Redefining online engagement, one community at a time @breezio-blog1 - Tumblr Blog

Can Associations be the Answer to the Workforce Crisis?

In 2009, as America was fighting to pull itself out of the recession, associations were playing a vital role in helping to grow businesses and expand the economy. Their playbook was built around events, networking, advocacy, small business education and partnering programs aimed at helping their members identify and expand customers. It was a winning formula that created value for so many business and individuals who were struggling. Back then, the talent shortage was just scary story being told in the shadows. Nobody took it too serious, because most companies were in survival mode, and because it would be years before this problem would affect the bottom line.

In 2017, it’s a much different story. Businesses are now growing, industry is flourishing and entrepreneurship is on the rise. The mobile economy, the collaborative economy, the networked economy and the gig economy have all revolutionized the pace of work and innovation, resulting in a record number of new businesses and new job opportunities. People are also more connected now than ever before thanks to mega social networks like LinkedIn and chat platforms like Slack. The association industry, that was built on the foundation of networking and community building, is now in a state of flux as they find themselves competing with these networks and platforms. Just look at what Meetup has done to give people in any micro-niche or industry the opportunity to coordinate events and build communities.

Positioning for the talent economy

That scary story once told about a national shortage of talent has now come true! Talk to business owners across the country and you’ll hear that the talent and available skilled workforce just hasn’t kept up to the pace and the demand of this growing, next generation economy. Businesses big and small don’t have the workforce they need to grow, so most of the boardroom conversations are now driven with talk about education, workforce development, training and talent solutions. Some may say that we are in a polar opposite situation than we were 8 years ago. That’s why some membership and trade associations are starting to shakeup their 2009 mindset and prioritize around what their members need now.

"Solve the workforce crisis, and an association will become the most valued resource in its community and industry." ~ Sarah Sledek, CEO of XYZ University

It’s time for associations to rethink their strategy and adjust their business models to address TALENT. In fact, associations are one of the most ideally poised players that can help move the needle to make a measurable impact on this problem. These organizations sit at the intersection between companies, universities, government and individual workers which gives them a perfect position as talent intermediaries to help broker valuable workforce solutions.

Associations sit at the intersection between companies, universities, government and the workforce.

Some organizations are starting to recognize this and are taking advantage of their unique position as a convener people, resources and knowledge. Many are moving away from a dependency on the events and big annual meetings. Instead, they are realigning their assets around innovative solutions for talent and learning communities, with the goal of addressing this growing crisis. The Internship Network of Maryland (inMD), a new program being launched by the Maryland Tech Council (MTC) using Breezio’s online engagement solutions, is a great example of this new strategy in action.

The new scary story being told today is that those organizations who aren’t focusing on talent, or engaging the younger generation, will continue to lose relevance, lose their members and lose their revenue. So the time is now for associations to take bold action to fill a critical role in our economy and make great contributions to the education of our future workforce. Motive and means are aligned with necessity, all that’s needed now is action.

~Chris Frew, VP at Breezio

Breezio works with organizations who are looking to create innovative engagement and learning solutions for their audiences such as members, employees or customers. Contact us to learn how we can help your organization achieve its engagement goals - [email protected]

Breezio’s Back to School Special: Breezio’s New Features get an A+

There’s nothing like some Breezio updates to finish off your summer right! We’re pushing out some new features to prop your portal, just in time for the school season. Keep in touch with Breezio as we continue to work around the clock making your community stand out in the collaborative generation.

Recommendations

We’re super excited that the first step in our upcoming recommendation engine is out! Now, right on your front page will appear recommended organizations and people for your members to join or follow. Simply click on ‘Follow’ to follow a user, or ‘Request to join’ an organization. As we continue to develop, these recommended people and organizations will be tailored to match your portal perusing delivering the most relevant content to your members. Growing a community is more than adding a pile of users, Breezio’s platform allows users from all over the globe to connect through content in a way not possible through other mediums. Our recommendation engine will allow you to match with members just like you from all over your community, and it is this interconnection built around content that makes Breezio such an industry leader.

Chat messages send emails

Staying in touch is hard, and there’s nothing worse than finding an urgent message weeks after it was sent. We realize you can’t always be in your Breezio portal, that’s why we have added email digests for our messaging feature. Turn on email notifications to receive updates for messages you haven’t seen. Don’t want to be bothered? No problem, just turn off notifications in your account settings.

Our updated notification system will send you an email for any unread messages in your inbox. Don’t worry about clutter, messages will be sent in one collective digest to catch you up on the missed conversation.

Jobs improvement

Our Jobs posting just keeps getting better. We’ve taken everything you wanted, and added even more features on top. New options for salary, following, and more are coming with this release! But we aren’t done yet; we have much more coming up through the fall.

Add a salary to your job or internship post to let applicants know what to expect. Users can now follow jobs they are interested to apply later, or receive notification of any updates. Employers can add external links to their own application system, or handle applications internally with portal messaging, meetings, and file sharing.

Expect a gamification revamp to our portal system starting early fall to take the pain out of the job hunt. No other platform makes a job board as easy and fun as Breezio.

Tooltips

We know your Breezio portal has countless innovative features, and it can be hard to keep track of what’s what. In our upcoming release tooltips will be popping up in the pages around you, and our structured onboarding will guide your new users through their first Breezio portal experience.

Hand-holding tutorials get on our nerves too, that’s why we’ve cut the fat to deliver the tips you need without the obstacles you don’t. Our tool tips have gone through a lengthy design process to show up when and where you need them and no where you don’t.

