Power brands are not just cash cows. They are brands whose position in food culture and shrewd management have, together, allowed otherwise dated brands to remain contemporary and to continue to drive profit growth. Most leaders in the industry define power brands purely on the basis of scale, usually in excess of $1B in annual sales. We want to introduce to you a more future-leaning definition, one based on selecting for a proven track record of above-average market growth. Specifically, we define power brands to mean brands that: had greater than $1B in sales in the past year had conventional channel distribution prior to 1980 (i.e., legacy brands) have grown faster than inflation for the past ten years (i.e., > 21%) AND have outperformed their respective sector growth rates during the past four years by at least one percent (i.e., 7.2% for packaged food, 6.4% for soft and hot beverages. The reality is that, of roughly 213 legacy brands studied, only 8% can meet our strict power brand criteria. They are: (Source: Euromonitor 2015, Hartman Analysis) What is on the list: Mostly snack brands, including a rising star in meat snacks Brands sold on the fresh perimeter Healthy alternative beverages One tag-along brand (Coffee-mate) riding structural growth in a carrier category Highly focused brands that operate in only 1.9 operating categories on average, the majority selling in the same operating category in which they began What is not on the list: Processed center-store convenience meal brands. As Americans liberate themselves from traditional notions of the meal and as snacking overtakes our eating day, many are finding that the most convenient thing to do is simply to snackify the meal. In this cultural environment, the better value proposition of fast casual restaurants is more appealing to today’s consumers’ appetites. Very few beverage brands. The only two that meet our criteria are those that have a noticeable orientation to contemporary notions of health and wellness due to their categories. Mega-brands that extended into multiple, culturally unrelated categories. Standing back from this list, we see that long-term structural changes in: 1) how Americans eat 2) where they shop in the store (fresh perimeter $ growth) 3) dietary practices to achieve health and wellness goals, not just good marketing, are driving the results Companies that are weighted toward products not on the list need to look beyond mere renovation strategies for their base brands. Serious consideration should be given to the overall structure of their portfolios to compensate for the long-term decline or neutralization of some of their legacy brands as growth drivers. Focusing too much investment on marketing mix, turnaround solutions alone puts them at risk of underperformance. Yet the lessons for marketers and brand stewards are equally loud and clear. Legacy brands that have become so iconic as to weather the growing trends against processed food and beverage are ones that: 1) are highly focused on one product form, one food 2) have built an iconic brand reputation around that specific food form. Focus is not sufficient to guarantee long-term growth in a legacy brand, but it appears to be a requirement of true power brands in today’s market. To read the full analysis, download a free copy of The Hartman Group’s "U.S. Packaged Foods at a Crossroads." As CEO, Laurie Demeritt provides strategic and operational leadership for The Hartman Group’s analytics, consulting and research teams. She is a frequent keynote speaker at major industry conferences and client events. She is renowned for her adept ability to breakdown the complexities of culture and consumer behavior and translate them into meaningful solutions for clients. For more information about The Hartman Group, visit http://www.hartman-group.com/or contact Blaine Becker, senior director of marketing at: blaine@hartman-group.com _________________________________________________ If you enjoyed this article, join SmartBrief’s email list for more stories about the food and beverage industry. We offer 14 newsletters covering the industry from restaurants to food manufacturing. Related Posts: The cultural transformation of the American breakfast Reflections on food culture: The forces that shape consumer behavior Greek food companies explore increasing exports amid economic crisis Simple ingredients and sweet stories flavor the Fancy Food Show What’s new on the cheese plates in restaurants? Understanding the power brand phenomenon originally published by SmartBlogs

Everything is awesome for Lego. With over 189 million engagements, including 184 million on its YouTube channel alone, Lego was the brand with which consumers were the most highly engaged throughout the second quarter of 2015, according to the ListenFirst Digital Engagement Ratings (DER). For this analysis, we studied the owned, earned, or organic consumer behavior across Facebook, Google+, etc for the Redbooks 500 — a cohort of companies based on a weighting of variables, including brands’ revenue, advertising spend, and social media engagement. This quarter, Lego’s social channels were very content-heavy, with Lego sharing more than 700 new pieces of content, with a special focus on YouTube content. The content that accumulated the most views and engagements on Lego’s official YouTube channel were a series of promotional videos for "Jurassic World" with the video "A Day in the Life at Jurassic World" standing as the top post across all channels for the quarter when it accumulated over 3.2 million interactions. "Lego was able to find success in the second quarter by effectively leveraging their relationships with different film and television franchises, such as ‘Jurassic World’ and ‘Star Wars,’ as a way to make sure their product stays relevant with their target consumer and draft off the value of these pop culture icons," said Jason Klein, Co-CEO and co-founder of ListenFirst Media. MTV, Hasbro, the NFL, and Coca-Cola rounded out rest of the top five brands for the second quarter. See graph below for the top 20 DER brands for the quarter: Though brands in the Toys/Gaming industry were dominant in the top 10 (Lego, Hasbro, Nintendo), the Food and Beverage industry had the largest share of engagement overall among all sectors. See below for the top 5 industries: The below breaks down the best performing content by platform: YouTube — Not only was Gillette’s video promoting their Gillette Body razor the highest performing post on YouTube but it was also the highest performing post across all channels of Q2. However, even with strong support from video views, the brand did not make it into the top 20 DER brands this quarter. Instagram — The top post in Instagram from the entire quarter came from Victoria’s Secret, and featured a model dressed in new loungewear as a way to announce the new variety of product. Twitter — Denny’s tweet including a play on words of the current radio hit "Flick of the Wrist" came out as the most engaging tweet of the quarter. Denny’s, whose Twitter account often is full of pop culture puns, added their own little spin to the popular lyric "look at the flick of the wrist" by changing it to "look at the flick of the grits." Facebook — Kleenex topped the Facebook leaderboard with a video featuring a man and his canine companion from their Messages of Care campaign, even though it was posted only a week before the quarter ended (June 24) Wikipedia — Facebook as a brand had the highest Wikipedia search volume. Facebook search volume on Wikipedia peaked on June 18 when news circulated that regulators in Europe banned its new facial recognition app due to privacy concerns One of the biggest movers in DER of the second quarter was Payless ShoeSource, as DER increased by 10,000% from Q1. The majority of Payless engagements came from YouTube, as the store utilized the channel over the quarter as a way to push sales and promotions. This promotional video for their sandal sale in early June garnered over 4.5 million engagements for the channel. Jonathan Farb is the chief product officer at ListenFirst Media, a data and analytics company that helps brands make sense of the vast amount of data at their fingertips, predict outcomes, and optimize performance. Related Posts: 10 predictions for marketers, the TV industry and the state of social in 2015 7 digital-marketing predictions for the rest of 2014 Instagram’s feat is a call to action for marketers Is real-time marketing relevant in an on-demand world? Smarsh CEO shares insights on social media compliance for advisers, broker-dealers ListenFirst: Lego was most highly engaged brand in Q2, fueled by YouTube originally published by SmartBlogs

