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On May 22, in Toronto, ExpertFile’s CEO and Co-founder Peter Evans presented at the Collision Conference in the “Growth Summit Track.” As the fastest growing tech conference in North America, Collision drew over 25,000 attendees. As one of the world’s largest and most influential tech events, Collision attracted CEOs of the world’s largest companies, founders of the most exciting start-ups, leading investors and media, from more than 120 countries. Click here to watch the keynote. In his keynote session titled “More Brains, Less Bots: Driving Reputation & Revenue with Expertise Marketing,” Peter speaks to how organizations can better engage their internal experts to competitively differentiate their brand and drive new revenues. The session outlined how trends such as the erosion of consumer trust and increasingly complex buyer journey are driving enterprises and institutions to make experts more approachable to key audiences as media sources, speakers and customer advisors. Peter also shared key insights learned from working with top organizations in sectors such as corporate, healthcare, higher education and industry associations.
5 Tips On Creating Engaging Expert Profiles
If you’ve ever taken part in a website project, you know that not all content is created equal. We spend countless hours perfecting the homepage, but we often forget to tell our audiences who we are. The people behind the scenes in an organization provide some of the best opportunities to create relevant and relatable content for audiences. Take the “About Us” page for example. Ironically, it’s often an afterthought for digital teams who upload some boilerplate copy and call it a day. But people buy from people and the more human you can make your content the better the user experience will be. Here are some tips to help you create that personal connection. The Old Profile Our research shows that most employee content comes up surprisingly short when audiences conduct an online search. This is becoming a more critical element to consider, given that 78% of B2B buyers now use Google as a starting point for their online activities. While there can be several factors impacting your Google rank, the issue often comes down to a lack of quality content on employee-related pages. Many organizations resort to posting outdated headshots next to a title for their employee sections. If you’re lucky, you might find a boring text biography that fails to capture the depth of experience and expertise offered by your team. These tactics may have worked a decade ago, but today’s audiences now expect expert profiles to contain detailed biographies, multimedia and social content. This is especially true for B2B prospects like journalists and prospects looking for professional services. Any half-decent writer can make a person sound pretty important in a bio, but these audiences are looking for proof of your expertise. It’s not enough to tell audiences you’re great – you have to show them. Today’s audiences consume content differently, so it’s essential that you bring your expert profiles into the 21st century. The New Profile Here are 5 ways you can improve your employee content to better drive visitor attention, interaction and trust: Go Beyond Boring Bios: The new way to create expert profiles is to provide a detailed overview of an employee’s expertise and experience. This means that in addition to creating a detailed biography, you should also share content that shows key accomplishments that build credibility and trust: Are they an author? Have they spoken at a conference? Interviewed for a podcast? It’s important to get this information listed. Get Visual & Social: Beyond the written biography, look for ways to make content for your people more interesting for your audiences. Are there YouTube videos, Slideshares, Tweets, or thumbnails to books they have written? If so, you can leverage these assets for their profile. Remember if you are pitching media or conference organizers, this information is becoming tablestakes for journalists or event bookers who are vetting media sources or speakers. Show You Are Relevant & In-Demand: Public appearances and news spotlights can take your experts from unknown to sought-after. There are two ways to tackle this. The first is to capture any existing media releases to ramp up their credentials. If your expert hasn’t yet participated in this type of activity, publish content that speaks to emerging topics and news trends and provide quotes available to the media on newsworthy topics. This is a proven way to earn the attention of journalists and allow you to start building visibility as an industry insider. Go Beyond Your Website: While your website is ideal for hosting expert profiles, it’s not the only place to let your team shine. If you want to boost your visibility, make sure you take advantage of opportunities on third-party sites and platforms. This might include industry directories or your client/partner websites. By using the ExpertFile Platform, you can also publish your expert profiles to reach thousands of newsrooms through our media partners. Be More Approachable: It’s funny that almost every page on most websites has a call to action. However if you visit most people profiles, the journey ends there – or worse, it takes the visitor off your website and to an old, tired Linkedin profile. Instead, let your audiences get in touch with your business by including a specific call-to-actions (CTAs) within your expert profile. Depending on the size and capabilities of your organization, you might have want to enable direct connections to experts or opt to funnel leads through a various departments. Either way, the key to getting leads is starting a conversation. Download the Complete Guide to Expertise Marketing For a comprehensive look at how expertise marketing benefits the entire organization and drives measurable return on investment, follow the link below to download a copy of ExpertFile’s Complete Guide to Expertise Marketing: The Next Wave in Digital Strategy or download one of our tailored Guides for Corporate & Professional Services, Higher Education Institutions, Healthcare Institutions or Association & Not-for-Profits.