Still left with questions about your portal? Contact your Portal admin, or email us at [email protected]!

Collections

Your collections just got a face lift! We're increasing the curb appeal of your collections with this release, now collections UI will appear similar to organizations. Nothing draws a reader like a good book cover, so prep your photoshop fingers and make your collection pop!

With the unveiling of our gamification system later this fall, collections will be able to be integrated with our badging system to reward users who take the initiative to learn. There are many exciting new integrations in the future for collections, so hang onto your hats and buckle in, it's getting Breezy.

Admin and Portal Sign-On

The privacy of your community matters to us, that's why we have added a recaptcha option to the signup process. Our strong core of privacy features ensure the data you entrust to your Breezio portal will stay in the hands of the people you want it to.

Moderating a community is hard, especially with so many new users popping up every day! With our redesigned approval process, adding new users is as simple as clicking a button. Choose join roles, default organizations, and more – right from the admin panel.

Users now appear in your admin panel organized by date added. Choose from filter options in the top panel to only see the accounts you need to. Member moderation has been redesigned to be as fluid as possible, profiles now open in a new tab when clicked - no more fighting with your browser’s back button.

Ease of use continues to be our focal point for portal design. If you run into any rough spots, let us know! Our constant dedication to improvement is what makes Breezio a leader in online community management.

In the growing economy of collaboration, many organizations struggle to provide their members with a platform to support the content they produce. As Reggie Henry, CIO & Engagement Officer of ASAE put it:

"In the future, an online community will be not necessarily be defined by how many discussions they have, but by how much knowledge they generate” (@ReggieHenry).

Breezio's innovative approach to community management provides your organization the tools it needs to develop around content rather than people. Our platform is growing more robust every day through the feedback from Organizations such as yourself, who share our common goal: Redefine the online community.

Author:

Conor Bergman

Breezio Intern / Digital Ninja

@brzio

[email protected]

#Breezio #Product Release #Job Board #chat #messenger

By Henry Mortimer, Editor-at-Large

When it comes to ruling the online communications realm, content is king — right?

Well, not for much longer, says Karen McCord, CEO of Breezio, a cloud-based community platform. She believes that these days, in terms of connecting with an audience and building a following, collaboration and engagement should be crowned the true royals.

“We want to disrupt the way [people] think about content,” says McCord, who joined the firm when it launched in 2015. “We want to bring content back to the people who originally developed it and create brand loyalty through the terrific content that they make themselves.”

The goal of her Rockville, Md.-based company, which she calls the “convergence of a learning management system, a content management system, [and] a social network,” is to redefine what online engagement means by shifting content to a supporting role, in order to help people solve problems together and accelerate discovery.

Full article at : http://www.warfield.co/interview/breezio/

#Breezio #interview

Kick off the Summer with these 5 Hot New Product Releases from Breezio

After hearing your feedback, we have worked night and day to bring some exciting enhancements to Breezio. Below are some of the new features that we have been working on for you and your members!

1) The Dashboard

When your members login to your community they need the most relevant, personalized information at their fingertips; weather that’s the presentation from your latest seminar or keeping track of upcoming events. With the new Dashboard we now we make it easy for your members to access all the information that they need in one place. A trending posts feed provides the latest content, and The “Happening now!” feature surfaces the live trending content and what other members are reading and discussing at that very moment on your online community. Custom HTML let’s you post announcements or “things to do” for your members. By increasing the visibility of your activities and events, the dashboard will help you spur greater member engagement and ultimately strengthen your online community with a more personalized member expereince.

2) Enhancing the User Profile

Your organization’s vast collection of personal profiles places an assortment of curated information on your members beneath your fingertips. However, these personal profiles often do not paint the full picture of each and every one of your members.

In response, we have revamped our profile and member directory module with a number of new capabilities. First, you can now have multiple profile types; such as member profiles & company profiles. We’ve added more custom fields so you can define what’s important to your association. Members can also now upload their resumes directly on their personal profiles, add video, earn and display badges, and more. Videos are a great way for them to showcase projects, their elevator pitch and give a more personal introduction of themselves. With our new micro-badges they can showcase any achievements they have earned within your online community, or other open badges they’ve earned. With this level of profile customization, your members are able to give you and their peers a better picture of who they are - forming a stronger and more personalized online community.

3) Collaborative Learning

Brandon Hall Learning Technology Study 2016 revealed that improving user experience for learners is a critical reason for organizations looking to switch their platforms.The study also recognized that the top priority for organizations in 2017 is to invest in social and collaborative tools to enhance their learning environments.

We take this seriously since we believe that the underlining reason for all engagement is either learning or teaching. We’ve enhanced our eLearning module with better reporting tools and several new integrations. There is no need to integrate your LMS w/ your community when it’s one in the same. With our collaborative learning module we’ve combined the best of formal and informal learning in one platform. We’ve put the learner experience first to ensure that your members can learn, share and collaborate seamlessly around course material. You can also now award badges or digital certificates for completion of your eLearning.

4) Job Posting

Sarah Sladek, CEO XYZ University2017 put it best during her keynote at the Associations World Congress, “Solve the workforce crisis, and your association will become the most valued resource in its community and industry.” We're here to help you make that happen & turn your community into a talent marketplace. 70% of jobs are acquired through your network, so what better network to optimize for your member’s careers than the one you provide through your community. That's why we decided to rething your standard jobs board & Breezio-ize it! Job postings in Breezio let your members post comments and questions for the employer, recruiters can schedule live chat’s with perspective candidates, assign pre-requisites to the job such as digital badges, eLearning or other association sponsored educational programs. How awesome is that. What’s more, the required skill tags assigned to job postings sync directly to the skills tags on member profiles which helps your employers quickly and easily find members who match & gives your members notifications when new jobs match their profile. With this new module we’re helping our Association customers to be more of a partner in their member’s career paths, and bring better workforce solutions to the industries they serve.

