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Posted By Amanda Korosi, Programming SIG Co-chair,
Tuesday, October 18, 2022
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Shaun Salmon, VP of MCLE and Professional Development at Quimbee
Amanda Korosi, Programming SIG Co-chair
We’ve all seen it. At the grocery store, in traffic, in our workplace. Even if you’ve been living under a rock (or in pandemic-induced self-isolation), you’ve seen it on social media, recorded on an iPhone 12 secreted away beneath an airline blanket. What are we talking about here? Rudeness. Unabashed impoliteness. The general erosion of societal norms and everything you once thought was a given in terms of human behavior.
A lack of civil behavior does seem to be widespread, but as it turns out, workplace incivility is pretty bad in and of itself. “Workplace incivility has doubled over the past two decades and has an average annual impact on companies of $14,000 per employee due to loss of production and work time,” states a 2016 study published in the Journal of Applied Psychology. A fair question is certainly “What in the world is happening right now?”. In light of the statistics on workplace incivility, better questions are “How does this affect our profession?” and “What can we do about it?”.
While experts believe that the stress and discord of the Covid-19 pandemic caused a jump in incivility, it’s been on our radar in America for over a decade. In 2011, Dr. Jim Taylor wrote an article on the rise of narcissism in America for The Huffington Post. On civility and lack thereof, he writes:
Civility is about something far more important than how people comport themselves with others. Rather, civility is an expression of a fundamental understanding and respect for the laws, rules, and norms (written and implicit) that guide its citizens in understanding what is acceptable and unacceptable behavior. For a society to function, people must be willing to accept those strictures. Though still in the distance, the loss of civility is a step toward anarchy, where anything goes; you can say or do anything, regardless of the consequences.
“Regardless of the consequences” should send a chill down the spine of attorneys everywhere. At the end of the day, consequences are foundational to law. And if lawyers are not exhibiting good behavior—or facing the consequences for bad behavior—how is anyone to take the law and the legal profession seriously?
This appears to be the crux of the concern in a lot of ways. In fact, in the New York Supreme Court case Hindlin v. Prescription Songs LLC, the court stated that “at depositions, as in court, lawyers are expected to ‘advise their clients and witnesses of the proper conduct expected of them’” and “must model civility for their clients.” (citing 4C N.Y. PRAC., COMMERCIAL LITIGATION IN NEW YORK STATE COURTS § 86:16.) The court went on, “a lack of civility, good manners and common courtesy taint the image of the legal profession and, consequently, the legal system, which was created and designed to resolve differences and disputes in a civil manner.”
Rules of civility in legal practice have existed for quite some time, but they are continuously being updated to deal with the issues surfacing these days. The state of New York issued new updates in January of 2020, stating in the preamble, “As lawyers, judges, court employees and officers of the court, and as attorneys generally, we are all essential participants in the judicial process. That process cannot work effectively to serve the public unless we first treat each other with courtesy, respect and civility.” In 2022, a circuit court judge in Illinois issued a standing order on civility.
We have a lot of work to do, as a profession and, if we are being honest, as people. Where does CLE come into all of this? Some jurisdictions have already adopted a dedicated credit requirement to professionalism and/or civility, an explicit statement that this is necessary for attorneys to make a part of their continuing education:
Additionally, a special committee in Florida has proposed an increase to the professionalism requirement from one to three hours. In 2021, the California Civility Task Force proposed requiring one hour of civility training MCLE credit.
This area is ripe for creating a new space within legal education and there is, perhaps, no better time than now to call for the legal community to focus on this issue specifically. This is particularly true in light of the unprecedented hits the legal industry has taken over the last decade and a half, including a massive recession, rapidly and ever-changing technology in the workplace (and how that impacts attorneys’ duties to clients), a larger-than-ever aging population remaining in the workforce, and a global pandemic. It is no wonder incivility is increasingly common in the practice of law, but we can and should employ the myriad of ways we can collectively take action to reinforce civil behavior. Combatting incivility might start with us:
- regulators can require it;
- continuing legal education providers can offer it;
- law firms and legal workplaces can include it in their internal development trainings;
- experienced attorneys can make it part of their mentoring programs; and
- professionals can model it.
A common theme at recent ACLEA meetings is that there is a substantial gap to be filled in new lawyer training in order to adequately prepare new and upcoming lawyers. In addition to writing briefs and attending happy hours, we should instill the aspirational ideals of being a lawyer. Perhaps then we can not only combat incivility but stop it before it starts.
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Posted By Brendan Baker and Celeste Hollerud-Jones, Publications SIG Co-Chairs,
Tuesday, September 21, 2021
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This blog post will examine some of the ways in which the pandemic has permanently shifted the pubs landscape, and how our teams have adjusted.