This post is sponsored by Burris Logistics. A recent survey by Boston Consulting Group and Grocery Manufacturers Association revealed that supply chain executives are facing rising costs and declining service levels in their transportation and logistics operations. Freight costs increased by as much as 11% during the past year, the report found, while case-fill rates and on-time deliveries declined, with respondents reporting service levels falling 1% to 5%. However, there is also evidence that companies that find the right supply chain partners to work with are seeing improvements in their metrics. According to the 2015 19th Annual Third Party Logistics Study, shippers reported an average logistics cost reduction of 9%, an average inventory cost reduction of 5% and an average fixed logistics cost reduction of 15% when working with a 3PL partner. Shippers in the study also reported improvements in order fill rates and order accuracy when they partner with 3PL providers. Those findings should be especially encouraging for retailers seeking to meet increasing consumer demand for a diverse, high-quality perishables offering, which requires a strong, dependable supply chain. "The fresh supply chain is complex, given the unique requirements to ensure quality, safety and proper inventory controls to mitigate shrink," said Pat Walsh, vice president, supply chain, and chief business development officer, Food Marketing Institute. "Today’s consumer demands freshness, product availability and variety. An effective fresh supply chain meets all those needs and requires intense focus on forecasting and replenishment." Michael Bargmann, a supply chain consultant and a former logistics executive at Wegmans Food Markets, said a productive collaboration between a retailer and a logistics provider can yield more than the sum of its parts, a result he calls "proactive innovation." "If you get two great partners working together, they are going to have proactive, innovative ideas that each partner didn’t have on their own," he said. "The process should not be reactive, but focused on looking at the business, and saying, ‘What can we do together? What initiatives would create a win/win outcome?’" For those shippers seeking to collaborate with a third-party logistics provider, trust is the perhaps the most important factor to consider, said Walsh of FMI. "The best collaborative relationships begin with trust and transparency," he said. "Ongoing systemic communications are critical to ensure agreed-to goals and expectations are realized for both parties." Reliability in terms of customer service is key, he said. "Top perishables logistics providers have an intense focus on managing product availability and freshness, forecasting and on-time delivery. Logistics providers must be an extension of the companies they serve," he said. "In other words the retailer and 3PL work in harmony with common goals and common measures." Bargmann, the former Wegmans executive, agreed that trust and a shared passion for superior customer service are the keys to success in collaborative logistics relationships. From a practical standpoint, it’s also important for the 3PL provider to have a knowledgeable, experienced and efficient workforce, along with best-of-breed information technology tools. Working with a 3PL provider allows retailers to focus their time and resources on better serving their customers and building their brand. "Today retailers are continuously being challenged with a growing number of competitors in multiple channels of trade, managing a heightened food safety focus and navigating an expanding complexity of government regulations," said Bargmann. "This is creating the need to seek out experienced logistics partners that offer a collaboratively transparent partnership that is flexible and agile in delivering." "The right product at the right price, and at the right time." Learn more about Burris Logistics. __________________________________________________ If you enjoyed this article, join SmartBrief’s email list for more stories about the food and beverage industry. We offer 14 newsletters covering the industry from restaurants to food manufacturing.   Related Posts: Q&A: FMI CEO Leslie Sarasin on the key takeaways from FMI Connect 2015 Food retailers find allies in social media followers How to engage millennials through customization and curation Infographics: The Food Waste Reduction Alliance releases analysis of food waste by industry Prime real estate: The produce department expands beyond fruits and veggies Collaboration keys supply chain efficiencies originally published by SmartBlogs

The Young Entrepreneur Council is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. YEC recently launched StartupCollective, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses. Read previous SmartBlogs posts by YEC. If you enjoy this article, join SmartBrief’s e-mail list for our newsletters on small business and entrepreneurialism. What is one question you ask every employee who has announced they’re leaving your company? 1. What can we do better? There’s so many reasons for employees to move on: new relationships, new opportunities, difficulties with the job. One thing that I always want to know is what we can improve as a company. Once that employee has announced they are moving, they feel more comfortable being honest so they can really give us feedback. I ask for the good, the bad and the ugly — and then try to make improvements. — Marcela DeVivo, National Debt Relief 2. Why? Firstly, I want to find out if it is something I can control. If it is something I cannot control, then I know there is nothing wrong with our company or culture; it is just what they wanted to do. For example, we have had two employees in the last month go on two different reality TV shows. In this instance, I knew this decision did not come from them having a negative experience with our company. — Jayna Cooke, EVENTup 3. Would you be willing to continue the relationship? It’s a small world, and just because someone is leaving your employment now doesn’t mean you won’t have the opportunity to work with them again, either as an employee or in another capacity. I encourage all former employees to keep in touch so that they continue to be a beneficial part of our network. — Alexandra Levit, Inspiration at Work 4. Would you recommend a job here to others? Their reaction and response to this question, with some careful reading between the lines, tends to get us much closer to an honest assessment for the reasons motivating an exit. Those genuinely seeking a career change or unique opportunity tend to be very positive. For those who may otherwise conceal deeper frustrations motivating an exit, it opens up the conversation by depersonalizing it a bit. — Jacob Goldman, 10up Inc. 5. Did you have what you needed? When employees leave, I want to know if they felt they were given the appropriate tools and resources to do their jobs, and how often they felt that way. I want to eliminate any gaps between what I’m asking my team to do and how I’m helping them do it. — Simon Casuto, eLearning Mind 6. What are your next plans? This allows the employee to give you information about why they are leaving without directly asking why they are leaving. It also gives them the option not to tell you if they aren’t comfortable. It’s a more personal approach then just thinking about the company and filling that position. — Phil Laboon, Eyeflow Internet Marketing 7. Have you shared your concerns prior to deciding to leave? Thankfully, my company has experienced very little turnover throughout the years. However, when someone decides to leave, it is very important to find out if, at any point, they shared their concerns. Then, were these concerns addressed? I believe if your company promotes open communication, most concerns can be addressed prior to an employee making the decision to leave. — Matt Telmanik, CCS Construction Staffing 8. How can I help you? I like to ask them how I can help them, because it’s a small world, and it’s amazing how many people you cross paths with over and over again. Awesome people will keep becoming more awesome with time. They could leave for a variety of reasons, and sometimes we just weren’t the right fit. — Kevin Henrikson, Acompli (now Outlook iOS/Android @ Microsoft) 9. What did you like and not like about working here? I ask for feedback (both positive and negative) about their overall experience working for my company. I have learned not to take it personally when someone leaves, as the modern economy is all about rapid change. But I do want to know if there were aspects of working for me that the employee didn’t like. I also want to know what they did like. This is a good opportunity to get honest feedback. — Shawn Porat, Fortune Cookie Advertising Related Posts: How do you efficiently onboard new employees? What unique perk does your company offer? When do you let an underperforming employee go? What resources can help entrepreneurs be better managers? Common mistakes leaders make during periods of fast growth What do you ask every employee before they leave your company? originally published by SmartBlogs