5) Notifications

With Breezio’s Notification Center, get real time updates of anything you’ve missed, and tailor your settings to get an email digest of all the reminders you need. Don’t bother with paper fliers and messy message boards, use Breezio events in coordination with our Notification feature to send alerts about important meetups to your groups, or schedule online events with individual people. Notify allows portal admins to send messages about an organization or post to all members, members of an organization, or even single out specific users by name. With Breezio you will never miss out on what matters most in your community.

We hope that you’re as excited as we are for these enhancements that we’re continuing to build into the Breezio platform for you.

Breezio strives to be an association's strategic partner and trusted adviser to guide organizations through their digital evolution of member engagement. For instance, how do you create a digital version of your membership journey that manifests across the online community? Commencing from that question, we co-create and develop real solutions, with real input from ALL of the customers we support. Thank you to all who have contributed to these June updates and keep the input coming!

If you’re looking for solutions to solve your evolving member engagement goals, we hope you’ll look to Breezio as a trusted partner. Contact us today to learn more.

Chris Frew, VP Sales - [email protected]

Guest Post:

Victor Chien

U Penn, Wharton School

#Product Release #collaborative learning #elearning #online community #jobs #job board

How to Give your Association the Power of the Collaborative Economy

Can your Association Become like the Kickstarter for Member Engagement?

During Rachel Botsman’s (@rachelbotsman) keynote at the 2015 Digital Now conference she said, “companies in the collaborative economy have borrowed much from associations’ playbook, with business models built on trust, neutral matchmaking, and bringing people together—and now these startups are doing it better than associations.” Don’t you think it’s time to turn the table and make the collaborative economy work for your association as well?

Here in 2017 we are now well into the third phase of the digital revolution; “the collaborative economy”. It’s called this because the economic driver is no longer built around the value of communication through people networks, like in social networks, it’s built around extracting value from a collaborative experience of co-creation. It’s no longer important to just be on social media channels, your members want more. This age is about utilizing each member’s talent’s, skills and assets to create a greater experience, and a greater value for all.

So, why is this so important? The millennials, who may be an important new member category for you, are givers. They grew up sharing, learning and collaborating together online in platforms and networks of peers. Giving is in their nature, but they are also selective on where they will engage, so they choose to spend their time online in places that let them personalize their experience through contributions. They desire to be part of a shared community experience where information is open and interactive, where they can measure their impact, and where they can see outcomes that they can be proud of.

This behavior has driven the collaborative economy. It has propelled hundreds of companies to create tremendous value and grow huge businesses by enabling collaboration around shared needs. Think about Waze, Uber, Airbnb, Kickstarter. They are all built to capture the value that's created by enabling users to collaborate on something in demand and co-create; like a map, a car, an apartment, or an invention.

The proven equation that these billion dollar tech companies understand and follow is really quite simple; and you can use it too.

User + X + User = V2 OR User + X(content) + User = Value2(squared)

We call this the “X-ponential Value” equation. When you enable collaboration around “X” the result is exponential value creation for both your users and the organization bringing it all together. Think of it like creating an online marketplace for collaborating on something of value - i.e. your curated content (white papers, blogs, educational material, webinars, etc). The good new is you can now apply the same model to your organization and get similar results.

We used this same formula when we built Breezio. We realized that membership organizations were creating and delivering vast amounts of knowledge, in the form of Content, to their members. Therefore it made sense Content should be at the core; it was the “X” that we could help them build a marketplace around. The result was the first content-centered, private online community platform software built to harness member collaboration around curated content, and exponentially increase value for both members and our clients.

“In the future, an online community will be not necessarily be defined by how many discussions they have, but by how much knowledge they generate.” ~ Reggie Henry, CIO & Engagement Officer, ASAE ( @ReggieHenry )

That value is how much knowledge your community can create. This is what will propel your association and industry forward, and this is what your members are joining for - knowledge. So you’re poised right now to attract and retain more members, deliver greater value and show this next generation of members that you understand them as a collaborative community that’s worth their time and attention. All it takes is the right infrastructure, like Breezio, to leverage the knowledge and assets you have, the right strategy and a vision of who you want to be in this collaborative economy.

Your association is already the trusted leader in your industry for latest information, learning, best practices and thought leadership. Your business models are also built on trust, neutral matchmaking, and bringing people together. So, you’ve got all the ingredients to be the next Kickstarter of Membership Associations, and see similar success. You don’t have to make dramatic shift or completely change your strategy; but it’s time to start taking the right steps.

In the years to come there will be some winners who embrace this model and thrive. There will also be many losers who think they can remain as they are, maybe send out some tweets or facebook messages and expect to stay relevant; but one day realize their members have retired and nothing of value to attract new ones. By then it will be too late.

Visit our website www.breezio.com for more information on this topic, to request a demo, or to talk to one of our online engagement consultants. We look forward to helping you to participate in the collaborative economy.

Chris Frew

VP, Sales

[email protected]

@brzio

#digital revolution #collaborative economy #online community #Breezio

Comparing Community Platforms?

We often have people asking us, “what is the difference between Breezio and other online community platforms?” Well my response is oftentimes, “EVERYTHING”; and they usually agree after they see it for themselves.