The primary change has been to our workflow. Working remotely has caused several of us to move to all-digital processes. In some cases, this was planned, and the pandemic simply sped up changes that were already in the works. Conservation-minded teams who were working to reduce their use of paper found that this had also prepared them for working remotely. However, few teams had anticipated going completely virtual and completely paperless at the same time, and this of course brought complications. Shipping and supply delays brought further obstacles for organizations still relying on physical sales. Luckily, most teams report that the available tools for online collaboration and project management are proving to meet their needs. Popular programs include Slack, SmartSheets, SharePoint, Teams, and of course Zoom.
Shifts to the publications market were harder to track. Fortunately, few orgs reported taking a significant hit to sales in the wake of the pandemic. The need for continuing legal education is as great as ever, and the disruptions caused by COVID have brought new opportunities with them as well. As an example, here at CBA-CLE we increased collaboration between our pubs and programs departments for some projects, while also establishing clearer departmental control over certain revenue streams. We integrated new project-tracking tools, and finally made the switch to a fully MS Word-based publications process. Some pubs employees report a sense that they are more efficient than ever at this point.
Probably the most challenging downsides to the all-virtual pandemic adjustment involve onboarding new employees and recruiting new authors. There is an art to building an effective team, and that is especially true when coworkers might never actually meet in person. Many pubs employees have converted to fully-remote work, with no plans to return to the office, which means that this issue will persist for the foreseeable future. Likewise for teams that relied heavily on in-person events to recruit authors and maintain those all-important community relationships. The level of face-to-face interaction in business contexts may be reduced indefinitely, even after the pandemic restrictions cease. Obviously, we all miss many aspects of in-person interaction, and some things are just not replaceable. However, most pubs departments continued to be quite successful both in terms of bringing on new team members, and in finding contributing authors.
No one could have predicted such a huge disruption to our work and personal lives, and it is hard to view any of it in a positive light, especially given the personal tragedies so many of us have experienced. But on the whole, this situation has shown the strengths of pubs departments. We are agile and responsive, and even in a pandemic we have shown we can respond to the needs of our members and customers. We have had to make a lot of unforeseen changes, but we are hopeful that some of them will have positive carry-on effects for years to come.
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Posted By Henry Lake, President, The Professional Education Group,
Friday, August 27, 2021
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“Our supreme court will allow credit by online learning through the end of the year, so we’re not doing in-person programs until after January 1.” This comment has bothered me since it was proclaimed by a CLE professional in early July—before the Delta variant was much of a thing. You might think, “well, that’s an obvious path to follow.” Allow me to dispute, disagree, and rant a bit about the folly of this mindset. From a marketing point of view, this is suicidal thinking.
What is the reason given for the delay in returning people to an in-person setting? It’s not health related, nor even pedagogical in any sense. It is because credit will be allowed for the alternative virtual presentations. It is because of credit.
What are you selling? It’s the primary question we must ask ourselves every day. In the issue at hand, since the reason is that credit is allowed otherwise, then the thing they are selling is credit. Without thought to whether there is a hunger in the marketplace for some human contact (at a safe distance), the decision was made to “stay virtual.” For the umpteenth time, allow me to point out that selling credit is a fool’s mission. Credit has no intrinsic value. To sell credit is to commoditize CLE. In other words, there is no difference between a $1 hour of credit and a $100 hour of credit—in the end, no matter what the cost, the customer ends up with an hour of credit. If THAT’s what you’re selling, then, you are selling a thing that your competition can give away for free—and they do.
Now, did my friend probably mean that they had decided to take the prudent steps to delay in-person programming due to health concerns? Quite likely. But that’s not what they said, so that’s not what was foremost in their mind. And that is the caution I issue here. Do not ever let credit be a consideration in your mission. It should, of course, be a given.
What, then, should be forefront in our daily thoughts about CLE?
- Professional improvement and advancement
- Value—you get more out than you put in
- Collegiality among peers
- Access (to subject-matter experts, judges, whoever)
Everyone in your organization should have this same mindset every day. Indeed, make sure that everyone in your organization understands that CLE is the acronym for continuing legal education and not some twisted moniker for credit (as in “I got my CLEs”).
I picked up my dogeared copy of Harry Beckwith’s Selling the Invisible: A Field Guide to Modern Marketing (get it if you don’t have it; read it again if you do) to see if Harry had anything to say on the issue and found a neat little chapter. Harry and his partner were working on copy for an ad campaign and getting nowhere. On their third day of the stalemate with the page, their creative director made the comment, “If it’s this hard to write the ad, the product is flawed.” Try it yourself. Write an ad for your service. Write a six-to-twelve word headline for that ad. If it takes you three days, rethink your service. Try it. Make it an office-wide exercise. I hope you’ll be pleasantly surprised, because if you’re not, then you’ve got lots of work ahead of you! Please note that a long-ago CLE boss of mine was IN LOVE with his theme “Get the Best for Less.” Having worked at K-Mart as a youth, I just hung my head. Do better than that.
“So, Mr. Smartypants,” you rightly observe, “what should we do?” I humbly (as IF) offer the following thoughts.
Be there.