This month, SmartBlog on Education is exploring classroom design and management — just in time for the new school year. In this blog post, educational leadership professor Maria Boeke Mongillo offers five ideas for "constructing a space that supports possibilities rather than perfection." Film director James Cameron once said that young filmmakers should adopt the motto "Failure is an option. Fear is not." His point was that in order for new artistry to emerge in his field, filmmakers have to take risks and explore the potential of their medium without worrying about whether the product is successful or marketable. This struck me as a good motto for classrooms as well. To provide an optimal learning environment for students, teachers must create an intellectually safe space, where risk-taking is celebrated as much as getting the right answer. This type of learning space needs to be deliberately set up at the beginning of the school year and reinforced throughout the year, just as much as classroom layout and other rules and routines. So in getting ready to go back to school, here are some ideas to consider for constructing a space that supports possibilities rather than perfection. Celebrate process and progress over product. Students in general want to please their teachers and are looking for and will respond to feedback from their teachers. Feedback, particularly during the process, is what drives learning. Students need to know where and how their strategies are effective, and where they are not, not just be given a grade that says whether they were successful or not in the end. Provide opportunities for students to share their solutions to problems, or to allow struggling students to share their work in progress and permit the class to help figure out where the mistakes and misconceptions lie. Be sure students know that constant progress is the goal, and that you will allow, and even expect, revisions. Remember students need challenge to change. Students cannot learn to overcome a struggle or failure if they are not being challenged appropriately. They also cannot learn to persevere if given assignments that have only one clear right answer. Take time at the beginning of the year to assess your students’ ability levels. You can look into the previous year’s scores or grades, but students may change over the summer. Also, think about ways to offer students open-ended problems to solve, particularly those that have multiple steps and require time and modification to come to resolution. Teach who you are. Parker Palmer, in his book "Courage to Teach," states that we teach who we are. While we do have professional and personal lives and personas, they cannot be distinctly different from one another, especially if we are going to be successful and satisfied in our work. Relationships are at the heart of effective learning environments, particularly the teacher-student relationship. So participate in any getting-to-know-you or team building activities that you ask your students to do. Pay attention to their discussions about interests and experiences, and find ways to relate your own hobbies, sports and musical interests to theirs. Use stories from your own experiences to illustrate points or make connections to learning. By opening up, you show your students you trust them and you care. They will trust and care about you and your classroom space in return. Model and mediate student interactions. Though we would like students to come to our classrooms knowing how to interact in socially appropriate ways, the reality is many do not. Children today spend more time interacting with screens than they do playing and socializing with each other. As a result, teachers need to clearly discuss how working in groups looks and sounds. Students need to see models and role play before they can get to the work of learning. They may also need specific strategies for conflict resolution. Students will feel safer and take risks if they know ridicule from others will not be allowed. Include and engage. Teachers often include students in classroom rule writing, but how else could students be engaged in designing the learning environment? Consider letting students discuss and decide the classroom procedures for entering and leaving the classroom, turning in work, doing classroom jobs and other routines. Perhaps let students help in determining classroom layout and seating arrangements. Students feel safe in a place where they have ownership and a deep understanding of not only what to do and how to do it, but also the rationale for why they are doing it. Thomas Edison said, "I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work." Our goal should be to teach our students to view failure in a positive light and as a catalyst for future learning, through our conscious effort to offer opportunities and safe spaces to make mistakes and persevere. This will set our students up for future success both in school and in the world beyond. Maria Boeke Mongillo is an assistant professor of educational leadership at Central Connecticut State University. She has taught in school-leader and teacher-preparation programs at multiple universities, and facilitates professional development in elementary schools. She began her career as a first- and second-grade teacher, and is passionate about supporting early childhood teachers and leaders through research and advocacy. If you enjoyed this article, join SmartBrief’s email list for more stories about education. We offer newsletters covering educational leadership, special education and more. Related Posts: No Related Posts "Failure is an option. Fear is not": Creating a safe intellectual space for learning originally published by SmartBlogs

One of the most common challenges I see my clients coming up against in social media marketing is a lack of time and focus. Hootsuite can make the management of Twitter more efficient and more effective; here, I’ll explain how you can get more out of it through the use of streams and custom searches. Everything I’ll describe is in the free version of Hootsuite. Set up streams for easier, more efficient Twitter monitoring Hootsuite’s streams are your secret weapon for more effective Twitter monitoring. By setting up streams within your Hootsuite dashboard, you can filter through the mass of information on Twitter and get to what you need, quickly. There are a selection of streams that should be standard, these being the home stream (pulls the Twitter home feed), mentions stream (every time someone mentions your Twitter handle), messages inbox stream (to show DMs) and the retweets stream (shows your tweets retweeted). There are a number of custom streams I also recommend setting up to supercharge your Twitter monitoring. These streams will enable you to monitor what people are saying about your brand when not using your Twitter handle, to spot potential customers and engage in relevant conversations, and to use Twitter as a PR tool too. Custom brand search stream. The first custom stream I recommend you set up is to show you every time someone mentions your brand name, without using your Twitter handle. So people might talk about Impression, but without writing @impressiontalk. To set this up, select "add stream" and choose "search" in the tabs at the top: Here, select the profile you want to set up the stream for, and enter your search query into the box. Your search query can (and should) include search modifiers, which you may be familiar with from advanced searches on Google. These modifiers allow you to specify things such as when the search should display results which must include multiple phrases, or which could include a number of different phrases. For example, I’ve set up a custom brand search stream to show me instances of people mentioning Impression, and I’ve asked the stream to show me variations on our brand name. Here’s what I’ve entered into the search query box: "Impression" OR "Impression Digital" OR "Impression Digital Limited" OR "Impression Digital Ltd" OR "Impression Agency" OR "Aaron Dicks" You’ll notice here that I’ve included "Impression Agency," which was our URL when the agency first launched, and also the name of our MD Aaron. You too can set up a custom search for people mentioning your brand name and its variations, as well as key names within your team. This stream lets me see what people are saying about us and about Aaron, all in one easy to access place. Now I can respond, retweet and follow those users straight from my Hootsuite dashboard. Custom product or service search stream. You can use the same method to set up a stream which searches for people mentioning your products or services. This will enable you to identify people who are seeking to buy your product or service, sharing opinions about it, looking for advice on it and so on. Your job is then to respond to them in the most appropriate way, be it to answer their question or contact them with a view to quoting for their custom. I work for a digital marketing agency, so I’ve set up a custom search which looks like this: "Digital marketing" OR "SEO" OR "PPC" OR "online marketing" OR "ecommerce" OR "content marketing" OR "digital PR" You can see that I’ve included a number of our services in this search, but I could easily set up a different search for each service if I preferred. Often, these searches will bring up a lot of results. If you’d like to refine it further, you might add a location caveat into the search - particularly useful if you only provide your services in a certain area. For example: "Plumber" OR "plumbing service" OR "plumbers" AND "Nottingham" OR "Notts" In this example, I’ve used the modifier AND to specify that the results must include the terms "plumber," "plumbing service" or "plumbers" as well as either "Nottingham" or "Notts." One example of this done really well was a coffee shop that set up a search for "coffee" and their local area. In one particularly successful PR stunt, they were able to identify a woman who had tweeted about her nightmare day and need for a good coffee, and respond to her offering her a reserved seat and a free coffee to help her relax. The story of their generosity generated far more in PR value than the free coffee cost them, and they exemplified great ‘social listening’ at the same time. And that’s what these streams are all about — social listening. It’s about being really tuned in to what your target audience and customers are saying, so you can appeal to them in the most appropriate and valuable ways. It’s about generating new custom and revenue by working more efficiently on Twitter. Hootsuite as a PR tool Hootsuite isn’t only great for social listening. You can also use it as a PR tool, thanks to the array of hashtags used by PR professionals and the availability of their Twitter handles. Finding new PR opportunities with a hashtag search. There are likely to be various hashtags used by journalists in your industry as they seek to identify commenters and contributors via this real-time, constantly updates platform. Have a look around and see if you can find any hashtags specific to you. There are also more general hashtags used by journalists across all industries. Two common hashtags are: #journorequest #prrequest If you conducted a search for these hashtags now, you’ll see lots of tweets coming through all through the day from journalists and PR professionals seeking stories and contributions. Using the technique described above, you can set up a custom search stream to search for: #journorequest OR #prrequest This will now deliver a stream of journalist requests straight to your dashboard. You can also modify this further to refine the stream some more. I have a client who rents out holiday cottages in the New Forest, so I have set up a hashtag search for them which looks like this: #journorequest OR #prrequest AND "new forest" OR "holiday cottage" OR "holiday cottages" OR "travel" This will deliver me opportunities to contribute to relevant journalist requests. Follow local and industry specific journalists. You can also set up a stream where you search for journalists’ Twitter handles, if you know them. You’ll find that journalists are quite willing to share their Twitter details these days, so have a look on most newspaper sites where the journalists’ Twitter profiles are shown, or in Twitter lists. You can then set up a stream to show you the tweets from those journalists, by setting up a search for their handles. This gives you the opportunity to see what they’re talking about, which can help you gauge the stories they’ll be interested in from you. You can also see when they request contributors or stories, and even tweet them directly if you have a story you think they’ll be interested in. Scheduling As well as streams, another huge benefit to using Hootsuite is the ability to schedule tweets to run throughout the day/week, so you don’t have to be there every time you want to tweet. Hootsuite’s simple scheduling tool allows you to schedule a tweet for a specific day and time, or to use their "auto schedule" feature which learns over time when your audience is active and thus when the best times to tweet are. The scheduling tool is within the tweet area and looks like this: Of course, scheduling should be done with caution. The key to Twitter success lies in conversation, whereby you listen to what your audience are saying and respond accordingly. The danger with scheduling is that you become a broadcaster rather than a conversationalist, simply putting out messages about yourself without ever engaging with the people who follow you. For this reason, be sure to check in to Twitter a couple of times a day to respond to people when they contact you or mention something relevant to you. Your new streams will make this much easier. In its most extreme, scheduling can even be detrimental to your brand. I had a client once who scheduled a tweet to say what a lovely day it was and encourage people to visit her tourist attraction; when it turned out to be a very rainy and wet day, the tweet was much less effective and inaccurate. That wasn’t the end of the world for the brand - in fact, my client realised her mistake and cancelled the tweet before it ever went out. But Google the phrase "tesco hit the hay" and you’ll see an example of a PR nightmare that came from a mis-timed scheduled tweet… So there we have it; there are various ways to use Hootsuite to make Twitter management more efficient and more effective, the majority of which are available absolutely free. Give it a try, and if you’d like to ask me any questions or share your experiences, you can do so in the comments below or tweet me @lauralhampton or @impressiontalk. Laura Hampton is the marketing manager at digital marketing agency Impression. Related Posts: Are third-party social media clients worth paying for? With a little help from technology, you can harness the power of social media for customer service How to choose the Twitter client that's right for you ListenFirst: Lego was most highly engaged brand in Q2, fueled by YouTube 5 ways to use social media in lead generation How to get the most out of Hootsuite originally published by SmartBlogs

