Nelson Croom's Blog

Institute of Physics – record number of registrations

by Rachel Bruce

I recently met with Vishanti Fox at the Institute of Physics who has been creating and coordinating a campaign to market the online courses that we provide for them, to their members.

IOP set themselves a target of generating 400 new registrations for courses throughout the first month of the campaign. As the result of an email campaign to their members, they have had 420 new registrations in June, the most they’ve had in any one month since the launch of their portfolio at the end of 2005.

Vishanti was delighted with the result, and I asked her how she had worded the campaign.  She said that it was very straightforward and to the point:

• The online courses were chosen to meet the needs of the members
• The content was tailored for physicists
• The registration process was easy
• There were 18 new courses available

Keeping it simple clearly works.

Registration numbers are all well and good, but we also need to know that the courses are being well-received.  As part of a new initiative at the beginning of this year, the IOP courses now include a completion area with an evaluation questionnaire.  The evaluation questionnaires confirm that the IOP’s online portfolio of CPD is a success story, with plenty of positive comments and testimonials from the members.

I’m now talking to Vishanti about how we can sustain registration numbers and positive feedback on a monthly basis going forward.  So far, so good.

New Course: Buying a Business

by Rachel Bruce

Peter Howson has written a third technical course for us for our Accounting and Finance Portfolio.  Buying a Business follows in the footsteps of Due Diligence in Mergers and Acquisitions, and Selling a Business.

Buying a Business enables a learner to:

• plan carefully and strategically for their acquisition

• understand what they need to know about the market, the target company, and the deal

• understand the due diligence process, what it’s for and how to conduct it effectively

• create a plan for effective integration of the acquired business

Buying a Business completes Peter Howson’s trilogy on this subject, and like the others, I’m sure will be well received by the finance folk who buy our courses. 

New Course: Promoting Your Professional Practice

by Rachel Bruce

We have launched a new course this week in both our Accounting and Finance Portfolio, and our Professional Development Portfolio.  Promoting your Professional Practice, written by Drayton Bird enables a learner to:

• Assess their current marketing activities, and decide what other types of promotion will work best for their business

• Think about what aspects of their business differentiates them from their competitors

• Target potential clients, and retain their existing clients

• Build and develop a targeted marketing database

• Maximise their return on investment

I’m pretty excited about this new launch as it is a really practical course written by an extremely knowledgeable marketeer who has great tone of voice, a wealth of experience to draw upon, and a straightforward approach to helping people promote their practice, so I’m sure it will prove successful in both of our portfolios.

How we Learn

by Andrew Turner

After reading Jacqui’s thoughts on verrucas last week I begun to think about the way the general public are ‘taught’ about issues concerning things such as health through legislation.  Being a non smoker I was very interested to see how regulations to place warnings on cigarette packets would affect smokers.  Are warnings with words or images an education as to the health hazards which smoking present?  I was always doubtful, mainly as most smokers I knew were already aware of the dangers and so a warning in a large font or with a horrific picture was unlikely to discourage them.

Now I am at Nelson Croom I see that it isn’t the message that is ineffective but the way it is put across. On the side of a cigarette package surely what we’re trying to do is change people’s attitude to smoking?  And, at Nelson Croom, we’d say that you don’t change attitudes by either giving more information or by just shouting louder at people. People need to engage, experience, and consider if they are to decide to change their behaviour. Yet for some reason those charged with getting these messages across seem to ignore this. 

I saw this also in a recent article on addiction to prescription medicine.  Last month the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) called for warnings to be placed on the front of some over the counter painkillers.  This will be coupled with stronger warnings inside on the instruction leaflets. Is this likely to have an affect?  I am not saying there isn’t a problem to be addressed, rather is this the way to do it?

Personally I tend to just take two tablets of any over the counter medication believing that is the right dose, and depending on the strength of it, avoid alcohol.  This being the case I would not see the strong message inside the box at all and would view the warning on the front, as most smokers do with those on cigarette packs, with an initial shock that I slowly become accustomed too. 

How many people read the instructions for medication or similar products?  We all know Jacqui doesn’t for Bazooka and I believe it is a similar case for all.  For this reason I find it hard to believe that government bodies persist in an approach of educating people on dangers around them in this method.  I have no answers as to a better one but have a feeling one could be found that could be slightly more effective if they merely looked at how teachers, schools and learning providers across the board are shifting their views on the topic.

A New Face at Nelson Croom

by Andrew Turner

Sitting down to write this blog, I am unsure how to introduce myself. Do I go for the formal ‘Hello, I’m Andrew Turner ……’? Or a more relaxed feel, full of quirky comments about me and the role I’m taking over.  Not sure either would be that great and so I went for the approach you have just read.

I have been fortunate to be offered the role of Marketing Executive at Nelson Croom and started on Monday 21st of June.  Previously I completed a degree in English Literature and History, travelled Australia,  and then studied a Masters in Publishing at Kingston University upon my return. This led many friends and family to suggest I was avoiding ‘the real world’ for as long as possible and should get a ‘real job’.