You may not be able to personally attend every event your organization produces, but somebody should. And that somebody should have the authority, the knowledge, and the backbone to immediately dispatch any problem that occurs. Give them a number if you must (you can spend up to $1,000 to make a problem go away). That person should also have the presence to greet people when they arrive and to be accessible throughout the day. Someone should embody your organization and make your guests feel welcomed and catered to—every time.
Be consistent.
Dealing with governing boards and committees has never been my strong suit, but if you are in that position, your best tactic every time a new chair comes in would be to make sure that they know that your primary job is to provide continuity through the years. Yes, the chair’s personal “most important thing” might be an important topic like diversity training, or mental health training, or some trendy theme, but they need to know that your job is to make sure that the brand is the same this year as last and it will be so next year. It would help if you had that headline from the office exercise at this point. The chair’s ideas are welcome and will be acted upon given available resources, but they cannot change the core being of your shop. It will make your job easier to set those ground rules up front.
Be collaborative.
Recognize the contributions of your staff and your peers. Give credit freely to others. It costs you nothing and gains you much. If you’re in a leadership role, remember to ask for input—and ALWAYS start with the junior member of the group, or the person in the weakest position. They may have a great idea or see a flaw with some plan, but if the group’s leaders speak first, that junior team member’s reaction will likely be “they know more than me, I should just keep my mouth shut,” and you’ll miss that great idea.
I have veered widely from my original point, which is the following. Everything you do is marketing, even if it’s providing a colleague with your reasoning for doing something. Advertising is obvious, but picking program topics and plugging them into a calendar is marketing, how you answer the phone (and ANSWERING the phone) is marketing, responding to people is marketing. Internal memos are marketing, particularly if they motivate staff to carry out the mission. And everybody needs to know the mission!
Now, my last suggestion is a reading assignment—and one that I intend to pursue myself. Read, or re-read, the aforementioned Selling the Invisible and also David Ogilvy’s Confessions of an Advertising Man. What you will find in those pages will serve you far beyond your next project.
Henry Lake is President of The Professional Education Group. Prior to his run at P.E.G.®, he served as both Media Director and as Program Director for the South Carolina Bar CLE Division. Henry has served on the ACLEA Executive Committee and was Chair of the Santa Barbara Mid-Year Meeting – you’ll have to look up the year, he’s forgotten. Yes, at that meeting, Henry was responsible for Bodine Belasco, Comedy Magician and for the introduction of the Three Meat Closing Event Buffet. It was his high-water mark.
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Posted By ReelTime, 2021 Annual Meeting Sponsor,
Tuesday, August 10, 2021
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Please see my post-conference self-portrait above. I am wondering if anyone else who just attended the 57th Annual Meeting in the Cloud can relate?
As I sit to write this post, much later than I had planned (i.e., it was supposed to be done before the meeting) my brain is absolutely FULL! I consider that a good thing, even though it also feels a bit overwhelming.
As usual, our Annual Meeting provided an absolute treasure trove of practical guidance, and once again we heard from cutting edge thought leaders in legal education. I learned new words like “hyflex programs” and had my mind totally blown by the 3-dimensional “Delta model” introduced in the last plenary as a guide for designing curricula and programs that meet particular needs, with an eye for involving key stakeholders in choosing target outcomes and pedagogical means to meet them. (At least I think that’s what it was about—it was a tough one to absorb on the last day!)
For those who, like me, may still be trying to organize in your headspace all the great content (and also for those who couldn’t or attend or have not yet watched the online replay videos), here’s a recap in the form of my 3 top takeaways:
- The once change-averse legal profession is now careening along on an unprecedented, upside-down, post-pandemic rollercoaster ride of paradigm-busting, increasingly inclusive (we pray!), foundation-shaking, unpredictable change, hopped up on a combustible cocktail of steroids, antivirals, delta-variant mutating AI applications, and RedBull (Whew!) —and like it or not, ACLEA folks are truly best positioned to help bring order to all this chaos.
Seriously, folks. I cannot put the hyperbole aside, ‘cuz it all applies.
I’ve been to at least 14 annual or mid-year meetings over the last 10 years, and there’s always talk of “winds of change” that are coming, and how we need to pivot and get out in front of some new trend in content delivery, or else we’ll get crushed, outflanked, or shunned from the cool kids’ table, etc.
In fact, after our very first ACLEA meeting, in Boston in 2011, after hearing about all the predictions of online and virtual programming becoming “the new normal,” etc., Michael and I looked at each other and wondered whether our facilitated, in person, discussion-oriented approach might make us “dinosaurs” before we even really got started. Thankfully, at that same meeting, we met some of the most amazing people: kindred spirits in the pursuit of accessible, engaging, effective adult education, and largely because of that, we kept coming back.
Thus began our 10 year+ odyssey of “riding the waves of change” with you all--while still trying to keep our feet on the solid, time-tested foundation of sound pedagogy and learning design that ACLEA members collectively have carefully developed over decades.