Eddie Young This post is sponsored by AFS Technologies. As senior vice president of sales at Sunny Delight Beverages, Eddie Young understands that to be effective with the management of trade spending, you need to implement scenario planning to create an annual calendar of trade promotions. Young, who joined the Cincinnati-based beverage maker after it was spun off from Procter & Gamble in 2004, has learned the critical role that scenario planning plays in all aspects of a company’s operations, and its value in strengthening relationships with retail customers. Young began his career in beverage sales at Nestlé, but it wasn’t until after he joined Minute Maid and began working as a regional sales manager in 2001 that he began to use scenario planning to refine the effectiveness of his company’s trade spending at the customer level. "You had to be able to build an annual plan, understand what kind of funding that would lead to, and how you could deploy it for a maximum return for each customer," he said. "It had a big impact. If you start with a good plan, you have a much higher probability of success." Scenario planning remains critical to the annual trade promotion planning process for Young at Sunny Delight, where he oversees the warehouse brands division, encompassing the Sunny D and Fruit2O brands. Describe the situations in which scenario planning works well, and those in which it does not. It works well — no surprise — when you have a customer that is interested in partnering, understands the value of the planning process and is committed to it. With good planning, you can make your promotions more efficient and you can take costs out of the system, ultimately giving the consumer a better value. On the customer side, there has to be a commitment to running the plan, evaluating it and adjusting as necessary. You must continue to execute, not a month at a time, or six months at a time, but as a continual process. We are all trying to satisfy the end-consumer with the right promotions and the right product and the right price. We are dependent on our retail customers, and those customers are dependent upon us to help them maximize what they are doing. Are you analyzing price and/or promotion performance to make better decisions? Absolutely. I don’t know how you can run your business without it. Our regional sales managers collaborate with their customers to conduct post-promotion analysis, and report the results back to our customers. It’s a "living plan" — so we can make adjustments as we do this analysis. We may decide we are running at the wrong price point, for example, or we are not displaying properly. At the national level, we are always looking at our investments to make sure we are making the right promotions to meet the consumers’ needs. Sometimes you have the right intentions, but they don’t achieve the objectives, and you have to pull those back and examine other options that might drive sales. We are looking at price and promotion performance at multiple levels. Are you overlaying shipping data/financial data with consumption data to do your scenario planning? We build customer-level P&Ls. If you are just focusing on the trade budget, you are missing a whole lot of other pieces. For example, if you have a promotion that seems to do well from a sales lift standpoint, but it costs you three times as much because you had to run overtime in your plant, or you had to ship from multiple locations to meet the demand, you might find you didn’t do as well in the promotion as you thought. You may still choose to do that, but at least you know the cost rather than having hidden costs in your value chain, where you think the promotion is doing really well, but you are not looking at the impact the promotion has on your company. If you have residual inventory, or leftover remnant materials, for example, those things have an impact on the effectiveness of your promotion. We don’t do it on every single promotion, but with all of our big promotions with our largest customers, we do our best to evaluate what the actual impact was across the whole environment. Where have you experienced the biggest benefits in using scenario planning? The biggest benefits are trade efficiencies, and hopefully that ultimately leads to profitability. It’s as simple as a better understanding of what your business is doing. We might make decisions to invest or to run a promotion that doesn’t necessarily fit within our parameters, but because we understand the scenario on the front end, we know what to expect going into it. We don’t want to be surprised on the back end. It’s the difference between making a strategic decision and being surprised because you did not do your due diligence on the front end. As a midsized company, we have little margin for error in terms of things such as production and procurement. Those have big impacts on our P&L. If we have bad forecasting, or bad planning, and we expect a promotion to come in light, and it comes in heavy, that could result in running plants on overtime, or doing last-minute procurement of raw materials, for example. That would become very inefficient for us, and it would hinder our ability to service our customers, and ultimately, the end-consumers. In our annual planning process, we review each customer to see what worked, what didn’t work, what we need to accelerate, and what we need to cut back. We look at which customers are efficient and effective in how they run promotions with us, and that information is broadly communicated. We hold ourselves accountable for the forecasts. With a company our size, we just can’t afford big misses across our promotional calendar. We’ll even share the results of our biggest promotions with our senior leadership team, including the CEO and CFO. How has scenario planning helped you collaborate more effectively with retailers? I personally have a lot of passion around this. I started my journey in scenario planning with Minute Maid, and they were very strong in this area. When we become better at following through on our customers’ expectations, we become a better partner for them, and that gives us more credibility. Our customers have numbers to hit, they have customers they need to satisfy, and if we can predict how promotions will perform, and make them more effective, our retail customers are much more likely to cooperate and partner with us. They are looking for insights from us that can help them better serve their customers. Anything we can do that puts just the right amount of inventory on the floor, at the right time and at the right price, makes them better at what they do. We rely on them to help us as well. We are running one branded set of promotions, and they are running thousands of them. So we rely on their expertise and their understanding of their shoppers, so we can be better at what we do. It’s a cliché, but ultimately it comes down to collaboration. It’s a partnership, and when it is done correctly, it works really, really well. In the consumer goods industry, manufacturers and their retail customers are working together on trade promotion planning to produce a win-win relationship and happy consumers. AFS Trade Promotion Management Retail  (TPM Retail) is a powerful tool to aid in this collaboration. Based on deep consumer goods experience, TPM Retail supports the annual promotional planning process and a strategic approach to trade spend management, including the ability to plan, execute, settle and analyze retail programs. Learn about AFS TPM Retail, visit: www.afsi.com/TPMRetail   Related Posts: No Related Posts Scenario Planning Provides Insight for CPG Industry originally published by SmartBlogs

