Courses

In today’s fast-paced digital world, communication professionals need to write persuasively while maintaining accuracy and knowledge of their multiple audiences. Once the content is produced, communication professionals need to understand and utilize various media and marketing tools to distribute their messages. This course is ideal for the Public Relations or Marketing Communication professional with some practical writing experience who wants to focus and hone those skills to bring them to the next level.

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To be a leader you need at least one follower. This also means the quality of the followers has a direct bearing on the success of the leader and his/her team. Since we play different roles at different times, we will explore and identify different Leadership and Followership communication styles.

The more specifically a Public Relations (PR) or Marketing and Communication (MarCom) professional identifies their target audience(s) by demographic or other means, and where they can be found, the easier it will be to find communication strategies and tactics that will reach those targets. This course is designed to give the PR or MarCom professional these tools and awareness. This course is ideal for the PR and MarCom professional looking to learn to better define a target audience and how to expose hot buttons for copy content and style, SEO/SEM keywords, hook development, and more.

The purpose of the “Building a Brand” course is to develop students’ fundamental understanding of the importance of brand equity as well as how to build, measure and manage brand equity. Topics will include understanding the role of Public Relations in building brand equity, keys to successful brand management campaigns, and measuring brand equity.

A multi-channel, multi-platform world continues to increase demand for digital assets, and organizations that manage high volumes of content rely on creative operations as the cross-functional glue for marketing and communications, agency relationships, packaging, branding, publishing (digital and print), as well as other related aspects of digital assets within a business.

The practice of creative operations is an emerging discipline and is applicable across many industries (media, consumer, federal, or arts and culture). Well-defined processes, clarity around people's roles, optimized technology, and data are the key to effective digital asset management in action. Creative operations work to provide cohesion in how an organization represents itself to the public through its digital content, as well as improves the performance of the teams who are creating and disseminating it. This course explores how DAM, creative operations, and workflows within an organization come together to streamline business processes.

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

1. Define the concept and purpose of Creative Operations and Workflows.
2. Describe the relationship between DAM and the everyday workflows of creative teams.
3. Explain the concept of the Content Supply Chain and identify the building blocks of the Content Supply Chain in relationship to DAM.
4. Summarize the importance of well-defined workflow processes as it pertains to maintaining a healthy and sustainable DAM system.
   1. Prepare examples that justify the need for well-defined workflow processes that support DAM.
   2. Explain the risk of poorly defined workflow processes in relationship to DAM.
5. Design a plan for continuous improvement in Creative Operations and DAM.
   1. Explain how Creative Operations practices and DAM work together to advance business goals.

This course offers participants with an interest in organizational communications, public relations, or journalism the opportunity to gain insight into the practice of crisis communications. The primary goal of the course is to expose participants to the realities and demands associated with managing organizational communications across a range of crisis situations. The course will review case studies, best practices in the field, common methods, and call upon participants to execute the strategies learned.

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One hopes that a crisis never occurs within their organization, but the reality is that crisis planning and crisis communication are essential skills for a leader. This course will give participants the tools needed to effectively manage a workplace crisis.

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Your gallery, library, archives, or museum (GLAM) organization is great at managing collections of physical objects, artworks, books, and ancient manuscripts. But now you've been asked to share your collections digitally or give your patrons, visitors, and audiences an incredible digital experience. Where do you start?

Start with organizing your digital assets (images, digital surrogates, videos, marketing and event graphics, educational materials, conservation records and any other digital file and the metadata that describes these assets) by building and improving your Digital Asset Management (DAM) practice.

We'll go in-depth with DAM as well as case studies from within and outside of GLAM to guide you on success for your DAM practice. Whether you already have a DAM practice in place, or your GLAM organization is starting to explore "what is DAM?" or "how can we manage our collections and operations digitally", this is the right course for you. This course provides an understanding of the fundamental concepts, components, and elements necessary for the success of a DAM practice within your gallery, library, archives, or museum organization.

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

1. Apply and illustrate the fundamentals of DAM.
2. Identify the core building blocks of what makes a DAM system and the importance of these elements within the GLAM context.
3. Summarize the importance of DAM in GLAM organizations.
4. Articulate and differentiate a DAM system from other databases and technologies
5. Break down and prioritize DAM use cases and workflows common in cultural heritage organizations.
6. Summarize the importance of metadata and taxonomy orchestration across databases in the GLAM organization.
7. Predict potential risks and opportunities relating to data management.
8. Discover and illustrate at least three ways to identify and manage relationships with DAM stakeholders.

Design a plan for DAM governance, strategy, growth and capability assessment for an effective DAM practice.