Over time, we confirmed that there was and always would be a market for live, in person programs. (What a relief!) And thanks to so many of you who have become sponsors, well-being programming co-conspirators, and genuine friends, we learned a whole lot about better ways to do just that.
Enter 2020. (Gulp.) Bye-bye live programs for everybody.
By this point we collectively may have exhausted the supply of descriptive words and images to capture what the last 16 months have been like in our world. I doubt even a cosmic mischief-maker like Loki (from Marvel’s Avengers) could design a set of circumstances more effective to obliterate everything we thought we knew about where, how, and on what various devices lawyers would be doing their work. Or to set fire to any prior prognostications about what these wholesale changes in technology and how we connect & consume content would mean for CLE programming.
Literally, the ground has shifted under our feet, and never before have we been so locked into “trying-to-build-the-plane-while-flying” mode.
And oh yes—let’s not forget that the Universe chose this very same moment in history to prick our collective conscience regarding the lingering effects of the Civil War, Jim Crow laws, and racial tensions in policing and criminal justice, such that there is a (well-founded) clamor for (long overdue) programming to address (very real) disparities in access to justice for folks from marginalized communities.
This combination of multiple, “once-in-a-lifetime” history-delineating circumstances all just rendered more valuable and helpful every presentation that we heard and every individual story shared in the SIG meetings and networking sessions. It was inspiring to hear how ACLEA members around the globe have risen to the challenges of the wackiest, most de-stabilizing, unpredictable era in continuing education.
Having during the pandemic attended several virtual conferences focused on professional development and in house counsel networking, I can say with confidence that ACLEA peeps are some of the very most nimble, adaptive, creative, forward-thinking, and practical educational programmers and marketers that we have encountered, let alone gotten to work with. Period. Our time-tested commitment to continuous improvement of content delivery methods and our embrace of technology have proven invaluable as courts, firms, and non-profits alike scramble to practice virtually.
Because we were talking about these kinds of things at ACLEA meetings 10 years ago, folks. Virtual programming isn’t new for us—we’re just having to implement it on an exponentially more massive scale than we ever dreamed. We are the leaders that our organizations have been looking to in order to make the changes that they have needed to make.
Which leads directly to my next takeaway…
- We are prime candidates for overwork, overload, and burnout.
About 3 months into the pandemic & lockdown conditions, I heard a very helpful description of what was going on. I can’t recall the source, but the person said essentially, “Let’s be done with describing the current situation as, ‘Oh, I am just working from home now.’” A more accurate and honest description would be something like this:
“I am trying to get some measure of productive work done,
from my house without most if not all of the tools & resources I’d normally use,
with limited access to the people with whom I would ordinarily collaborate,
in pursuit of a completely different set of goals than I have ever had (and which keeps changing seemingly at random),
while helping my kids get their education from our home,
Sharing limited wi-fi bandwidth and or table space with ___ other people,
All of whom are similarly stressed out and deprived of most of their usual tools for life or school and routines or coping mechanisms for stress,
And all while trying to stay healthy and survive a global pandemic.
And that just covers folks who haven’t lost jobs, or loved ones, or months of time recovering from the disease itself.
Put simply, all of us are being asked to do more, with less.
And when it comes to programs focused on technological competence and well-being, the demand is higher than ever and the importance of the content has skyrocketed. Our work as CLE professionals is crucial, and compelling, and more than ever, we genuinely care about giving our constituents and stakeholders what they need.
And as you may have heard Michael and I emphasize, each of us, despite being a CLE “rock star,” is also finite. Even in the best of times, we don’t have unlimited energy, creativity, focus, or time. And the competing values and tradeoffs we already had to navigate have only gotten tougher.
So, when we combine the nerve-wracking environment with the frequent disproportionality of resources to desired outcomes and our own dedication to serve our organizations well—we CLE professionals are in serious danger of neglecting our own self-care.
I know this not only from the stories I’ve exchanged with so many of you in the course of planning virtual programs, but also from my own experience. Folks, I freakin’ speak to lawyers about self-awareness and self-care FOR A LIVING and my biz partner is the delightfully insightful and supportive Michael Kahn, former lawyer-turned counselor. Nevertheless, this past 16 months have contained some of the absolute worst self-care in my career. Lack of sleep, skipping meals, overworking, getting isolated, and over-binging on TV shows & YouTube videos at night, are just a few signs of my own struggle with anxiety and burnout.
And here’s the real trick of it: if I am the one with the problem, I’m not likely to have much luck correcting the slide, paying down the deficits in sleep and nutrition, or crafting a new set of habits & strategies to keep my head on straight. Put simply, any recovery or progress I may have made has required help from colleagues, counselors, friends, and yes, ACLEA peeps.
Hence my last (and briefest, I promise) takeaway.
- We need one another, now more than ever.
This is not a time to be re-inventing wheels, or overly committed to pushing through with our own original solutions, Indeed, if ever there was a time to leverage the resources that your ACLEA fam can provide, here it is.