Storytelling — once the stuff of childhood nighttime rituals — has grown up and is quickly becoming a go-to tool in the very adult world of business. MBA programs, workshops, and coaches all offer strategies and support to help today’s leaders craft a better story. And it makes sense. According to Pamela B Rutledge, Ph.D., in her post on Psychology Today, "The Psychological Power of Storytelling," "Stories are how we think. They are how we make meaning of life. … Stories are how we explain how things work, how we make decisions, how we justify our decisions, how we persuade others, how we understand our place in the world, create our identities, and define and teach social values." The advantages of the story Those who understand this dynamic can elevate the quality of their leadership — and their results — by leveraging the natural human propensity to make sense of the world around us through stories. These leaders create a narrative that contributes to greater connection, engagement and shared meaning. Stories distinguish themselves from other communication vehicles in a variety of ways that contribute to their power in the workplace. A well-told story appeals to a wider variety of learning, listening, and information-processing styles. You have a better chance of getting your point across to more people when it’s framed in terms of a story. Stories have a way of tapping emotions and creating a visceral impact (that even the most well-crafted PowerPoint slides leave on the table). They’re more memorable than other communication vehicles. According to Susan Weinschenk, Ph.D., in her Psychology Today post "Your Brain on Stories," "you are literally using more of your brain when you are listening to a story. And because you are having a richer brain event, you enjoy the experience more, you understand the information more deeply, and retain it longer." They tend to be delivered through "human" means versus e-mail, texting, etc. This alone helps to cut through the noise of the thousands of disembodied messages we’re bombarded with daily. Stories are efficient as they predigest and pack a potentially overwhelming volume of information for grateful inhabitants of a time-starved world. When told live, stories create not just a shared experience but a shared space for dialogue as well — something craved by workers who are increasingly feeling disconnected in today’s virtual world. Stories have the power to inform, instruct and inspire when crafted intentionally and delivered skillfully. And they’re remarkably flexible in terms of the context and content they can support. For example, stories can be used to: Provide important information about who a leader really is, offering a window to his/her values, motives, and passions; Frame the past and generate a shared foundational understanding upon which to build; Position threats and opportunities, bringing the need for change into sharp focus; Personalize strategy and breathe life into it (as opposed to issuing another missive or creating another poster for the lunchroom); Preview the future, creating an appetizing vision that motivates and inspires; and Package lessons and insights in a quick and memorable fashion. Plotting out your stories Leadership stories that accomplish all of this don’t occur spontaneously. While they may appear to be off the cuff, there’s nothing impromptu or unscripted about them. They are intentional, thought through in great detail and frequently rehearsed to ensure they hit the mark. The most effective stories tend to share a few common characteristics. They are authentic and personal to the leader. They use appropriate humor. They tend to have a narrow or specific focus, which helps with one more characteristic: brevity. Unlike Grandpa’s long, winding stories on the porch, some of the best leadership stories are relatively short. Additionally, the best and most memorable ones feel honest and candid. They reveal vulnerability and even mistakes. As a result, they evoke emotion. In fact, research suggests that people learn more from stories of struggles overcome than stories of perfection. When leaders let their defenses down and share errors, missteps and mess-ups, they not only gain greater credibility; they also teach more. And, because they are at their very core classical literary devices, stories also contribute to a more effective outcome: The classic three-part structure of set-up, confrontation and resolution lends itself to a variety of story types. Metaphors and analogies offer descriptive imagery, framing concepts in more understandable and/memorable terms. Sharing dialogue and repeating what was spoken between or among individuals creates an immersive experience that engages and triggers a different type of understanding. Surprises and unexpected twists keep the listener on the edge of his or her seat. Intentional repetition of key words or phrases can also drive home the important points being made, make the message more memorable, and sometimes yield those signature leadership expressions that go viral in an organization. "Stories are the single most powerful tool in a leader’s toolkit." ~ Howard Gardner With all of the tools available to leaders today, many are returning to a low-tech, old-fashioned, tried-and-true strategy that likely traces back to some of their earliest childhood memories. Want to lead? Start with a story. So, tell us your story. What do you do that makes storytelling effective? Julie Winkle Giulioni is the author of "Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go: Career Conversations Employees Want," with Bev Kaye. Giulioni has spent the past 25 years improving performance through learning. She consults with organizations to develop and deploy innovative instructional designs and training worldwide. You can learn more about her consulting, speaking and blog at JulieWinkleGiulioni.com. If you enjoyed this article, join SmartBrief’s e-mail list for our daily e-mail on being a better leader and communicator. Related Posts: Subtle sabotage: The invisible impediment to change How to increase your team’s productivity in minutes each month 12 principles of inspiring leadership Finding the "motive" in motivation 4 actions that can make you a wellspring of confidence What’s your story? Leadership and storytelling originally published by SmartBlogs

Recently we asked if the term "learning management system" was due for a makeover. We think it is. And we’re teaming with the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) and C. Blohm & Associates for a session to discuss that idea at the 2016 SXSWedu conference called "LMS: Extreme Makeover." We would love to hear your thoughts on redefining LMS, but first we need your help. Vote for our session between now and Sept. 4 to help guarantee that it will be added to the official SXSWedu program. Every vote counts and we would appreciate yours! LMS evokes strong feelings among educators, administrators and even the companies that create them. Some view it as a useful tool for teaching and learning and others view it as a necessary evil. Whether you’re for or against LMS, it plays a significant role in today’s schools. Over the years the terminology has morphed and changed — remember "computer-assisted instruction"? — and it continues to do so. But if not LMS, what should we call it? To determine that, we must first discuss LMS challenges, including how curriculum and technology leaders can work together to achieve the same goals. Our session at SXSWedu will seek to build consensus around oft-ambiguous terminology and the advantages and challenges of these evolving digital learning platforms. Share your thoughts in the comments section below or on Twitter with the hashtag #LMSMakeover. And please take a minute to give our session a thumbs up for SXSWedu 2016. Jared Stearns is the marketing manager for SmartBrief Education. He can reached at jstearns@smartbrief.com. Related Posts: #SXSWEdu: You go (far), girl! Inspiring girls in STEM Entrepreneurship in higher education: Lessons from abroad #SXSWedu Summit: What higher education does right, what it needs to do better Is the purpose of college to get an education or a job? Educational technology for a better classroom experience Vote for our session at SXSWedu 2016: "LMS: Extreme Makeover" originally published by SmartBlogs

