ASTD Webcasts Reach Nearly 50,000 Registrants Annually

ASTD (American Society for Training & Development) is the world's largest association dedicated to workplace learning and development professionals.

Webvent produces over 80 webcasts a year for ASTD.  Roughly half of these have over 200 attendees, with occasional audiences of up to 1000 people – all interested in expanding their knowledge of emerging learning technologies, making business decisions based on best practices, pursuing the Certified Professional in Learning and Performance (CPLP) credential, or simply expanding their professional network in learning and development.

“Producing webcasts for multiple departments or communities of practice can be challenging.  Many people are involved in managing the relationship with the presenters, managing the events calendar, scheduling / hosting / moderating the webcasts, finding the right sponsors, etc.  Webvent uniquely offers ASTD a central application from which they can manage these processes as a team”, says Rick Borry, President of Webvent, Inc.

“To ASTD the real value is not just that we don’t have to worry about producing these webcasts, it also drives traffic to our Buyers Guide and our Store, which has become much more valuable for our sponsors and audiences”, says Brandon Finlen, Director of Marketing ASTD.

ASTD proves that many topics currently delivered as white papers, reports, or books become much more interesting when strengthened by a webcast delivered by the writer.  The huge number of attendees is clear evidence of that.  Visit webcasts.astd.org to see the ASTD site on Webvent.

For more information about Webvent and how we can help streamline your webcast calendar, please visit www.webvent.tv and Contact Us.

Network Media Partners and Webvent Partner to Provide Media Sales and Marketplace Solutions that Build Association Revenues

Strategic partnership to include co-marketing of products and services

Hunt Valley, MD, August 9, 2012–

Network Media Partners, Inc and Webvent, Inc today announced a strategic partnership agreement for joint marketing and delivery of products and services to member-based associations, including existing customers of Network Media.

“Webvent’s Adaptive Media Network is an innovative, no-risk software and sales service that provides supplier-to-member media marketplaces for associations.  It is an intuitive, well designed product, and an excellent value-add for our customers,” says Chip Boyce, President of Network Media. “One huge benefit from a sales perspective is that the sales team already working with prospects, advertisers, exhibitors and sponsors is able to sell this product vs. outsourcing the sale to a 3rd party.” 

Nick Kuppers, Webvent Co-founder, adds, “Network Media’s customer base and reputation are very impressive, with the likes of Association Forum of Chicagoland and American Industrial Hygiene Association, to name a few. Our partnership with Network Media began in 2011 through a mutual customer (American Society for Training & Development), and we now extend it formally to offer the best of software and digital media sales and service to all kinds of professional and trade associations.”  The first customers have already signed up, and these new supplier-to-audience marketplaces will be announced when they launch in December. 

About Network Media Partners
Since 1982, Network Media Partners, Inc. (NMP) has worked with professional and trade associations of all shapes and sizes, nationally and locally, to grow their media and event offerings to their memberships and communities.  NMP is based in Hunt Valley, Maryland. 

Visit NetworkMediaPartners.com to learn more.

Online Poster Sessions Are Becoming a Tradition at Clemson University

Now in its second year, the online poster sessions are becoming a tradition at Clemson University – Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering.  The summer Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) community for the latest research in advanced functional membrane materials conducted a series of five online poster sessions this week.

Rick and two participants of the online poster sessions 2012

This year’s group of 10 students shared their work with a national audience, while saving resources that would have gone into printing and travel.

Check out the recordings at: advancedfunctionalmembranes.webvent.tv/events

Thanks to Dr. Scott Husson for hosting, and the National Science Foundation for sponsoring this year’s event. We look forward to next year!

Principal Solar Launches the Principal Solar Institute

Boston, MA, July 30, 2012 – Principal Solar launches a new solar industry resource: the Principal Solar Institute, an online reference center and resource guide for solar development and installation professionals in the commercial and utility scale market.  Built upon a www.webvent.tv custom community site, the Institute sponsors free educational events, offers an industry resource guide and publishes White Papers, disseminating critical information to advance the knowledge base of solar industry stakeholders.