In all seriousness, in this age of association technology consolidation and digital transformation, many feel that there is a shrinking number of options available for their growing need for online member engagement solutions. After all, 60% of Membership Associations reported an increase in their online communities (According to the 2017 Membership Marketing Benchmarking survey), and all signs point to that percentage to continue to increase.

There are options out there, such as Higher Logic, Socious, and Small World Labs, Rasa.io, Jive, etc., but we feel that Breezio is one of the very few companies that stands out from those more traditional platforms. We realize that may not always be the right fit for your business needs but we hope to give you a fresh new way to think about your online community.

There are numerous review sites you can also check out, but as a newer platform on the market which you won’t find on those sites, we wanted to help answer your immediate questions directly and provide you some additional information so you can evaluate us against your other options.

At a high level, you can see that Breezio has a robust platform with some unique solutions that make us stand out from the pack. Content collaboration, learning tools, live events and chat are just a few that we do differently and give you a list of new ways to engage your members. You can review the other feature comparisons below.

~Data above was capture from publicly available sources

Compare What matters - Engagement, Easiness & Experience

Let’s explore a few important categories for comparison that directly impact the success of any platform; Engagement, Easiness, Experience.

Engagement:

Needless to say, Breezio is the ONLY-and I say this with confidence- community platform on the market that offers content-centric engagement & live interactivity. We move your community beyond forums and chat rooms so you can own the conversations happening around your content. All other online community platforms like Socious, Higher Logic and Small world labs, were built as people networks; content was an afterthought. The essential difference in ideology creates a fundamentally different user experience.

Three ways Breezio allows you to directly engage other members around curated content include:

in-line commenting allows you to discuss specific paragraphs without scrolling all the way to the bottom only to forget what you wanted to say;

Start chat’s around content allowing members to connect with peers and experts in the field in real time;

Coordinate member engagement or schedule online meetings around content for Live chats or video conferencing with the click of a button.

Moreover, for engagement, we subscribe to what John Mancini, CEO AIIM, believes - “The fundamental building block (of engagement) is curated content, not just discussions.” By extending digital engagement beyond the traditional forum-like discussion space, Breezio really aggregates the knowledge and experience of everyone to facilitate a social learning experience that’s essential to optimal member engagement.

By the way, did I mention that we also have chat?

Easiness:

Community platforms present a treasure of knowledge and resources, but only for the ones who can find the relevant information. Thus it is an essential user experience to be able to find relevant information with ease. All three software platforms are accessible through laptop or mobile; yet Breezio’s optimization on mobile display really allows users to have a seamless experience. We know that there’s a 50%+ possibility that you’re reading this on your phone while you’re in line at the grocery story, or in the elevator - so we built it for that. A powerful “Search” is also important for finding people and content. A select few platforms deploy search into the product, but Breezio went beyond a simple integration with Google Search to deliver a system-wide solution that returns all related information in a grid format, enabling the user to find what he/she wants with a breeze ☺

Experience:

We have all been spoiled by the online user experience we get from facebook, google, linkedin and other social tech giants who have raised the bar for user expectations. Users are quick to judge things according to their ease of use and appearances, and rightly so: systems designed to “wow” you are probably more interesting to use and built better for the user than those that seem to be stuck in the 90’s. Breezio incorporates the latest idea of flat design and gamification that are just, simply more fun to look at and more interesting to use. Combined with the real-time, LIVE interactivity and communication solutions, we’ve created a product that simply immerses users in the experience.

The Bottom Line:

When deciding on your online community platform there are numerous things to take into account; platform features being just part of the equation. The most important thing is knowing what your goals are and what behaviors you are trying to foster. Once you have those established you can work backwards and start to find the right platform partner that can help you to meet those goals.

We hope that you’ll consider Breezio in that list of those you’re evaluating and we look forward to the chance to help you redefine engagement for your organization!

Visit www.breezio.com to learn more and schedule a demo.

Guest post:

Joseph Wang

UPenn, Wharton School

Is your online community built for social learning?

To foster a social learning environment for their members, many organizations are trying to bridge online communities with learning management systems. But is building a bridge the best solution?

Bridges can be helpful for getting across obstacles and traveling between two separate places, but how often is crossing a bridge really a good experience? I tend to think about long traffic lines caused by bottlenecks, high priced tolls and the notion of leaving one place for another. You may experience some of those same feelings with your software systems when you try to bridge together two distinctly separate systems to try and create a single solution. The result is that user experience is, almost always, compromised.

Even with the best integrations between your online community platform and your learning management system you still have a fragmented solution that separates the educational content from any interactivity during the collaborative learning experience. You can’t have both at the same time when you try to bridge them together. This is probably why the Brandon Hall Learning Technology Study 2016 revealed that improving user experience for learners is a critical reason for organizations looking to switch their platforms.

The study also recognized that the top priority for organizations in 2017 is to invest in social and collaborative tools to enhance their learning environments. Many other studies, failed past attempts and lessons learned over the years have taught us that the best online engagement is driven by the desire to seek and/or share knowledge. That is why the best platforms were built to support the “learner” and “teacher” personas in all of us. Think about your online community. Most are currently unstructured and organized as a forum, not a learning center of knowledge for your organization. So is it really set up as a learning community at its core?

The problem is that 90% of online community platforms were built years ago and were started as social networks. These systems were not designed for learning, collaboration and discovery around content, like curriculum, documents or video. Likewise, traditional LMS’s were built for structured, formal learning paths, not for networked learning and discovery. So if both systems weren’t fundamentally built for collaborative learning, then how could integrating two separate systems create an optimal learning experience for your learners? It usually doesn’t.