As a leader, it’s your job to ensure you’re always pushing your employees to form positive workplace habits. But like any ingrained routine, it takes more than motivation for it to truly sink in. Even the most promising change can fizz out if it’s not repeated on a daily basis. According to international business speaker and author Michael Kerr, successful people tend to thrive on routine and consistent habits. Of course, you can’t force your employees to adopt a habit, but by finding the right work pattern and reinforcing it daily, you’ll build a culture that’s driven by consistency. And as a result, you’ll foster a more productive workplace. Habit formation is a team effort In his book "The Power of Habit," Charles Duhigg attributes the formation of a habit with a psychological pattern called the "habit loop." This routine consists of three key steps: the trigger, the routine, and the reward. According to Duhigg, once a habit is formed, the brain starts working less and less while engaged in that task, and eventually, it can virtually shut down. As a result, mental capacity is cleared up for tackling other duties or forming other habits. Still, knowing the science behind habit formation and putting those ideas into practice are two distinct concepts. Here’s how you can help your team form lasting, positive habits: 1. Motivate. Gumption is what separates the desire to change from the will to change. As the leader, your teammates must share the same goals as you. You have to motivate them to care about the new habit you’re promoting. Consider having an entire meeting based solely around the new habit you want your employees to perfect to stress how important this process is. By getting your teammates on the same page and placing a degree of urgency on the habit-forming process, they’ll begin to understand why these habits are such an integral part of their success and will draw motivation from you and from within. 2. Craft a plan. Once you’ve got the troops motivated, you need to capitalize on their gumption and help them create a plan to solidify their new habits. After that first meeting, you need to follow up with your teammates with snippets of advice on how to keep up the progress. Forming a new habit isn’t easy, but with a strong leader behind them every step of the way, your teammates will adjust more quickly than expected. I recommend setting up a 12-week plan for your employees with ample opportunities for check-ins, one-on-ones, and constructive feedback. 3. Coach them. There are numerous ways you can coach your teammates — it all depends on how they respond. One technique I’ve found helpful is identifying an employee who is really taking the lead on forming a new habit and making him or her an example for others. For instance, if John in accounting was able to adopt a new piece of software, you might have him talk about how he was able to do so in your next meeting. This is not only a great way for employees to grow into their new habits together, but it’s also a great way to boost morale. The key is coaching people until they find a way to do it themselves. Small habit changes may seem granular, but minor improvements can add up to big results. By empowering your employees to make positive changes, you can reap the benefits of a more productive workplace. You just have to attack this process with the mindset of a stonemason: one brick at a time. Chris Cutter is the founder and CEO of LifeDojo. LifeDojo’s evidence-based 12-week wellness programs lead employees through a journey of motivation, daily action, and support, resulting in permanent health behavior change. Related Posts: Unleashing the improvement potential of front-line employees Let your stars shine: Why your team needs a coach, not a manager Learning from fiction: An insight into coaching Can a manager be a coach? A 4-step guide to coaching your employees The 3-step process for creating better habits across your team originally published by SmartBlogs

(Photo: Flickr user Katherine Lim) Whether it’s a fresh-cooked burger made on your grill, a mini cheeseburger slider from your neighborhood pub, or a classic lettuce-tomato-pickle burger from your favorite fast food chain, chances are you’ve had some type of burger recently. In Datassential’s latest MenuTrends Keynote Report on burgers, we found that three out of four Americans consume at least one burger in any given week. In our extensive report, we showcase key insights on what types of burgers consumers eat most, where they eat them and how operators can get a piece of the burger business. Burgers 101 Being able to grill outside is the top reason consumers eat burgers at home. Otherwise, for the majority of Americans, burgers are an away-from-home affair. The speed and ease of purchasing a burger at a restaurant is the main barrier to at-home consumption, but even so, the majority of consumers still would rather create burgers from scratch at home, versus using frozen or pre-formed patties. With that in mind, retail products that ease in-home preparation could perhaps be the key opportunity to increasing in-home burger consumption. Burgers are available at nearly half of all restaurants, though, making it easy for consumers to prefer eating burgers away from home. Burgers are a highly accessible food for most people - whether it’s a walk to an independent bar to satisfy a burger craving, or a planned trip to a Michelin-starred restaurant. And while full-service restaurants are more likely to serve burgers, the vast majority of away-from-home burgers are actually purchased at limited-service establishments. With their sheer number of locations, national QSRs such as McDonald’s, Wendy’s, and Burger King dominate the burger marketplace and remain top-of-mind choices for consumers. Customization, however, is the most likely factor driving away-from-home consumption - and outside of those traditional QSRs, consumers are turning toward fast-casual better-burger chains. Ultimately, consumers want it all: a reasonably priced, high-quality, made-to-order, customized burger. At Chicago-based Epic Burger, it’s all about letting consumers craft that ultimate burger. Epic’s "more mindful burger" is all-natural, hormone-free, and freshly made. A step-by-step menu allows customers to choose a choice of protein, such as a turkey burger or portobello mushroom; a wheat bun or lettuce-wrapped burger; Wisconsin cheeses like horseradish havarti or aged cheddar; and additions like avocado, pickles and Epic sauce. Let’s also not forget one of the current burger heavy hitters of the fast-casual world, Shake Shack. The Shack’s all-natural burgers have continued to sizzle with consumers — an average Shake Shack now does more than $100,000 in sales a week. Consumers’ favorite burgers When it comes to crafting the best burger, it first starts with great meat. Two-thirds of consumers say having truly great protein is the most important factor for making a truly great burger. The majority of consumers first reach for beef burgers, but alternative forms, like turkey and veggie patties, both are increasing on burger menus. Aside from the main burger patty, some operators are taking proteins to the next level, adding other meats such as pulled pork, brisket, or prosciutto, on top of burgers. When it comes to toppings, consumers typically reach for classics like lettuce, bacon, cheddar, and ketchup. Similar to sandwiches, though, burgers are an extremely versatile format that allow for endless creativity. Take a tour around any city and you’ll likely find at least a few operators finishing burgers with unique toppings, from deep-fried pickles or potato chips, to indulgent items like lobster or foie gras. Offering even a few unique toppings can help operators stand out from the competition while also offering customers a unique, customizable experience. Toppings like cranberry, fruit compotes and specialty peppers, have all been trending up on burger menus. And let’s not forget the consumer craze over sriracha — the spicy condiment has grown 160% on burger menus just over the past year. If you’re looking for an answer to the questions, "What’s the next sriracha?" or "What’s the next big burger trend?" be sure to contact us about the keynote report for consumer and operator data that will keep you on top of burger innovation. The future of burgers There are many ways for operators to get creative with burgers, especially when considering each main component of a burger — the bun, protein, cheese, toppings, and sauces. Mini burgers (sliders) and stuffed burgers are both of high interest consumers. Luxury toppings, such as truffles, have also been trending. Often mixed into an aioli spread on a burger, truffles have grown 400% on burger menus since 2010. Because burgers are so mainstream and ubiquitous across restaurants, it’s important for operators to constantly improve upon their burger products to stay ahead of the curve. By incorporating a choice of next-level toppings such as fontina or bacon jam, or perhaps adding an ethnic flair to burgers, such as menuing a Korean BBQ burger, operators can continue to differentiate themselves from the rest of the burger crowd. Burger innovation is limitless. We’ve already seen burgers made with two bacon grilled cheeses used as a bun (Bernie’s Burger Bus, Houston); burgers stuffed with foie gras, short ribs, and black truffle (DB Bistro Moderne, New York); or colossal burgers topped with a grilled hot dog and Lay’s potato chips (Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s); and there’s no telling what burger creations are on the horizon. One thing’s for sure though: Americans love burgers, and with our MenuTrends Keynote Report, you’ll have access to much more than what we’ve already covered, including what operators menu and what burgers consumers are most excited to bite into. Maeve Webster is the senior director of Datassential, a supplier of trends, analysis and concept testing for the food industry. For more information about ordering the MenuTrends Keynote Burger Report, contact Brian Darr at brian@datassential.com. _________________________________________________ If you enjoyed this article, join SmartBrief’s email list for more stories about the food and beverage industry. We offer 14 newsletters covering the industry from restaurants to food manufacturing. Related Posts: 5 things you need to know about menu boards Prepared foods report: New consumer behaviors hone in on fresh, healthy and sustainable How millennial, retail trends impact breakfast menus, flavors, products — and decisions The race is on to become the "Chipotle of pizza" Solving the messiness of food data Report: The juiciest burger trends and insights originally published by SmartBlogs