How to Show Your Smarts: A Proven Approach to Expertise Marketing
If you’re operating in a knowledge-based industry, you’re in the business of selling expertise. Unfortunately, many organizations in these expert-rich sectors take an ad-hoc approach to planning and executing their expertise marketing initiatives. As a result, they often lack coordination across departments and fail to leverage valuable assets such as talent, content, technology and media channels. By following some simple rules, you will see significantly better results. It Starts with A Conversation First we need to talk about cross-team collaboration. Expertise marketing is a team sport, so it’s vital that your star players are ready. Throughout your organization, there are a broad range of people who are eager to support this type of initiative.Don’t focus too much on roles or seniority levels. At this stage, it’s about having candid discussions with the people around you and then expanding the conversation. You could start by discussing the value of expertise with stakeholders in your organization and sharing how it would help you meet your targets. Or you could reach out to department leads and team managers to get their insights and generate ideas. Most importantly, you need to get to know people outside of your immediate circle and discover the hidden talent within your organization. Sometimes the best results come from surprising places. The ExpertFile Approach As we go through the key elements of an expertise marketing program, you might find that you’re already following some of our best practices. However, when we start working with our clients, we often find that their expert content is disconnected and scattered across various teams and channels. If this sounds like you, that’s ok – you just need a bit of help putting the pieces together. Below, we’ve provided an overview of our proven approach and its alignment with the 5 key elements of expertise marketing: Strategy & Talent: The first step is to assess your expertise bench strength in your organization at various levels. Using a range of evaluation tools and techniques, we set out to identify any hidden expertise in your organization and establish what each expert can contribute. By engaging experts to share their expertise early on, we can define a strategy and open up doors for a range of high-quality content. Storytelling: Now, we need to establish your strengths and how we can best position your experts for your target audiences. Not only do we want to create stories that highlight your core offering, but we also need to showcase your experts in the context of breaking news and emerging issues. This ensures that you are always putting out timely and relevant content for high-value audiences like journalists, conference organizers and other media professionals. Digital Experience: Once you know which topics are best for your organization, we need to boost audience engagement with rich online experiences. We audit any existing channels and develop comprehensive “content footprints” for your experts. These footprints map out the future state of your expert content – such as new webpages, speakers’ bureaus, improved expert profiles, multi-media and/or social content assets. Search & Discovery: All the planning in the world won’t help you if your content isn’t visible. At this stage, we look to optimize your channels and maximize your reach with new and existing audiences. By publishing your expert content in searchable formats, we can make your organization more approachable and discoverable across your owned channels, search engines, social networks and newsroom platforms. Measurement: To show momentum it’s essential that we measure and track important content metrics to ensure the expertise marketing program is meeting expectations. We focus on key metrics such as expert content contributions, visitor engagement, and direct expert inquiries. And because we consider this from the onset of a project, we’re able to accurately report on your return on investment (ROI).