If you have a particular challenge in:
- Designing your curriculum;
- Planning a program to help your lawyers recover and maintain a measure of sanity amidst the chaos;
- Converting a beloved live conference to a virtual webinar series; or
- Recapturing the audience share that you fear you have lost.
… chances are good that someone else has faced a similar challenge. And the beauty of ACLEA has always been how collaborative and helpful and downright generous everyone has been with one another.
I still remember our first conversations with Sean Carter and Stuart Teicher, again 10 years ago in Boston. To our delight, they engaged with us not as competitors, but collaborators: kind, welcoming, and open handed in sharing resources, ideas and connections. It was such a refreshing change from the “shark-eat-shark” world of litigation I was used to that it drastically altered the trajectory of my career.
So if you haven’t already, lean into your ACLEA colleagues & let them/us help. I won’t say “don’t be a hero”—because I actually want you to be a hero. But the way to do it when the challenges loom large and resources are tight is by providing your org with a spot-on practical solution to one of its many challenges, and won’t drain its resources (including you!) completely dry.
With all that in mind, ReelTime Creative Learning Services would love to help you navigate any of the challenges you are facing. Why not let us take something off your plate, so you can focus your energy on the many other tasks and challenges you face?
For over 13 years, we’ve developed a catalog of engaging, interactive CLE programs that help lawyers experience greater well-being so they can thrive in both their personal and professional lives.
We’ve gotten CLE credit approval for ethics, professionalism, diversity & inclusion/bias training, and mental health/substance abuse awareness in even the most exacting of jurisdictions.
And we’ve not only made the pivot to virtual presentations, but we’ve found ways to combine our movie clips, roundtable discussions with each sponsor’s best volunteer presenters, polling, Q&A, breakout rooms, and to drive measurable, meaningful virtual engagement.
And as a reward for anyone who has read all the way to the end of this blog post, the first 5 people who click this link can book a free, no obligation, 15 minute brainstorming session over Zoom.
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Posted By Alexandra Wong, ACLEA President,
Friday, February 12, 2021
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It was great to have many familiar and new faces join us at last month’s virtual conference. Despite the ongoing global pandemic, I am grateful that through technology and heavy schedules, we were able to get together to share and learn over three days via our LMS Powered by CE21 and Remo.
A few things struck me as common top-of-mind questions heading into 2021 for all of us. With a lot of uncertainty still, the gradual rollout of the vaccine and appearance of new and strong strains of the coronavirus, a lot of us are faced with several questions. When is the right time to return to in-person programming? Are we looking at a hybrid type of solution going forward? Do you stay on a completely virtual course for at least a year if not longer? What safety precautions are needed for an in-person format? How do you provide a similar if not better user experience for those attending virtually versus in-person? How many people will attend in-person programs? How do you market in-person programs?
These are just some of many questions on all our minds. We are all at different stages of delivering programs, along with different levels of technical solutions/formats/sophistication, however, it is clear all our stakeholders continue to receive much valued content in order to continue to provide services to their clients.
With the pandemic, our stakeholder’s preferences on attending programs will almost certainly change. A year later, they are all used to an on-line format, be it live webcast or on-demand recording.
For those of us who host programs at venues such as hotels and or convention centres, the number of attendees the facility was previously able to accommodate pre-COVID has changed due to public health regulations/guidelines and social distancing requirements. Given the lessons learned when the pandemic started a year ago, a lot of us are hesitant to enter into contracts with venues or are putting together contracts with stronger force majeure/impossibility clauses.
There will be a lot of additional considerations in determining the most appropriate solutions, especially with respect to financial costs and number of attendees the venues can accommodate in this new normal. Almost certainly, the added costs of cleaning and sanitation at venues plus the drastic changes to food and beverage operations will be costs that will be passed down to us from the venues. We will all need to determine/project how many people will attend in-person programs again. Not an easy task; some practice areas may return to in-person formats more quickly then others or will prefer to remain in a virtual format.
The best approach may be to survey your attendees or members to gauge what they will be most comfortable with and or when is the earliest they would consider attending a program in-person. In addition, you may consider asking what concerns, if any, do they may have with attending in-person programs. The data will most certainly assist us to make an informed decision, but new developments in the world, may have an impact on the data (e.g. more variant strains of the virus, cases increasing, vaccine shortages, etc.)
Room setup for events will be different with social distancing requirements. The look and feel will be different and may not be conducive to CLE programs. In-person networking in the new normal will be a big challenge no doubt.
Hybrid solutions will have all of us being more creative in our delivery methods. The challenge will be to ensure the virtual experience is the same, if not better to the in-person experience.
Hoping that over the next few months, things will continue to get better and we will be dealing with less uncertainty. I encourage everyone to continue to keep in touch with each other by sharing best practices and new ideas, or even just to check in to see how everyone is doing.
Take care of yourselves, your families, and each other.
Stay safe and keep well.
A.