This is the problem we solve! When we first built Breezio four years ago we asked ourselves a few questions. What would be possible if you didn’t need to bridge two or three systems to optimize collaborative learning and teaching in a community model? What would be different?

The answer - EVERYTHING!

Breezio combines the best of a formal learning management system and informal collaborative learning methods into one online community platform. In doing so we’ve put the learner experience first to ensure that your members can learn, share and collaborate seamlessly around course material. As a result, users will learn better with access to a crowd of experts and peers helping each other extract meaning. We also enable your learners to use their new knowledge to become teachers themselves. This is the ultimate goal, and the true value, of a learning community. Moving from a hierarchical to a networked learning structure will help you create efficiency and exponential knowledge growth for your community - and give your members a great experience.

The concepts of “Learn to help, and help to learn” is hard coded into our system where everyone can be both a teacher and a learner. You don’t need bridges in Breezio, because it all happens here in one place where a truly collaborative learning experience can thrive.

Before investing in an integration that will be costly and ultimately make for a fragmented experience, check out Breezio. Contact us today.

Chris Frew

VP, Sales

[email protected]

www.breezio.com

@brzio

#Breezio #lms #online community #social learning

Community fuels the Chemistry of Innovation @ SXSW

You might not expect one of the largest Scientific Membership Societies to be front and center at SXSW; a conference that celebrates the convergence of the interactive, film, and music industries. It's a well known venue for showcasing innovative new technologies, like Breezio, but not often an event that membership organizations are exhibiting at. However, times are-a-changing and there is an important reason American Chemical Society (ACS) chose to be there this year...

To engage and retain the next generation of chemists, ACS sought out to re-imagine their audience experience and focus on sharing the really cool innovations that are being driven by chemists and chemistry. The Chemistry of Innovation! Engaging the millennial generation also means meeting them online. So ACS used Breezio to give exhibit visitors a unique way to engage around their rich digital content that made the experience more personally relevant.

So how can an online community enhance a conference and increase engagement?

1. Make signing up easy!

Just by scanning their QR code on their badge, attendees were automatically registered for the community and preset user information was captured. This was used to update their profile or subscribe them to topics to re-engage them with relevant content online after the event.

2. Be personally relevant

Conference goers got to engage virtually, real-time with subject matter experts in the ACS Xchange and ask personally relevant questions about topics related to SXSW, such as Food, Sustainability, Environment and Diversity.

3. Showcase original content!

ACS produced original videos that show how chemists and chemistry are behind and driving innovations in various fields; including, Medical Cannabis, Safety Materials and Environmental Sustainability.

4. Give them a way to contribute

Provide a place for attendees to participate in the ongoing, shared conference experience. ACS asked attendees to share stories of how Science has impacted their lives, and the most liked stories won a price. They got some great responses.

5. Engagement doesn't end when the event does

When the conference ends is when you have the greatest opportunity to deliver more value to your attendees. ACS solved this by keeping them engaged online with discussions, articles, videos and a place for networking around the trending topics from the conference.

With a little creativity and a clear understanding of your audience, an online community can increase user engagement and create a seamless experience for your attendees that extends well beyond your events. Especially if younger members and millennials are important demographics for your membership, then it's one strategy you may want to explore further. We are proud to be a part of this innovative audience engagement strategy and we look forward to continuing to membership organizations engage and retain the next generation of members. To learn more about this and other solutions for using your digital content to enhance member engagement contact Breezio today.

Chris Frew VP, Breezio [email protected] @brzio

Plans are underway to launch the Internship Network of Maryland (inMD), a collaborative effort by the Maryland Department of Commerce, Maryland Tech Council, Breezio, and Fearless. inMD will provide an online platform that allows Maryland’s interns to connect with industry professionals. The platform, in its final stages of development, will

The Power of Community for workforce development and training!

We’re proud to be the technology engine behind bringing this solution to market with our partners! Democratizing access to careers and improving on the job training for all students in Maryland will be a game changer for our state.

#maryland workforce #internships #training #workforce development #careers #collaborative learning

The A, B, C’s of Scholarly Publishing in 2017

The STM Society Day (#SocietyUS2017) is where the Scholarly Society Publisher community comes together to discuss the future of scholarly publishing. This was Breezio’s second year at the conference, which kicked off this week in Washington, DC. with some bold new trends impacting the industry.

The day was loaded with great insights, but the three big topics from this year’s event were A) Artificial Intelligence, B) Business Intelligence & C) Community Management/Engagement. We broke these down for you and summarized the impact that these practices are impacting how societies operate, grow and deliver greater value to their members.

‘A’ is for AI (Artificial Intelligence)

The future of Scholarly Publishing in an AI world was the title of the Opening Keynote of the STM Annual US Conference that Shashi Mudunuri (@reShashi), CEO, Research Square presented. Mudunuri eloquently painted a picture of the impact that AI will have, and a roadmap Societies can take to get there. Today we have what he called “Narrow AI” which you can think of like helpers & workers which help solve specific tasks and work with large data sets, Examples include.... but in 5-10 years AI will become a thinker, a purposeful mind. He suggests that small investments today to get you started include things like taking an active approach in your data collection strategy, and mapping some basic tasked that AI could enhance for you. In 5 years, you won't have a choice so invest now and adapt or perish.