Much to their surprise, and my delight, I was able to do this shortly after completion of my course, being offered a position after my first interview.  It is a position which will enable me to develop the skills I learned through my Publishing Masters in a very unique way.  The friendly team here at Nelson Croom is something which will hopefully enable me to gain a greater understanding of the business as a whole, whilst also allowing me, selfishly, to pull out as much from the teams combined experiences in and out of publishing, as possible.

I also feel that I can bring something to the team, making it a somewhat less one-sided affair.  To deliver an old cliché, ‘I feel I can bring a fresh insight’, which, although is one of the most overly used interview phrases ever, is something I truly feel I offer.  With a Masters behind me as well as experience writing copy for a permanent cosmetics company (don’t ask!), I also believe there is a lot I can bring from my 7 years working in a bar come restaurant that makes what I offer quite unique.

Time will tell but I can say that I am very happy to be starting my career at this exciting, friendly and conveniently placed - on the cusp of Zone 2 - company!

Running the BUPA 10k race

by Alan Nelson

As many of you will know, I recently ran in the BUPA London 10k race. From a fundraising perspective, this was a great success. I raised over £1500 for The Alzheimer's Society, which far exceeded my target, so thank you to everyone who made a donation.

I can’t say I much enjoyed the training, although there was always a strange feeling of exaltation each time it finished, but I did really enjoy the race day. There were over 13000 runners so the whole thing had the feel of a big event and it was good to be a part of it.

All in all the experience has got me thinking. When I started out to do this, I wasn’t at all convinced that I could do it. I am quite fit – play a lot of squash – but have never been very good at running long distances. I knew that if I practised a bit I could run 5000m in half an hour – I had done this before - but the idea of carrying on and doing another one straight afterwards sounded impossible. Nevertheless I set myself the challenge of doing it, and in less than an hour.

I started to do some training runs and all I found out was that anything over 5k was indeed a stretch and hurt a lot. I tried to think my way round it. Maybe it was all in the mind. I checked out running sites for tips on technique and approach. None of it seemed to help much. Then gradually I noticed that I could do 6k as easily as I had been able to do 5k before. Then I managed 8k. Finally a week or so before the race I ran 10k for the first time.

By the day of the race I was convinced I could do it. In fact it didn’t seem such a challenge as it had when I first agreed to do it.

So how did I get on? Well, the race was won by Mo Farah. He did it in 27 minutes and broke the British record. He beat me. In fact he had nearly finished by the time my group crossed the starting line! Indeed, as we started to run I realised that I had been too cautious in where I asked to start. I was running past other runners the whole way, and I ended up in the top third, finishing in 57 minutes – not staggeringly fast, but not bad for an old bloke like me.

So what did I learn? I learnt that sometimes, there is no clever way of working out how to do something better. To get better you just have to practice a lot. For a lazy and slightly cocky person like me, this is not welcome news, but in the context of Nelson Croom and our approach to getting people to learn, it is good to remember that sometimes there isn’t a shortcut: you just have to put in the hours!

The end of instruction as we know it!

by Jacqui Nelson

My daughter arrived in the kitchen last night with a pamphlet in hand and proceeded to read me the entire instructions for Bazooka cream (probably too much sharing for a corporate blog, but stick with it!).

“That’s why it’s not working Mummy. You never do steps 2 and 3 do you? Are you sure you have read these instructions?”

Now, I’m sure I did read the instructions but it was probably some time ago and I probably thought I knew enough now, just to wing it, but I guess this isn’t always sensible. This got me thinking. How much instruction is the right amount?

Unlike the vast and detailed pamphlet on how to apply Bazooka cream, in general there is a trend to reducing the amount of instruction you get when you buy something new. The trend seems to be to get people to just have a go, and learn by trial and error. This really supports our philosophy, at Nelson Croom, which is about letting learners get on with it, choosing their own path depending on what they want and how.

This is a big shift which was bought home to me recently when I was helping my mother-in-law set up her new cordless phone. The instructions were just not detailed enough to enable her to do what she wanted to do and she doesn’t use the internet so couldn’t find any help that way.  So she turned to me. I could help because I have experience of similar types of gadget and was willing to give it a go.

I had a similar problem myself when my husband and I got iphones. We spent an age trying to work out how to insert the Sim card. In the end we asked a friend who we knew had an iphone too. He explained the procedure to us but admitted that he’d had the same problem and had nearly sent his back because he thought it was faulty.

It’s just a demonstration of how the way people find out how to do things has changed. We no longer expect to be told in great detail what to do. Instead:

•    We start with a small amount of information and we give it a go.
•    If we need more to look to other sources of information for help – probably the internet
•    And we turn to others and share experiences

At Nelson Croom, these concepts are built into all our courses, but in so many learning experiences they are not. Educators, online and off, need to embrace the idea the days telling people what to do and calling it learning, are over. Today’s generation demands an altogether more rounded learning experience.

Unless of course you are applying Bazooka cream to your daughters’ foot, when you cannot have too much instruction!