The staff at Kesselman-Jones Inc. recently started a “webinar club,” taking advantage of free MPI Academy online offerings.

“The club mimics the book club format,” says Laura Kesselman (MPI New Mexico Chapter), CMM, president of Kesselman-Jones Inc. “All staff were given the opportunity to select two webinars from the library that were of interest to them to submit for consideration. After doing a quick preview to make sure the ones they selected were timely and of value to the whole team, I created a calendar, assigning a different webinar and discussion group leader for each week.

“Every Thursday, we get together on Zoom to talk about the content and production value of the week’s video. So far it has been a great way for us to all learn together and have insightful conversations that have benefited both individual professional development and our organization.”

“Every Thursday, we get together on Zoom to talk about the content and production value of the week’s video.”

They started the webinar club with “The Art of Badassery,” which is focused on personal wellness.

“I thought my staff needed to remember that they are all badasses!” Kesselman says. “We all pondered the thought that as you excel in martial arts you earn belts, and that as you improve your skills, the belt color is darker to cover the dirt you pick up along the way. Right now, we agreed we are in a mud bath, so we should celebrate our upgrade to brown belt!

“There was a component in the presentation that addressed communication and explored physiology, tonality and vocabulary. We discussed how these skills are even more important with our meeting spaces confined to the size of a monitor. Everyone was amused at an expression shared by the presenter, ‘Don’t should on yourself,’ which is quite pertinent in the current environment: ‘I should be eating healthier,’ ‘I should be doing this instead of…’ My team is now making a concerted effort to turn ‘I should’ into ‘I want,’ ‘I can’ or ‘I will.’”

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Kesselman says the second presentation her team participated in was targeted to skills they need NOW: Jeff Hurt’s “Breaking Through: Engagement Strategies for Digital Participants.”

“He modeled best practices in engagement in his presentation, which still proved effective even though we couldn’t personally engage,” she says. “He stressed the importance of setting up an environment where attendees want to learn and that learning doesn’t take place without requiring people to think about what they are hearing. They must connect with the content, and you must give them that opportunity during your presentation.

“We also examined the production value and loved the co-hosts not only introducing the presentation but interacting throughout the presentation with the presenter, serving as the voice of the audience and providing additional perspectives and energy to the content.  Even though there were technical challenges at the beginning of the presentation, we found ourselves very forgiving because the content was so powerful.”

With virtual education opportunities now available from myriad sources and many of us stuck at home, it’s a great time to start a webinar club.

Photo by Belo Rio Studio on Unsplash