Digital assets are a form of “data.” In this course, we cover how to manage Digital Asset Management (DAM) as a “data creator” from many perspectives, with the core understanding that all data needs to be governed. In DAM, data governance is an important component for managing and mitigating risk and ensures ongoing alignment with the overall business or organizational roles. We’ll cover master data management (MDM) as a cornerstone in understanding data facets and DAM’s role in archives, retention and records management, rights and intellectual property issues, and how to create and measure effective DAM governance through continuous improvement.

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

1. Define the concepts of Governance as they relate to Data and Digital Asset Management (DAM).
2. Summarize the importance of defining a collaborative vision and set of goals to ensure ongoing alignment with overall business and organizational strategy.
3. Articulate how data governance is an important DAM program component for enabling business outcomes and protecting and mitigating risk.
4. Explain the DAM Maturity Model Competency Levels and parent categories of People, Information, Process and Systems. Understand how they can be the basis of a DAM Governance assessment effort.
5. Map activities of Discovery, Execution, Standardization, and Metrics to the four parent categories of the maturity model.
6. Create a sample Governance planning artifact that delineate goals and activities.

This course recognizes the advances in globalization and diversity and analyzes cultural variability and its impact on workplace communications. You will examine diversity and how it impacts successful cross cultural interactions, applying specific tools, knowledge, and skills needed to be an effective cross cultural communicator.

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In this course, public relations practitioners will be given the opportunity to explore theories of ethical reasoning and consider their implications for the dominant theories of public relations strategy and practice over the last century, from P.T. Barnum and Ivy Lee to Edward Bernays and Arthur Page. By the end of the course, each student will have prepared a statement of ethical principles and a practical guide to ethical reasoning, consistent with their personal values and appropriate to their practice of their discipline.

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Integrated marketing communication (IMC) is the way organizations plan and present unified and consistent messages to their target audiences. IMC incorporates advertising, public relations, direct marketing, promotions, and digital media through traditional and non-traditional channels to communicate to various publics. It is a holistic approach to marketing based upon an understanding of how consumers think, make decisions, and act. The purpose of this course is to assist professionals to learn how to develop a strategic IMC plan.

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Digital assets are the atomic “building blocks” of the content universe, and they are key parts of a dynamic, changing, and much larger technology landscape. Numerous other systems also interoperate with Digital Asset Management (DAM). This course explains how DAM interacts with product information or collections information management, web/print publishing, social media, marketing resource management, enterprise resource planning (ERP), and other systems. Application programming interfaces (API), micro services, and partnering with IT are central to getting started and being ready to keep up. We’ll cover the techniques for keeping alert for ever-present changes in the digital landscape that are key as technology and organizational needs evolve and change. Awareness of all these factors are critical to being an effective DAM leader.

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

1. Define and Synthesize the Content Landscape in your organization.
2. Understand how DAM integrates and interacts with other systems within and external to organizations.
3. Formulate practices in order effectively partner with IT.
4. Evaluate and critique DAM’s role in current and upcoming content projects.
5. Demonstrate knowledge of APIs and Microservices.
6. Position for the ever-changing DAM landscape for optimal updates and enhancements.
7. Illustrate knowledge of being an effective DAM leader.

This course is designed to help you recognize significant leadership and communication theories in order to guide you in integrating favorite elements of those theories into a set of personal best practices in leadership and communication.

With so many workplace interactions taking place virtually, leading a team of dispersed and often cross-cultural professionals is a skill 21st century leaders need. This course addresses team dynamics, team leadership, and virtual communication technologies and communication methods.

In today's world, while image assets are very much alive and well - the exponential growth of video has quickly become an almost standard for communicating with our customers and communities. Traditionally, our DAM (digital asset management) systems have been optimized to handle image assets - but this is quickly shifting as organizations struggle to keep up with the rapidly increasing video consumption. You’ll learn about managing video, whether on network drives, external hard drives or held by third-party agencies - and why YouTube is not video management. This course explains how your DAM and your role, as a DAM Manager, are impacted by each step of the video production process - which includes how video is created at each step, and the vast amount of metadata - from descriptive to administrative to legal - that is required to be generated and tracked to ultimately be able to distribute and reuse the video content. We will explore the differences and similarities between DAM and MAM (media asset management), and when it’s time to think about having one of each. From this class, a DAM practitioner will have both a foundational understanding of video-as-asset and be able to analyze the needs of a DAM from a video perspective.

Metadata: it’s everywhere! The better a digital object is described, the better our search and reporting results are. This class provides the foundational insights into the various types of metadata available for inclusion in a Digital Asset Management system. Learn core ideas and processes of how standards work in a dynamic world. Along with the basic principles of metadata, we’ll explore best practices of how DAM systems can keep up with the changing terminology and the meaning of language.

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

1. List the seven main types of metadata and provide examples of each.
2. Identify existing metadata standards that are appropriate to implement in your (real or imaginary) DAM.
3. Approach to the methodology and tools to use when researching and analyzing metadata fields to include in a DAM.
4. Develop a base set of Metadata terms and controlled vocabularies for inclusion in a DAM.
5. Apply base metadata to several content types such as: still image, text-based content, moving image.