Keeping meetings, tight, effective and on-track takes discipline. And meetings that waste time also squander energy, productivity, and money. When you follow these 15 tips you gain respect and buy-in as you run meetings that are valuable, efficient and productive. Hold meetings standing up to capture more excitement and reduce the length of the meeting. Include decision makers so decisions can be finalized at the meeting. Schedule shorter meetings. Aim for 15 minutes. Time limits keep meetings focused on essential topics. TED talks are limited to 18 minutes or less so presenters will carefully organize their thoughts. Research shows we tend to focus well for 10 to 18 minutes before our minds start to wander. Make commitments in addition to decisions. Choose someone to be responsible. Steve Jobs called them DRIS — Directly Responsible Individuals. He ended meetings by assigning tasks and commitments. Issue a clear request and require a verbal buy-in. Don’t allow a non-committal "I’ll try." Assignments give greater accountability and clearer organization. Use a timer to keep track of time and keep you on target. Determine a specific amount of time for each agenda item. When time is up, assign the next steps and move on. Leave cellphones at the door. A Marshall School of Business survey indicates you antagonize co-workers by using cell phones in meetings. 86% find it rude to answer phones in meetings. Essentially when you turn from the meeting to your phone, you waste other’s time and tell them they are less important than your call, text or email. Reduce size of meetings. Try to keep meetings to eight people or fewer. It allows for more creativity and leaves others free to work. Come to the meeting prepared. Expect every attendee to be prepared with data and ready to answer follow up questions. Focus the meeting. American Express executive Christopher Frank has said he asks, "What exactly are we meeting about?" Everyone at the meeting answers in five words or less and so insures all are on the same page. Intel has a sign: "If you don’t know the purpose of your meeting, you are prohibited from starting." Review reoccurring meetings. Are they necessary? Cancel them if there are no agenda items. Cut off ramblers. You know the people who harp on one issue or are slow to get to the point. Create a strategy to deal with them. Condense and restate their point and move on. Write the agenda item as a question. Ask: When will the prototype be ready? Instead of just putting "prototype status" on the agenda. Get buy-in on completed agenda items. If you move ahead too quickly, you may leave some people still thinking about the last point. Ask if everyone is finished with the current topic before you move to the next. Take a two-minute pause. After introducing an idea or problem, encourage deep thinking to arrive at ideas, plans, or solutions by calling for two minutes of silence so participants can think. Set the right tone. Make it clear you are there to solve a problem, not to push your agenda. Be open to input. Talk with participants ahead of time about agenda items and consider their insights as you prepare for your meeting. Follow these 15 steps and you will become known as someone who runs efficient, productive meetings. People will want to attend your meetings because they know you value their time and get results. Joel Garfinkle is recognized as one of the top 50 executive coaches in the U.S., having worked with many of the world’s leading companies, including Oracle, Google, Amazon, Deloitte, The Ritz-Carlton, Gap and Starbucks. He is the author of 300 articles on leadership and seven books, including "Getting Ahead: Three Steps to Take Your Career to the Next Level." More than 10,000 people subscribe to his Fulfillment@Work newsletter. If you sign up, you’ll receive the free e-book "41 Proven Strategies to Get Promoted Now!" If you enjoyed this article, join SmartBrief’s e-mail list for our daily newsletter on being a better, smarter leader. Related Posts: Be more productive with these tech tips Soothing stress: Taking time for yourself makes you a better leader Lead better meetings with these 2 conversational paths Celebrate mistakes: Creating a culture of forgiveness Why all these meetings? Your checklist for more effective meetings originally published by SmartBlogs

This month, SmartBlog on Education is exploring classroom design and management — just in time for the new school year. In this blog post, Andrew Cohen, a former educator and current CEO of web and mobile-education platform Brainscape, suggests ways to "prevent random ‘rules’ from just sounding like ‘noise.'" Nearly every activity in life — from playing Candy Land, to studying for law school, to learning computer programming — requires us to learn a series of interconnecting rules that comprise a system. One could even argue that the ability to quickly learn how rules fit into systems is the single most important life skill that anyone could develop. Yet our current education system misses a critical step in students’ development of systems-based learning skills. We fail to instill the appropriate purpose that drives students to seek to learn the rules of systems on their own. The rules of a system cannot be taught Webster’s Dictionary defines system as "a coordinated body of methods forming a plan of procedure." When you learn how to speak a language, for example, you are subconsciously synthesizing tens of thousands of vocabulary rules, grammar rules, and voice inflection rules into sentence-building procedures that are commonly accepted by other speakers. The same goes for perfecting the thousands of tiny muscular contractions necessary to become a great basketball player or concert pianist. If we could simply optimize the way that people are able to learn such systems’ rules and synthesize them together, then we could essentially optimize learning itself. The problem with much traditional education is that it attempts to teach individual rules, rather than setting up the conditions for students to learn the rules of the system on their own. This results in drastically reduced student outcomes. It is hard to drill yourself on Spanish verb conjugations (and have that learning truly stick) unless you have first established a goal of learning Spanish. It is torturous to get drilled on factoring polynomials, unless you have first experienced the pain of being unable to solve an important problem without that skill. The rules of a system are best acquired not when they are taught, but when they are learned deliberately. Give learning a purpose In order to prevent random "rules" from just sounding like "noise," parents and educators can first maximize students’ level of interest in those systems. This can be done by starting with a real-world application of the system in action, and making the student feel passionately uncomfortable about their current learning gap. In his book Making Learning Whole, David Perkins refers to this tactic as having students "play the whole game" before diving into any details. For instance, if I hear a beautiful guitar solo (or see a rock star getting lots of attention), I am much more likely to want to learn to play music myself. If I encounter an unfair situation that makes me obsessed with the principle of justice, then I am more likely to want to study law. If I play an engaging game that simulates the exciting career of a real estate tycoon, then I am more likely to want to learn about Finance and compound interest. If a hypothetical friend or hero has a life-threatening illness, I am much more likely to care about the anatomical system that it affects (so we can diagnose and solve the problem). And if I have an exciting real-life startup idea that I want to pitch to (real or mock) investors, then I am more likely to want to learn how to storyboard a great PowerPoint presentation and write a business plan. Of course, not all students will get excited about every subject, no matter how interesting of a scientific mystery is presented in the beginning of a lesson. And we don’t yet live in Sal Khan’s ideal world where students are only required to pursue their strongest areas of interest. But we can at least try to do a better job of creating an initial purpose before diving into any details. Perhaps we first bring in a guest speaker to inspire students about a topic. Or maybe we frame an entire lesson about a fictional story where Sally Career has to go from point A to Z (the "whole game") by learning interim rules and solving smaller problems along the way. Instilling a stronger degree of purpose before learning can make students want to learn, rather than making learning feel like a required form of torture. Constantly move the goalpost As much as possible, educators should strive to make purpose a prerequisite to deeper dives into any topic. If students do not seem fully engaged enough to move on to learning the specific details of a subject, then we might consider spending another day or two of class time focusing on the big picture. Students could potentially spend some more time understanding the career applications of the knowledge, or learning about how some of their favorite celebrities or business moguls have succeeded because they possess the skills in question. Basing instruction around stories makes it more likely to stick with us, so we might as well focus as much class time as possible on engaging students in purposeful stories, while leaving more of the detailed learning up to the students to seek on their own for homework. Once students have begun to establish a decent sense of purpose, educators can begin to introduce challenges of incremental degrees of complexity. Students can start by learning the simplest individual rule (e.g. a G-chord) that accomplishes a microcosm of the overall learning objective (e.g. producing a beautiful harmonic sound). Then little by little, the student should continue learning rules that are just barely outside her current level of understanding — in the so-called zone of proximal development. This system of scaffolding is why we talk to toddlers in simplified "baby talk" (with a clear purpose of communication) and why we begin our math-learning journeys with the simple truism 1+1=2 (so we can tell mom how many cookies we want). Optimizing curriculum Our biggest goal as educators should be to maximize the return on investment (ROI) on students’ time spent learning. And if we know that students will spend less time paying attention (and therefore less time learning) if they are not engaged, we should accordingly spend a disproportionate amount of lesson-planning time on making those first few minutes as engaging as possible. Missing the initial window to engage students’ sense of purpose can otherwise destroy the ROI for the rest of the lesson. Only after establishing a strong purpose and foundation should any specialization, or memorization, ever take place. Perhaps we should delay "studying" until the very end of the learning process! But even though repetition is still the mother of all learning and still is the only way students will ever get great at math, tennis, PhotoShop, or brain surgery, we educators must first ensure that students establish a baseline sense of purpose. Remember: application first, theory & details second. If we do our jobs right, students will seek the most complex layer of knowledge on their own, and we won’t have to "teach" it at all. Andrew Cohen holds a masters degree in Education Technology from Columbia University and worked as a teacher (General Assembly), international economist (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics) and government corruption fighter (World Bank). He is the founder of web & mobile education platform Brainscape. Read more: Learn Deliberately, The Zone of Proximal Development and Repetition is the Mother of All Learning Related Posts: Fueling the fire of learning Kindergarten in action: A focus on literacy Implementing the common core: 4 lessons learned for school and district leaders Ready for the learning journey? 20 tenets of responsive leadership How to create a purpose-driven lesson plan originally published by SmartBlogs

