Communications & Writing

NEW! Creative writing, like any craft, is best learned by doing. In this hands-on course, we will spend four sessions creating and revising our own short fiction, poetry, and memoirs. Acquire the skills to identify and evaluate creative writing forms; identify personal sources of inspiration and imagination; develop and revise memoir, fiction and poetry; critically evaluate your own writing and the writing of others; and develop your personal creative writing process. Beginning writers and writers seeking to refine their creative styles are all welcome!

If a movie or TV show says it is 'based on' or 'inspired by' true events, what exactly does that mean? Movies cannot exactly follow the truth - they are only an interpretation of real life that generally must fit into a two-hour time frame. The nature of writing a true story or adapting source material for the screen often involves losing subplots, combining or cutting characters, leaving out main themes, and finding the beginning, middle and end of a dramatic story line. This course is geared to help the screenwriter, producer and film director bring true stories to life, as well as the novelist and playwright who want to convert their own material into a screenplay. Movies discussed during class, whose writers successfully faced this difficult task, will include Titanic, We Are Marshall, The Untouchables, The Queen, Seabiscuit and others. Students will learn by example, and will understand why some adaptations don't work and why others do.

NEW! Come get the knowledge needed to implement a mobile marketing plan for your organization. Find out about proximity marketing, mobile marketing metrics, and developing a mobile marketing campaign. Learn how to promote your app on the web, build a landing page for your app, and implement advanced tracking of your application usage. Then take home a blueprint for creating guidelines and standards for your mobile marketing effort, and how to measure its success. You will leave this course with the knowledge to implement a mobile marketing plan for your organization.

NEW! You have a website, but why will your customers want to come back or buy something or take action? Do you really know who you are selling to? Do you know what you want to say to them, or how you want to say it? Discover ways to identify who your ideal audience is. Learn how to create content that is engaging and purposeful. Find out what you want to say to your audience. Explore where and how to say it best! In one month you will be better equipped to develop your own content marketing strategy and create a content-rich website that exceeds the needs of your visitors.

Acquire the basic skills to boost your website traffic, including how to analyze your visitor traffic, how to use search engine optimization to get greater visibility and exposure in Google searches, and how to redesign your website copy to increase your visitors and results. No experience necessary, but if you are at an advanced level, your instructor is an SEO expert and can answer your toughest questions.

Cell phone apps are the latest way smart businesses are reaching their customers. It seems that nearly everyone is carrying and using smartphones these days! Savvy organizations across the globe are investing in building cell phone apps for their businesses. In this four-week course, we will provide you with step-by-step instructions on how non-technical users can build, deploy and market smartphone applications across Android, iPhone and Blackberry platforms. The course is ideal for business owners and executives who want to understand how smartphone applications can be inexpensively built, and also for technical users who want to understand how to quickly deploy smartphone applications.

NEW! Webinars are a hot new meeting format that save money and reach more people than in-person meetings. They're being used for customer education, staff meetings and training, presentations, virtual seminars and much more. The technology is simple, but good webinar presentation techniques are critical. Discover the power of successful webinars for your business organization, then learn the four key strategies to make your webinars more successful. You'll acquire techniques and tips that will make your webinars winners with your audiences.

NEW! Find out what goes on behind the scenes on Facebook Pages and how to increase the chances that your message is seen and acted on. Discover new tools and proven techniques to increase business and expand your reach. Discuss how to adapt your marketing message for the Facebook platform and how to integrate Facebook across all your marketing areas. This is an intermediate class, assuming you have started a Page on Facebook and have some basic knowledge of the platform.

If you are not reviewing your website statistics, then you are missing several key opportunities to profit from your website traffic. This course, aimed at non-technical users, will take you through all the key techniques concerning website analytics using the world-standard Google Analytics, a free online tool. You'll understand your visitor traffic better, learn how to calculate return on investment (ROI) for your online advertising, and find out how to get more conversions and sales from your website visitors. A must for anyone serious about leveraging more success from a website!

Discover new ways to improve your email promotions, including when to email, what to email, and testing email copy. Then find out how to analyze your email response rates, including getting the benchmarks for open rates and click-through rates. Learn how to improve your email promotion and responses with tracking and testing. Get a basic introduction to email promotions. If you are advanced, your instructor is an email expert and can answer your toughest questions as well.

Come away with a practical strategy and techniques for implementing social networks for your organization or business. Learn how to create your own private social network using Ning, work socially using Google Docs and calendars, and move your web site to an interactive Web 2.0 site. Your instructor will help you choose which social network tools are right for your situation, and then integrate them into your web site to develop a social networking strategy for your organization. Find out what you can be doing, what you should be doing, and take back a plan to integrate social networks into your communication and marketing.

Get involved in the move from in-person to online communication. Learn what social networks are and their role in your business and personal life. Find out the top sites and how businesses are using them for communication, customer retention, branding, marketing, market research, needs assessment and serving customers and clients. Explore the options for your organization. Look at case studies of what other organizations are doing. Let your instructor guide your exploration of Facebook and YouTube. Your instructor, Jennifer Selke, is a nationally-known speaker, consultant and trainer on social networks and social media.