Problems AI can be used to solve in scholarly publishing:

Finding the right articles - i.e. Google & Meta

Identifying reviewers

Detecting plagiarism

Detecting figure manipulation

Measure researcher impact

Making discoveries in the lab

Customer service

Formatting guidelines

AR/VR Conferences

Finding potential research collaborators

‘B’ is for BI (Business Intelligence)

Teri Carden, Founder, ReviewMyAMS (@ReviewMyAMS) kicked off the day with an informative Keynote presentation on data and an integrated technology strategy. Her important message was that your data is telling your members’ story and can help you plan for the future, if you only listen to it. This message was illustrated with a very interesting case study on ASPB's (@ASPB) Business intelligence project. They used Bear Analytics (@BearAnalytics) to analyze over 3,000,000+ data points in their member records and other systems. The results were game changing.

From this exercise ASPB was able to:

Prove the value of a progressive new membership model

Validate and enhance a new online community strategy

Identify 150,000 potential new members

Develop a 5 year forecast for membership growth based on these new strategies

Contrary to popular believe” she stated, “expecting you will find the perfect AMS is like trying to find the perfect spouse. It doesn’t exist.” Carden’s point reflects the increasing trend in Societies to apply a “best of breed” technology model which can not only be more cost efficient but provide you a suite of continuously improving member solutions. All systems are built w/ API’s these days so capturing data and strong business intelligence from multiple systems is no longer as heavy a lift as it once was. So using a Best of Breed technology is the clearly the way to go for your Society, but I recommend not suggesting the same model with your spouse.

‘C’ is for CM (Community Management)

Lou Woodley, Community Engagement Director, Trellis/AAAS presented a terrific example of the power and impact that an online community and good communication strategies can have with a case study on how they used Trellis for the March for Science. Trellis, a new communication and collaboration platform for the scientific community and AAAS members, isn't hitting a sophomore slump and continues to show the value for online scientific communities. They also doubled down this past year on the importance of a community management and adequate staff in your member community strategy with the launch of their Community Engagement Fellows program.

Applying the A, B, C’s to your organization

These may seem like three big items to digest and implement into your society’s strategic plan, but getting started could be easier than you think. Fortunately, with Breezio you can capitalize on each of these solutions built into one product. After presenting at last year’s Society Day, we have continued to innovate and partner with our Society customers who are on the cutting edge of digital transformation strategies. Breezio, the first content-centered online communication and collaboration platform, helps create an ecosystem around your content and enhances member collaboration and scientific communication. We also captures all of your members most important activities and deliver the business intelligence you need to help direct your strategy. You can do more with your Journal in Breezio than with many other solutions combined. With machine learning being built into the product we’re also progressing towards AI solutions that increase the user experience and make community management easier.

Our clients utilize Breezio’s content engagement solutions for everything from real-time peer review, virtual journal clubs, Author AMA’s, eLearning, post-conference engagement, organizing content rich online communities, and much more.

We see the future of Scholarly Publishing to be full of opportunity for Societies, and look forward to speaking with you about optimizing your member engagement and ways to achieve greater impact from your Journals than ever before.

Chris Frew

VP, Breezio

[email protected]

www.breezio.com

@brzio

#breezio #scholarly publishing #journals #online community #ai #big data #scientific community

Breezio was proud to be the software that powered the 1st Online Peer Review Jamboree with PLOS & iGEM and help advance the pace of scientific innovation.

On the 28th of January, iGEM and PLOS co-hosted the first online Peer-Review Jamboree for iGEM 2016 projects. Twenty-two teams submitted high quality manuscripts through the Breezio online platform to be considered for review in PLOS Collections and PLOS One. The platform allowed for easy communication between the authors and reviewers in real time. We collected some information about participation during the event:

Participate activity from Peer-Review held on January 28, 2017

73 users total logged in during the live event from 17 countries

384 comments were made in total

35 chats took place per hour

Users voted an Article up at a rate of about 12/hr

67% of users that logged in left at least one comment

40% of users returned the next day

At peak, there were 23 users online together at once in the Articles

The activity started around 5am, peaked between 11-12pm, and stopped around 3pm EST

155 average views per submission

For more information on Breezio, please see the 2016 PLOS iGEM Project Rooms page.

Meet Liora Knizhnik, community manager for BioBuzz.

Starting an online community is no small feat. Starting one from scratch and getting members of that online community to act on their own and engage with one another is even harder!

In honor of Community Manager Appreciation Day, of which Breezio is a proud sponsor, we interviewed one of our rock star community managers, Liora Knizhnik, who started and is growing BioBuzz’s online community.

At Breezio, we’re redefining what it means to engage online, one community at a time. One way we do this is by investing our resources in community manager support and this has proven to be a rewarding approach. We value our community managers as the key to success for any new community!

#online community #community manager #community management #biobuzz #CMAD

The Future of Online Communities is Curated Content - Not Just Discussions.

Many membership organizations have launched online communities over the past several years. Some have experienced success, and others haven’t quite figured out yet what it will take to engage their members online If you’re still trying to figure out this puzzle for your organization, don’t give up! The good news is, If you are ready to give it another shot - which you should - technology and demographics have changed in the past few years to your advantage. There is no better time than now to revisit your online community strategy.

If you’re ready to revamp your community with optimal engagement and value in mind, the first two questions to consider are,

Do you have a (good) Community Manager?

Is your online community set up to encourage curated content?

We have actually identified 7 criteria that successful online communities must have, which we’ll cover in a future post, but these two questions are a critical starting point to get you moving in the right direction.