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Posted By Alexandra Wong, ACLEA President,
Tuesday, January 5, 2021
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It’s hard to believe that we were last gathered together just about a year ago in the sunny, warm climate of Jacksonville. No one could have predicted that in 2020 we would be dealing with a global pandemic and adjusting to a new normal as we start 2021.
The pandemic has changed the way we work and how we deliver programs and publications. We’ve all been able to be creative, take risks, and try different things well ahead of when we would have normally done them.
We are starting 2021, a year that will be better, as we all continue to be resilient to uncertainty and constant change in carrying out our responsibilities to our stakeholders. After the last year, we are definitely better prepared to continue and refine processes as the pandemic continues. With the rollout of vaccines, there is a light at the end of the tunnel; we should be able to meet in person again in the not so distant future.
As I write this column the Austin Conference Planning Committee, along with the team at Ewald, has been hard at work preparing for our second virtual conference that is scheduled for January 22 (Boot Camp) and January 26-27 (57th Mid-Year Meeting).
When the Executive Committee considered which platform to host the virtual conference on, the main requirement was to ensure we would be able to provide the most optimal experience for members, speakers, and sponsors/exhibitors, recognizing that experiences from the previous virtual conference were not up to par. As such, after some consideration, I am pleased to advise that our upcoming virtual conference will be hosted through our learning management system (LMS) platform that is powered by CE21. CE21 is the Platinum Sponsor for the 57th Mid-Year Virtual Meeting and ACLEA is excited to be working closely with the CE21 team as we get prepared for our event.
The CE21 virtual conference platform is extremely user friendly, easy to navigate and will provide numerous networking opportunities along with a dedicated space for our conference sponsors. Some sessions will be broadcast live, while others will be pre-recorded with a live question and answer session with presenters following the presentation. More details on accessing and navigating the platform will follow in the coming days.
As I look at the conference schedule, the topics are all timely and relevant. ACLEA fan favourites, Dr. Mark Taylor and Paul Unger, are lined up for a few plenary sessions. Dr. Taylor will present the opening plenary session – Leading to Happiness: Practicing Positive Development Leadership and a follow up plenary session on the Multigenerational Workplace. Paul will help us to Get Focused with Time Management and Digital Detox in the Face of the Pandemic World.
In addition, I am looking forward to hearing several breakout sessions including Lessons Learned from the Coronavirus, Sponsorship/Exhibitor Opportunities in the Virtual World, Applying Instructional Design Strategies when Creating Online Learning, Emerging Issues in CLE, Building Shared Resources, and Designing CLE Programs Based upon Practice Management Lessons from the Coronavirus. In short, there is something for everyone.
For those that are new to CLE or are looking to refresh their CLE background, we are pleased to offer our Boot Camp program. Moderated by ACLEA fan favourite, Rob Seto, the half day program will touch on all things CLE, including programming, technology, marketing, publications, working with contributors, and contract negotiations with hotel/vendors/paid speakers. It's also a great place to start others in the same types of roles and begin your ACLEA networking journey.
It takes a village to put on an event like ours. Please join me in taking the opportunity to acknowledge a number of people for their hard work and dedication in putting together the 57th Mid-Year Virtual Meeting with relevant and timely content. Thank you to the Austin Conference Planning Committee Chair – Anne-Marie Rabago, and Co-Chair – Diane Morrison; Committee Members – Catherine Broussard, Una Doyle, Scott Harrington, Barron Henley, Tim Slating, and Matt Sommerfeldt.
In addition, thank you in advance to all of our speakers and sponsors for participating and helping us to deliver this event. Last but not least, thank you to the teams at Ewald Consulting and CE21 for their hard work in helping us prepare our virtual conference.
I encourage all of you to take a look at the conference schedule and register today for the 57th Mid-Year Virtual Meeting. I look forward to all of us “Coming Together in the New Normal”.
Wishing you all a happy and healthy 2021.
Alexandra
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Posted By Alexandra Wong, ACLEA President,
Wednesday, December 9, 2020
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All Things Marketing in a Pandemic
Has the pandemic changed the way in which you market your programs and/or publications? Have the registration numbers surprised you in any way?
There is no doubt that the pandemic has changed the way in which we promote our programs. For some of us, pre-pandemic, we were doing a combination of mass mailing and emailing to promote our products. But with lockdowns and being asked to work from home where possible, it’s more than likely that mass mailing is now more of a challenge. Mailing and/or printing houses had to be shut down as they are not able to have an environment that would meet the required social distancing measures to be in place for employees to safely work.
All Marketing Teams were presented with a new challenge. While content is king, the mode of delivery completely changed. With the pandemic, gone are the days of face-to-face events that allowed attendees to have networking opportunities and the ability to ask questions of the faculty by going up to a microphone. Attendees must now network through their computer screens and have to type out their questions to speakers. Registrants looked forward to the in-person aspects of our programs—hence the challenge of how to market virtual events to those who prefer face-to-face events.