About Principal Solar
Principal Solar, Inc. (PSI; OTC Pink: PSWW), is a publicly traded solar energy holding company executing a unique roll-up strategy to create the world's first distributed solar utility.  PSI concentrates its resources on the acquisition, finance, development and management of solar power companies.  The Principal Solar Institute, an educational organization created by Principal Solar, Inc., is dedicated to spreading solar knowledge to the critical stakeholders in the ongoing energy debate.

I Wish I Had This a Few Years Ago

(Guest post by Nick Kuppers)

As VP-Sales of a technology company based in The Netherlands, I was challenged with introducing our technology to the U.S. market a few years ago.  We were selling an XML database - an excellent fit for managing very complex content, such as technical publications for aircraft.

We won several great deals in the U.S. with companies like Boeing, Harley-Davidson, and Northwest Airlines.  The only problem was that very few people knew about us.  We did not have an office in the U.S., and we did not have a huge marketing budget, so we could only attend a few trade shows each year.  And social media didn’t exist yet.

If only I had the possibility to present our company to the world in a resource guide network like the ones that are launched today and could have participated in webcasts periodically to show off our uniqueness to the tech pubs community.  I am sure we would have been invited to more RFI/RFP processes that were out there.  And we would have been able to grow our U.S. presence a lot faster.

Fortunately for us, we were ‘discovered’ by one of our big competitors and were acquired by them before we even began to establish our U.S. presence.

Check it out for yourself, the Site Solutions Summit Resource Guide Network recently launched for the Clinical Research Sites community: http://network.sitesolutionssummit.com/sites

Bringing the ‘Latest’ on Your Industry 24/7

A Social Network is made up of a set of individuals and organizations, and the relationships, connections, and interactions between them. Social networking services - or social media - like Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Twitter focus on building relations among people who share a common interest and/or activities. Users of these services have a profile, they have social links to other users, and they interact through email or instant messaging.

Media networking services focus on sharing social and other media among professionals who share a common interest. Webvent for example, is focused on connecting buyers and vendors in specific industries or marketplaces. It provides buyers a rich media experience and interactive self-education opportunities, while controlling how they engage with vendors. Users can search on any keyword through the database of videos, white papers, case studies, and blogs.  They download relevant information, join webcasts, and learn from industry thought leaders. They see how they’re linked through social networks with other professionals, and connect through email.

Like social networking services, media networking services are free and easy to use. Income is generated through advertising.

Uniting the social networks of individuals and organizations in the context of a specific industry or marketplace offers great value to industry associations and publishers - and their members or subscribers. It helps them offer the programming and services to their members far beyond the monthly publication or annual event: it brings the ‘latest‘ on your industry from thought leaders, vendors, influencers, and other subject matter experts, to your member’s desk 365 days of the year. And it opens up whole new revenue streams from advertising and sponsorships.

Buyers Guide 2.0

Most organizations today have a website, a blog, and newsletter; they publish case studies and white-papers, and run webinars - telling the world why they are so successful and great to work with. To this, cutting-edge marketing organizations add a YouTube channel, Facebook page, and Twitter account, because they want to join the conversation and leverage the social networks.

What’s often missing though is context. And context is very important because it influences the meaning of the content you are sharing. You can write a great blog post, but when it’s shared with the wrong group it loses meaning. Same with Twitter: you can tweet great things, but when you’re not reaching your target audience it has limited value. Having a great video on YouTube is wonderful, but only if the right people watch it. These activities have little meaning when found by the wrong audience, but may have a lot of meaning to a community who keep themselves informed on a specific topic.

Adding context to your marketing and communication activities is the biggest value that a networked buyers guide brings to the table. Buyers guides are already organized around a topic or specific industry. Organizations listed in the buyers guide seek exposure to people interested in that topic or industry. So as a vendor, uniting your communication and marketing channels in your buyers guide presence makes a lot of sense. It is the right place for your blog posts, videos, and white-papers to have the most impact, and it saves the buyer a lot of time searching the web for relevant information.

At Webvent we work hard with our customers to build the next generation of buyers guides. The Buyers Guide 2.0 so to speak, which provides the right context for your communication and marketing activities.