On Sunday, August 19—the first full day of the American Society of Association Executives’ annual meeting and exposition in Chicago—the most popular session for meetings-related services was “Continuing education: Innovative delivery combinations.” Interestingly, the three-person panel comprised healthcare-education pros, each of whom shared best practices and other helpful findings from the educational functions within their associations.
Ann Feeney, CAE, research and data analytics specialist for the Society of Healthcare Strategy and Market Development, noted that when it comes to content delivery, “not being first in the market to address a topic is okay. It’s more important to become the most relevant source for that topic after you have digested emerging news and developments in that area, and then analyzed data from within your association and from outside, too.”
Jon Boyd, CTBS, director of certification and online learning for the American Association of Tissue Banks, stressed that associations’ education committees must be varied and diverse in industry experience and in other ways—and perhaps even include someone from outside the discipline altogether. “Use newbies and veterans alike, and include other people who can give perspectives from all angles,” he said. “Don’t get siloed.” Dr. Cecilia Plaza, Vice President of academic services for the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy, took that thought a step further. “Err on the side of satisfying newer professionals with your content and delivery formats, not so much the old guard.”
For instance, Plaza has found success with microlearning formats. One example: She produces 30-minute webinars that feature three speakers, each of whom has 10 minutes to address a different topic. Plaza finds that these 30-minute sessions might soon become more popular than the 60-minute webinars she’s conducted for several years.
Near the end of the session, audience input was robust and included this observation: Online educational sessions that used Facebook Live rather than a webinar application saw considerably higher attendance among younger learners, and this strong demand is attracting sponsors. One other success story from the audience involved the use of podcasts, which can leverage free software such as Podbean and involve building a subscriber base in order to push notifications to learners. This combination of tactics would boost non-dues revenue at low cost.