#1 The Community Manager:

The importance of a Community Manager is not even a valid argument anymore. In the past, many organizations implemented a “If you build it, they will come” model and left their online strategy unattended and without a clear plan. This is a recipe for failure in terms of engagement. Launching an online community without a Community Manager is equivalent to scheduling your annual conference, but thinking you can pull it off without an Event Manager(s).You’d be crazy to think something like that, right?! The same is true for your online community.

If you want to get your community management game up to speed fast, check out the 7th annual Community Manager Appreciation Day (#CMAD) event on January 23rd. This full day of programming and events will give you a great chance to learn about the latest trends and best practices shared by experts from across the world. There is no better resource than #CMAD, and the best part is that it’s mostly virtual so you can attend right from your office, or couch. Breezio is sponsoring the first panel discussion of the day - “Community Ninjutsu: The art and strategy behind online engagement” - featuring experts in online community strategy so you won’t want to miss it.

#2 Curated content is King!

Today most online communities are still built around segmented discussion boards on antiquated platforms that were first architected years ago. This one-dimensional, flat model would be fine if it was 2010, but not today. Millennials now make up 50+% of our workforce. They are the most in-demand new member recruitment category and they come with high digital expectations. This demographic of digital natives grew up on platforms that had an open model, were accessible anywhere via smartphone, and through which they could share content and engage peers with ease; i.e. facebook, snapchat, twitter, LinkedIn, meetup, etc.

John Mancini (@jmancini77), CEO of AIIM, shared an article on LinkedIn late last year - Why do associations seem to be losing their community mojo that embodies a lot of the same principles and online engagement philosophies that we stand for at Breezio (@brzio) as well. One point in particular that we fully align on is the belief that "The fundamental building block (of engagement) is curated content, not just discussions." This is actually one of the core principles Breezio was built on!

Member curated content definitely gives you the most value! Launch and lead your community as a place where members can share thought leadership in order to enhance the value of the whole community and create a marketplace for knowledge innovation. More members sharing and curating means you become the convener for the best thought leaders and access to knowledge in your field.

This is the online community of the future - one that moves well beyond a group of discussion forums and becomes a multi-dimensional digital marketplace with deep engagement.

Community Manager + Curated Content = Engagement

These two conditions, community management and a content centered framework actually work extremely well together and make for the building blocks of a highly engaged community. In fact, the Community roundtable’s (@TheCR) Community Maturity Model (see below) illustrates that the most mature communities have a good mix of formal and user generated content integrated into their program, and a highly integrated community management structure. With more content options, Community Managers have more tools to work with to build their strategy and programs around, so it’s no surprise that these two factors go hand in hand to make communities most successful.

I hope that this article gave you some good ideas to think about as you think strategically about member engagement. Your online community isn’t the only platform you need to rethink your future digital strategy; but as you do, I hope you’ll invest wisely in both the people to manage it, and the right content engagement technology to build it on.

~Chris Frew

VP, Sales

@brzio

If you’d like to see what Breezio can offer your online community strategy, contact us today to learn more or schedule a demo.

#content marketing #online community #Associations #digital engagement #cmad #Breezio Content

What are best practices for ensuring a strong, secure IT infrastructure while embracing more online collaboration?

Karen is CEO of a startup SaaS company called Breezio that specializes in building online communities.

We recently asked Karen for her insight on how cloud computing encourages collaboration and how a strong and secure IT infrastructure is necessary for success. Here’s what she had to say:

Can you tell us about the mission behind Breezio? How are you hoping to impact online communities?

The inception of Breezio and a core principle is help to learn, learn to help. This transcends our mission, which is to is to redefine what it means to engage online around content in order to solve problems together and accelerate discovery and innovation. With engagement comes learning and knowledge growth, and we are innovating around what it means to engage in an online community.

How has online collaboration evolved since Breezio was founded? What predictions do you have for the future of online collaboration? What innovations are you following?

We have seen many prior examples of online community failures from the adoption of the “if we build it they will come” mindset. We believe that good software design is as important as the human component – community managers – to help keep the conversation moving towards its mission.

We predict that online collaboration will move beyond asynchronous interactions and have more and more real-time interactivity and thus feel like a community. We believe that curated content, not just discussions, will be at the core of the most engaged communities, and also that machine learning and artificial intelligence will augment and support best practices with regards to the content curation.

#cloud computing #cyber security #online community

PLOS partners with Breezio and Ars Biotechnica to explore the use of community-scale peer review in scientific publication.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Rockville MD - November 28, 2016 - In the opening ceremony of the annual iGEM (International Genetically Engineered Machine) Scientific Jamboree, PLOS (Public Library of Science) announced their partnership with Breezio and Ars Biotechnica to continue to drive innovation into the scholarly publishing process with a new live peer review model. Since launching its first journal in 2003, PLOS has been a force for transformation in scholarly publishing, breaking with archaic traditions from previous generations. PLOS innovations accelerate science and medicine, from research discovery to influence tracking. Now they hope to do it again and further advance the speed of science by exploring the use of live community-based peer review for submissions from iGEM students.

Ars Biotechnica, a Maryland-based STEM nonprofit, and Breezio, a Maryland startup, which has developed a next generation online community engagement platform, first experimented with this innovative publishing model earlier this year (original press release). Together the two companies hosted an online, community-scale peer review of student manuscripts that were prepared for publication in Biotreks, the first scientific journal for high school synthetic biology. “These students are pioneering a process that could change the way scientific papers are written, edited, and reviewed," exclaimed David Rozak, Executive Director of Ars Biotechnica, after the live peer review conference.