Develop a two-way communication and marketing strategy for your organization using social networks. Let your instructor guide you in exploring major social networks, including Twitter, LinkedIn, and blogging. Learn quick, easy ways to use Twitter, blogs and LinkedIn to engage your customers or clients and keep them interested in your organization or business. You'll find out the advantages and disadvantages of each, and learn what's right for your work and kind of organization. Your instructor, Suzanne Kart, is a director of marketing for a national association who writes and speaks on the topic.

NEW! Discover the marketing planning process necessary to clearly delineate the relationship among marketing and media buying decisions. Marketing functions are examined through case analysis to successfully integrate all elements of the media buying process. The course presents concepts and strategies from a business decision-making perspective. This approach reflects the emphasis on the marketing decisions that business owners are most likely to confront in their marketing operations when meeting with various media outlets and managing their marketing campaigns. Come away with a knowledge of media buying strategies to promote your organization and boost sales and profits.

More than half of US consumers who've made purchases on their smartphones have done so in response to a mobile marketing message. Smartphone sales exceeded 420 million in 2011, and analysts forecast these sales will surpass one billion by the end of 2016. The way consumers are interacting with brands and connecting to the world is changing because of mobiles. Find out about location-based marketing, mobile payments, QR codes, applications, and mobile coupons. Learn how mobile marketing can increase your capabilities to retain current customers and gain new ones.

Get the keys to making online advertising work for you and your organization. See how pay-per-click advertising with Google AdWords works. Find out how to test low-budget AdWord campaigns. Learn how you can target local audiences. Then discover Facebook advertising and how you can determine the demographics and even numbers of people you want to reach. No experience necessary, but if you are at an advanced level, your instructor is an online ad expert and can answer your toughest questions.

Are you a filmmaker who wants to save the planet, or just make a difference within your local community? Come and learn how your artistic talent can change a life, one PSA at a time! In this intensive one-day film production workshop, aspiring producers will learn how to manage a pro-bono public service announcement film production. You will be guided step-by-step through the details, planning and paperwork involved in budgeting, hiring crews, getting equipment, location scouting, union signatories, casting and auditions, pulling permits, contracts, and music clearances. Additional concepts covered include how to write an effective PSA script, and insider secrets for acquiring donated labor, services, equipment and airtime. A film production manual is provided.

NEW! This fast-paced two-day workshop is equal parts fun and intensity. Learn to deliver your message to a group in the most clear, concise and compelling ways. We create a safe environment for essential peer feedback, video evaluation and coaching. Multiple practice sessions lead up to an action plan for developing positive speaking habits. Learn about proper eye contact, use of pauses, vocal tools (rate/volume/inflection), movement, body language, posture, gestures and facial expressions. Additionally, you will work to get and keep audience attention, conquer fear and overcome room, sound and logistical obstacles. Whether you are a professor, sales professional, CEO, coach, clergy, someone who leads meetings, or anyone who talks with more than one person at a time, this class is ideal for sharpening your communication skillset. Bring an open mind, a willingness to learn and your sense of humor.

Otherwise capable people can be held back professionally and socially by language mistakes. This quick course will enable you to spot and avoid the errors most often found in today's communications. We will review selected exercises in punctuation, grammar, spelling and usage. Discussions also include communication etiquette and dealing with negative messages. Come learn some great writing and communication tips that you can use immediately!

NEW! Join us for a one-day workshop on social media designed for higher education and non-profit communicators. A keynote speaker and panel discussion will provide valuable information on current and future trends in social media. You will have an opportunity to join several roundtable discussions, with topics on trends in social media, analytics, creating social media strategies, tools and features, marketing campaigns, branding and more! Breakout session presenters will add to the tips and trends that you take home! Speakers and panelists will be updated on the website. Breakfast, lunch, snacks and materials are included in the registration fee.

NEW! Twitter is a hot social media platform these days - and everyone seems to be using it! Learn the best way to take advantage of the unique opportunities Twitter offers, and discover how to create relationships and network with your key constituents. Find out the best, and easiest, techniques for successful interactions in the Twitterverse.

NEW! Sight, sound and motion are much more compelling than static words on a page. Video is very hypnotic and it quickly speeds up the 'know, like, and trust' factors with your audience. Discover how to use simple online video to bond quickly with your viewers, drive traffic to your website, boost business and build brand awareness. Find out how to shoot simple, effective videos without costly fancy equipment or advanced technical skills. Discover the secrets to creating content that commands attention. Learn how to dominate Google and YouTube with your videos and to strategically use YouTube to market your business 24/7 - even while you sleep!

Increase your business with YouTube, the online video site and now the second largest search engine. Discover the power of video for your organization, and how to use video as a marketing tool to reach and serve more people. Find out what types of video work best on YouTube, how other business organizations are using YouTube, how to create your own YouTube channel, and the techniques of adding captions, annotations and other extra features. YouTube can enhance your current marketing and communication strategy. After completing this course you will take away proven strategies and techniques for making YouTube work successfully for your organization.