Multinational corporations invest more and focus more on high potentials than domestic firms, but does that translate to success?

The 2015 edition of our writing guide simplifies parameters to submit quality content for publication in the CAPS FacultyCare blog. Our prayer is that written content will stir our faculty family to achieve great things...Continue Reading »

:: The Hollywood film industry has a long history of ensuring its products get wide distribution in foreign markets. While foreign sales were once merely "icing on the cake" after local distribution, they now represent a significant portion of total sales. Ensuring strong distribution and sales has led the industry to influence foreign laws regulating film distribution (not always adhering to the letter of the law) and crafting their products to fit into different cultures - ensuring that they cross borders easily. "In Disney-Pixar’s just-released animated feature "Cars 2," which is set in several international locations, "there was originally a Russian villain, but there was concern about that . . . The bad-guy car character was changed to a monocle-wearing German." (Source: LA Times) Action films are particularly suitable for foreign markets, especially if they are based on familiar characters and storylines (cite).  Globally recognized toys (Battleship, 2014; Transformers, 2011, 2014) are used to similar ends. :: Achieving international reach in online higher education has its own challenges. But in the coming years more institutions in the West will seek to leverage their strong brands to reach into foreign markets where growth in student enrolments is far greater. But taking a school "global" via online education is no small feat. There are few precedents to mimic. Open University in the UK is in 107 different nations, but its been working on this since its origins in the 1970s. Most institutions will discover that online higher education - like the campus variety - is still rooted to its location - despite its "anytime, anywhere" sheen. The obstacles to taking a school "global" with online learning include: Brand familiarity. A minority of institutions in North America are well-known outside of their immediate region to prospective students. This is why, for example, education service companies, like 2U and Compass-Embanet - which provide marketing and investment to institutions to build and deliver online programs - tend to seek out partnerships with institutions that are nationally recognized. It’s difficult and expensive to attract students if they aren’t already familiar with the institution. For-profit colleges and universities - which don’t have strong brands - spend a whopping 20-25% of their budgets on marketing.  The configuration of public grants to institutions. Government funding formulas that dictate how much institutions receive for each enrolled student are not always designed in such a way as to make it financially beneficial to the institution to recruit non-local students. One jurisdiction I’ve worked in requires that the institution reimburse the government for every international student enrolled.  The need to serve "our" students first. Institutions that receive direct public support are often expected to treat students from that jurisdiction as a priority. While institutions base their value to a certain degree on their ability to bring together a diverse student body, and these practices are thought to support the region’s broader immigration objectives, no institution wants to be seen as turning its back on the children of its tax-base/constituency.  The value of credentials. On the "demand side" of the equation, credentials offered by institutions don’t always hold their value in other settings.  There are other factors, of course, such as cultural differences, and the challenges of hiring local staff and faculty in other jurisdictions (particularly if your institution is unionized). But the pull of achieving international reach is too great for many academic leaders, and the nature of technology makes it seem all within reach. At the same time, we appear to be at the start of a period in which certain types of education are breaking free of the limits of location. Commercial providers like Lynda.com (recently bought by Linked In for 1.5 billion) have international ambitions. Online language training - the largest single type of instruction - continues to attract money and talent. And MOOC providers like Udacity and Coursera demonstrated the extraordinary interest of international students in lifelong learning. These kinds of education providers are less restricted by structural factors such as the value of credentials, government funding formulas, and the like. Like action films from Hollywood, they cross borders with relative ease. :: The ability to serve a broader range of students in different locations is highly dependent on the degree to which the curriculum is relevant in other jurisdictions. We’ll look at this issue directly in an upcoming post.

An Every Classroom Matters Episode with Garnet Hillman How do we know our students have really mastered the standards we are supposed to teach? Assessment coach Garnett Hillman helps us understand how our assessments need to change. (We might even learn that we don’t have to grade so much and get better results.) We learn the tools and tips to help us with assessments. Important Takeaways What are the most common mistakes teachers make when assessing students? How can you improve your current assessments to better meet standards? Why should formative assessments be more reflective? Why just giving number grades as feedback doesn’t work and what to do instead. How to give feedback that helps students the most. How can you grade less and get better results? Interview Links @Garnet_hillman Sponsor Help Teaching.com has a test maker that will help you with your assessments. You can find questions by: grade level, subject, and Common Core standards. Try the Help Teaching Test Maker(tm). Try the Free Helpteaching.com Test Maker(tm) Now You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or elsewhere, get the RSS feed, or listen via the media player above. Join the Every Classroom Matters Awesome Educators Network on Facebook The post 7 Assessment Tips and Tools to Know What Your Students Are Really Learning appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog.

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