This program caught the attention of iGEM partner Nathaniel Gore, Editorial Project Manager of PLOS Collections, who is now helping to introduce the concept to the broader iGEM community. “PLOS and iGEM share a belief in the advancement of scientific communication through open community collaboration," Nathaniel announced at the opening ceremony. “It’s not just the final research output that is valuable to science, it’s the entire scientific and publishing process.”

Laura Dress, Director of Customer Experience at Breezio has helped lead this project from the beginning and has worked for years to advance the pace and impact that science can have on society. “At Breezio we believe that networked communities have the potential to solve bigger problems, and accomplish more by leveraging the collective knowledge of users in order to advance learning and drive discoveries forward, together, faster.”, said Laura. The partnership with PLOS and Biotreks hopes to do just that for scientific research and publication.

To learn more about this program please contact Breezio; visit our website at www.breezio.com or contact Laura Dress at [email protected]

For information on Biotreks contact David Rozak at [email protected]

For information on PLOS contact Nathaniel Gore at [email protected]

#peer review #scholarly publishing #open publishing #stem education #synbio #synthetic biology #igem2016 #plos #scientific publishing

2 Companies we’re excited to see at MAVA’s Fall TechBUZZ

“Breezio’s online community software helps foster and implement a strategy, culture, and operational tactics that create the experience of online collaboration with a purpose.” ~ Karen McCord, CEO

It’s a big week here in the DC region and beyond if you’re an investor, from seed to later stage companies, or one of the 20 start-ups, like Breezio (@brzio), selected to pitch at TechBuzz. Mid-Atlantic Venture Association (MAVA), who runs TechBuzz, brings together company-builders from across the country and at every stage of development, to promote promising startups to publicly-traded success stories. TechBUZZ in particular offers a public platform for community partners and their companies and helps shape a supportive ecosystem for the earliest of start-ups.

The Fall line-up of companies represent emerging tech trends from education technology to healthcare data management to security solutions. Collectively the presenting companies look amazing, but we wanted to highlight two of them in particular which we are very excited to share the stage with. These two caught our eye not just because of their innovations in education and knowledge sharing, but more particularly because, like Breezio, they are harnessing the power of the crowd to deliver their value - knowledge.

1. Vocoli (@_vocoli) is a SaaS company out of Boston that’s helping companies capture the voice and improve internal communications among employees and other stakeholders in a company. What we love about this is the use of employee generated input to capture greater knowledge and ideas from an organization’s workforce. I can’t think of a better quote that captures the value Vocoli offers than that from former CEO GE, Jack Welch; who stated; "An organization's ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive advantage."

2. MARi (@MARiproject) is more than another EdTech platform, they are positioned as a Fitbit for school and career. Their personal learning platform was developed to eliminate the skills gap between what a student is getting in the education system and what employers are requiring in the workplace. Since many of our first clients are addressing the skills gap, like BioTrain (@BioTrainMD), or pursuing new frontiers in STEM education, like BioTreks, we can really get behind the solutions that MARi is delivering. Especially since they also use the collective wisdom generated by the power of a curated community of experts to do so. With solutions for both education and the employers we’re excited to see them succeed; but more importantly make an impact on the lives of many students and employees.

There are many other cool companies pitching their innovative tech this Fall so if you haven’t already done so purchase a ticket and check out all of the companies making a Buzz around town. Just make sure you especially check out Breezio while you’re there.

Chris Frew, @Brzio

VP Sales, Breezio

[email protected]

Learn more and experience Breezio for yourself on one of our upcoming live demo’s.

Can online communities really change the future of peer-review?

Over a year ago at iGEM 2015 I connected with the founder of BioTreks and showed him Breezio. In it he saw the potential to make a monumental impact on how high school synthetic biology research could be taught, particularly with regard to exposing students to the publication experience and the peer-review process. In order to achieve this, some of the biggest challenges we needed to address involved how the schedules of typical high school students’, and their teachers/mentors’, presented time constraints that were vastly different than college students. Another challenge was that he understood there would be great benefit to bringing high school synbio students together outside of iGEM to help with each other’s research, but he didn’t have an easy ‘place’ for everyone to meet.

Since this time he, the BioTreks community, and Breezio have come together with the clear purpose of helping high school students learn and improve their work through the peer-review process (original press release). As a result we have demonstrated that online, BioTrekers can not only change the future of peer-review, they will lead it forward.

The answer also comes from within: Can YOU change the future of peer-review?

It has been said that it takes a village to raise a child, which means every person in that village has a shared responsibility. If you think of a potential publication, and all the research that goes into making it, as someone’s ‘baby’, the more ‘villagers’ that can help ‘raise’ it up, the better. This make YOU the deciding factor….will you take on the responsibility of improving the future of peer-review?

Can live peer-review actually work?

The answer is simple: YES! Check out the first edition of the BioTreks journal when it’s released and witness a first of it’s kind, a journal produced through high school students virtual peer-review in Breezio.

Want to be a part of the pioneers that help change the future of peer-review?

Join Breezio, BioTreks and PLOS in room 312 tomorrow at 5pm to sign up for the challenge! BioTreks is going to continue their path forward to support high school students participating in this process, and they’ve joined forces through the Breezio platform with PLOS to extend this challenge to all iGEMers at the collegiate level. So, can online communities really change the future of peer-review? You be the judge.

By: Laura Dress, @DressSays

Breezio, Director of Customer Experience

Learn more and experience Breezio for your self on one of our upcoming live demo’s.

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