Create a metadata implementation plan for a DAM system.

This course examines the intersections between organizational culture and leadership and how they impact successful change leadership, offering specific tools, knowledge and skills needed to be an effective change agent.

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The course will help students understand what drives CSR and why it is a fundamental part of major companies. By examining various CSR initiatives and analyzing the communications surrounding them, students will gain a thorough understanding of CSR communication methods, issues associated with delivering CSR messages, and learn how to effectively and efficiently communicate those initiatives.

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Rights management is both the gas and the governor that powers using digital assets. The proliferation of digital media, as well as mechanisms and markets to exploit it, has increased both the importance and complexity of rights management. The successful DAM implementation will moderate and simplify rights as best it can to inform effective and efficient digital asset management and usage. The more DAM and Rights work together, the easier it is to both maximize usage and avoid the risk of non-compliance. This course provides a foundational understanding of rights management concepts from all sectors as well as insights that build on other DAM related topics such as metadata, data governance, and integrations that power successful DAM implementations.

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

1. Understand the basic elements and terminology of Rights Management as it pertains to Digital Asset Management.
2. Understand the importance of Intellectual Property (IP) including the four types of IP and more specifically, copyright and trademarks, as these have significant implications for DAM practitioners.
3. Develop insights into the complexity of rights management and discover techniques for simplifying rights complexity to help increase rights awareness while reducing “friction” caused by rights complexity.
4. Gain insights into how contextual use can create gray areas for rights interpretations and to use practical techniques for empowering their users while continuing to manage risk of misuse.
5. Learn techniques for controlling content access in the context of acquired rights.
6. Understand the importance of aligning DAM ROI and commercialization of assets while still being compliant with acquired rights positions.
7. Create an actionable plan and tailored approach for aligning and implementing rights management practices with your DAM practices based on where you and your organization are with your DAM capability release strategy.

Today’s PR professional has the opportunity to practice much more than media relations; thanks to the blending of digital with traditional media, we not only have more ways to reach our audiences, we have more ways to measure the outcomes of our efforts as well. But far too many professionals are still wary of measurement. The truth is, it’s not tough, it doesn’t have to be complicated and, when done right, it can shine new light on how your strategy is working (or not). This course will teach you the strategic approach to putting an effective measurement program in place that supports business objectives, even if you’re on a shoestring budget.

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This course offers a comprehensive and focused new approach to communication and relationship building through the integration of new media. Companies today cannot afford to view social media through a traditional lens or with only tactical methods. Their approach must be strategic and include customized stories and meaningful content to share through new media channels. Stakeholders want direct engagement and to actively take part in conversations and collaboration with their favorite brands. Participants will learn how the approach to public relations and communications has changed, beginning with incorporating social media into the public relations planning process.

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The Strategic Communication Planning course is designed to help students think and act strategically, give them a working knowledge of the tools and techniques that will help them develop an action plan, and show them how to communicate it successfully.

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This course offers participants with an interest in public relations or organizational communications an opportunity to gain insight into the practice of strategic public relations. The lessons in this course are designed to help participants learn to see the PR process more strategically, including understanding research and planning, knowing how to make strategic choices, selecting from a multitude of tactical options, and evaluating program effectiveness.

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Planning for successful Digital Asset Management (DAM) has one meaning the day DAM launches, and once the initial goals are met, more challenges arise. Understanding how to plan for long-term operations and growth is essential. This course covers how to plan for enduring success with DAM, including the Digital Asset Management Capability Maturity Model--the industry's best guide and tool for success. Staffing, job roles, answering the question of “where does DAM report,” and managing how these will change through time are core to understanding how DAM implementations can be successful or fail. Insights on how to create metrics and measurement for DAM systems, best practices for developing deep organizational allegiances to support an ever-expanding network of use cases and persistent innovations, and securing budgets and constructive vendor relationships are just some of the lessons that lead to DAM successes.

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

1. Explain factors distinguishing software implementation success and failure factors and generalize them to DAM.
2. Evaluate and defend how DAM component operations impact DAM success in the organization.
3. Apply the insights about DAM success to larger organizational/business goals on a recurring basis.
4. Understand and synthesize how DAM is set in an active context of much broader organizational and business operations.
5. Analyze and prepare for justifying persistent investment in the human capital needed to operate DAM.
6. Assess, describe and predict how DAM operations impact near-term and long-term organizational risk - preferably to mitigate risk.
7. Formulate DAM governance practices in order to effectively work with enterprise governance boards across multiple enterprise applications.
8. Demonstrate DAM’s impact on organizational / business valuation.
9. Justify and support DAM to become “at the table” in mergers, acquisitions and deaccession events.
10. Illustrate knowledge of how data, metrics and measurements support enterprise DAM and prove success.