At the start of the pandemic, most of our CPD programs at the Law Society of Ontario were rescheduled, but there were some that were pre-recorded and released as on-demand products. Because the programs were released in that format, there was no opportunity for viewers to ask questions as they watch the program. Our Marketing Team got creative and worked with our Planning Counsel to encourage registrants to submit their questions in advance of the program being recorded as part of our promotion emails. In doing so, it gave our faculty the opportunity to incorporate the answers to those questions into their presentations.
Our Marketing Team has started much earlier than usual to promote upcoming programs with a lot of social media messaging that encourages our members to “Save the Date.” They’ve also repurposed clips from past programs to use as teasers as part of their promotional activities.
While, pre-pandemic, we were able to have our program chairs record testimonials on why they volunteer to speak at CPD programs, during the pandemic we had to pivot and ask for written testimonials from them. Our Marketing Team puts all of this together at the end of each season to show our appreciation to our faculty.
The biggest challenge of all for any Marketing Team was the requirement to market responsive programs at the height of the pandemic on short notice. No easy task, but our team got the job done and our registration numbers were out of this world. Our members continue to access them on-demand.
Being in the second wave of the pandemic, our Marketing Team has been busy promoting our upcoming Winter/Spring programs that will continue in a virtual format. The developments on the vaccine are promising, but all Marketing Teams will face a tough challenge to entice members to return to in-person attendance when we are all safely able to do so.
In terms of pricing of our programs, we look at it from the perspective of the value of the content. For the most part, our registration fees have remained the same as pre-pandemic, while there are programs we will offer at minimal to no cost. We understand that our members are struggling through difficult times as well and we take that into consideration. Our registration numbers are the same and in some cases, a lot higher than when we had the option of in-person attendance.
It has been challenging times for everyone in the CLE/CPD business—whether you’re in program development, publications, marketing, technology, or delivery. But ACLEA members are a resilient bunch. I encourage everyone to continue to reach out to one another for best practices and sharing of new ideas/concepts in this new normal we are working in or even just to catch up.
I am hopeful, with positive news on the vaccine front, that soon we will be together again. In the meantime, I want to take this opportunity to wish each and every one of you a safe and happy holiday season. It’s been a busy few months, but take some time to unwind, relax, and spend time with loved ones as safely as you can.
Season’s Greetings!
Tags:
COVID-19
marketing
pandemic
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Posted By Rick Horowitz, Prime Prose, LLC,
Friday, June 12, 2020
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Hello, ACLEA-Mates!
So it looks as if I’ve made the transition from Baby Boomer to Baby Zoomer...
Consider this a dispatch from the field. An after-action report you might find useful as we all grapple with these new realities for scheduling and presenting CLE programs.
In a nutshell? I now have three full-day, online, legal-writing sessions under my belt, and I’m still standing. (Well, sitting, actually – I don’t get to walk around the room the way I do in my in-person classes.) There were only a few minor technical stumbles, thanks to plenty of terrific help from my colleagues at the DC Bar and Minnesota CLE. And lots of excellent conversation – again, with thanks to my colleagues, who monitored the chat lines, launched the polling questions, shared the accreditation codes...
Anyway, I’ve noted some things that stood out to me in these first attempts, and that might be relevant to your efforts as well, on Zoom or elsewhere. Your experiences may differ, of course, and I’ll be grateful for your feedback; I suspect we’re all compiling lists of “Lessons Learned.”
Before we start, one upcoming change worth noting: At the suggestion of Brendan Ruane at the DC Bar, and quickly picked up by Tom Genung at the Connecticut Bar for a class next month: I’ll be splitting my standard full-day class into two half-day sessions instead. We’re thinking that six hours of content in a single block – even with lunch and bathroom breaks – is an especially long commitment for people who are generally working from home these days, and subject to all sorts of distractions. By contrast, two three-hour sessions on consecutive (or close-to-consecutive) days may be more manageable, and more appealing. I’m up for it, and looking forward to seeing how it works in practice.
In the meantime, a few of my early reactions to these first Zooms...
DC Bar: “Zoom Meetings”
For the two DC sessions, with relatively small crowds, I could both see and hear the participants; DC uses Zoom Meetings. I found it enabled me to read the “room” – I could respond to puzzled looks, note that someone was nodding in agreement with a prior comment, encourage a hesitant participant whose body language suggested a question forming, even see if a joke landed with its intended effect. All very helpful, plus the full complement of Zoom features: screen sharing, polling, and even breakout rooms. We can take attendance higher, I’m confident, and still make good use of most of these functions.
As for the microphones and the possibility of background noise: We started the day with all participant microphones muted, but invited participants to individually unmute themselves and dive in with any questions or comments they might have. (I also suggested that they briefly identify themselves when they did so, for those who were following by phone, and to help those who might not have been able to scan through “Gallery View” quickly enough to see who was speaking.)
