Matuson Business Management, Services & Risk Management

    Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to watch the Boston Marathon. If you've haven't seen this race, which happens to be the oldest marathon in the U.S., I'd encourage you to do so. It's quite a sight to behold. Here are some of my key takeaways from the race that can apply to business.