At one point early on, we even had everybody unmute, just to do a test run on the background noise; it was acceptable. From time to time during the day – and this is almost inevitable – someone would forget that their mike was on and answer a phone call, or have a conversation with a housemate. We were able to gently suggest muting; no feelings were hurt, and no secrets were revealed. J And at a couple of points during the day when we wanted a particularly freewheeling discussion, and because the crowd was small enough, we invited everyone to unmute. Again, it wasn’t a problem.
We actually held off on the breakout rooms until my second DC session – our pre-session tech run-throughs had convinced all of us to be judicious in adding the various bells and whistles. But when we deployed them, they worked well – and as host, I was able to move easily among the groups, as I do in my in-person sessions. Unless you have a reason to do otherwise, I’d recommend allowing Zoom to do a random sorting for the breakouts, after you’ve decided how many rooms you want and therefore how many people should be in each room, or vice versa. Zoom will do the math and make the assignments for you.
[One interesting wrinkle: If you choose to go back into breakout rooms again later in the session, and you want to keep the group assignments the same for the sake of familiarity/continuity, you can choose “Recreate” from your breakout options, and the groupings will stay the same, rather than getting a different random sort or having to personally assign them to their original rooms.]
Videos: I bailed on using videos during these sessions – performance anxiety, I suspect, even after doing a major upgrade to our internet service here at the Wisconsin Production Center. (Also known as our dining room.) But when I couldn’t locate and launch the videos immediately, I chose to describe them instead of wasting class time searching for them. I’m hoping, with a little more practice, to use them in future sessions – or at least the videos that don’t eat up too much bandwidth and start stuttering. The tech run-throughs were very helpful for making those decisions, too.
Overall? Both DC classes went well. Huge thanks to Brendan Ruane, Suhana Rai, and Keith Wilson for tech and moral support along the way. Our next session together will be in mid-June, and most of the features I liked and used seem scalable for larger classes as well. We’re hoping the split sessions will bring in even more attendees.
And for really larger classes?
Minnesota CLE: “Zoom Webinars”
For Minnesota, with a much larger group, we used Zoom for Webinars. No cameras, no microphones for the attendees, but we urged them take full advantage of the chat function, which they absolutely did.
I was able to see the arrival of the chat messages, although apparently not their full content, while I was using Share Screen for my PowerPoint deck and workbook. What made it work was having a willing co-host/sidekick/conversation partner – in this case, MinnCLE’s Luke Olson, who kept track of incoming message traffic, and dropped in to share the comments and questions at opportune moments. (Occasionally, I’d notice the flashing chat box at the top of my screen and invite Luke in to offer up the latest arrival.)
It’s fairly labor-intensive for the co-host, but it offered a reasonable solution to the Zoom for Webinars limitation of (mostly) one-way communication. It also meant that attendees had an occasional second voice to listen to, rather than just my own for the entire session; I considered that a definite plus! Attendees seemed to like it, too.
Big thanks in Minnesota to Luke, and to Brianna Fitzgerald – and to our colleague Leslie Sinner McEvoy, who got the whole thing rolling before departing MinnCLE to launch her own consulting firm.
Attendee Response
My goal in both locales was to offer – as much as possible in a virtual setting – the same kind of back-and-forth, give-and-take energy that has proven popular in my in-person sessions. All the features we used were chosen and deployed in ways designed to increase attendees’ comfort with the new arrangements, which we saw as a way to increase their participation.
So, for example, our first use of the chat function in Minnesota was simply to ask the attendees to tell us what room of their house they were now working in – or if they weren’t in the house, what park bench or lawn chair or tattoo parlor(!) was serving as their current base of operations.
I wanted to ease them into typing with a light and low-pressure question. I wanted them to see how – and how quickly – their responses appeared on-screen as I read them out. And I assured them that this was the one writing class they’ll ever take where they shouldn’t care about typos; I didn’t want them polishing a fifth draft of some comment and missing out on the flow of the conversation!
It seemed to work. Participation was strong in both locations, and the evaluation comments from attendees in both locations were everything I could have hoped for. Among my favorites:
- “I really liked the interactive webinar format.”
- "Felt like a conversation instead of a presentation.”
- “Rick did a great job of engaging people, especially considering the move to Zoom. The content was great, too!”
- “More interactive than most in-person CLE’s.”
- “I would highly recommend this webcast to my associates no matter what area of practice, no matter the background or number of years’ experience; there are really great tips for all of us here.”
Key takeaway: I think that the tech run-throughs were essential in getting these kinds of positive evaluations, especially for those of us who are relatively new to Zoom or similar platforms. The run-throughs made for better (if initially more modest) decisions, and much smoother results. With the logistics under control, and attendees comfortable that we seemed to (more or less) know what we were doing, we were able to focus on content. That was a plus for everyone.
Strange times, these – but we’ll get through them! Thanks for reading, and thanks in advance for your own suggestions and comments.
Best,
Rick Horowitz
Wordsmith in Chief
Prime Prose, LLC
“More Effective Writing Makes More Effective Lawyers”
www.primeprose.com
414.963.9333
(cell) 414.899.7178
Tags:
COVID-19
pandemic
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