Kelley professor’s M-Score model remains most viable means of predicting corporate fraud
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Enhanced oversight over the auditing profession and firms’ financial reporting has led to a proliferation of models to predict financial statement fraud. But one of the first forensic models, the M-Score, devised by an Indiana University Kelley School of Business professor in the late 90s, remains accurate and is the most economically viable for investors to use, according to a forthcoming paper in The Accounting Review — the official journal of the American Accounting Association. The article, “The Costs of Fraud Prediction Errors,” co-authored by M. Daniel Beneish, professor of accounting and the Alva L. Prickett Chair at Kelley, compares seven fraud prediction models with a cost-based measure that nets the benefits of correctly anticipating instances of fraud against the costs borne by incorrectly identifying non-fraud firms as fraudulent. Even though newer fraud models early doubled the success rate of M-Score, which Beneish developed, they did so at the cost of a much larger number of false positives. As a result, the other models are not used in practice by auditors because they are too costly to implement as all flagged firms must be carefully investigated. “I have long known from my experience consulting with Arthur Andersen — for whom my model detected Enron before the debacle — and other public accounting firms, that litigation concerns relating to false positives — firms incorrectly flagged as having fraudulent financial statements — created an unwillingness by auditors’ general counsel to use fraud prediction models in practice,” Beneish said. “My efforts back then to improve the M-Score in the context of auditing failed because I could not increase the model’s success rate without increasing the number of false positives. It seems that the new models cannot either,” he added. Interestingly, as early as 2017 the M-Score flagged Kangmei Pharmaceutical, a Chinese publicly traded company that was involved in financial reporting fraud between 2016 and 2018. Like the Enron scandal in the U.S., the Kangmei Pharmaceutical scandal helped trigger new regulation in China that increased regulatory penalties for financial fraud (effective March 2020) and last November became China’s first successful class-action lawsuit involving corporate fraud. Its chairman was sentenced to 12 years in prison. “The main purpose of our paper is to provide evidence on the costs and benefits of using fraud prediction models, and to show whether using these models is economically viable for auditors, investors and regulators,” Beneish said. “This is important because the traditional measures commonly used in recent research to justify new models are misleading about model performance in fraud samples as the proportion of fraud firms in the population is very small, and as they typically assume that the cost of a false positive and false negatives (missed detections) are equal.” For example, assume that among 10,000 publicly traded firms, there are about 60 fraud firms and 9,940 firms without misreporting. The newer models detected 42 frauds (70% of the total frauds), and incorrectly flagged 3,976 firms (40% of the non-frauds). The latter is too large a number for most decision makers to investigate. “Our evidence that a cost-based assessment of models is preferable to traditional model comparison measures (e.g., area under the curve), should become even more important as efforts by future researchers in the areas of data mining and machine learning intensify,” Beneish said. Patrick Vorst of Maastricht University, assistant professor in financial accounting and accounting & information management, co-authored the paper with Beneish.
The 23rd annual Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2021/2022 report measures entrepreneurial activity across 47 high, medium and low-income economies Data is gathered via a survey of at least 2,000 respondents in each country Mark Hart, professor of small business and entrepreneurship at Aston Business School, leads the GEM UK team. The 23rd annual Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2021/2022 report, unveiled at the Dubai Expo, measures entrepreneurial activity across 47 high, medium and low-income economies. Mark Hart, professor of small business and entrepreneurship at Aston Business School, leads the GEM UK team. Data is gathered via a survey of at least 2,000 respondents in each country who answer questions on their entrepreneurial activity, attitudes to enterprise and view of their local entrepreneurial eco-system. The survey found that: 51% believed they had the skills and knowledge to start their own business 50% knew someone who has started a new business 61% of respondents believed there were good opportunities to start a business in their area, but 52% of these people cited fear of failure as a reason for not starting a new business in the next three years. The UK was ranked 40th in ‘entrepreneurial intentions’, 32nd in ‘personally having the skills and knowledge’ and 7th in ‘fear of failure’. Other survey responses in the UK found that, of those respondents who were actively involved in starting or running a new business, 30% believed the COVID-19 pandemic had led to a decrease in household income. But while more than a third (36%) of respondents thought starting a business was more difficult than a year ago, 63% were using technology to sell more products and services and 57% were pursuing new opportunities as a result of the pandemic – which was the joint 6th-highest of the 47 countries. Social responsibility also featured fairly high in entrepreneurs’ minds with 53% starting a business ‘to make a difference’, but was third to building ‘great wealth’ and ‘to earn a living’. Dr Sreevas Sahasranamam, senior lecturer in entrepreneurship and innovation at the Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship, and one of eight authors of the GEM Global Report, said: “It is heartening to see that more than 50% of entrepreneurs in the UK are pursuing new opportunities due to the pandemic and more than 60% are using more digital technologies to sell products and services, indicating flexibility and adaptability. “On Entrepreneurial Framework Conditions, however, the UK is performing poorly compared to other developed economies on Government Entrepreneurial Programs and Entrepreneurial Education in School. “Amongst the 17 high-income countries (GDP per capita greater than $40,000) in our sample, UK has an average score (5.1) for its Entrepreneurial Finance conditions, while its score for Ease of Access to Entrepreneurial Finance (4.4) is the lowest amongst this group. Thus, finance remains a key challenge to entrepreneurial activity in the UK. “Entrepreneurship centres like Strathclyde’s Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship can help in this regard by offering entrepreneurship education and support for students, staff start-ups and growth-oriented ventures, through initiatives like Strathclyde Inspire and our Growth Advantage Programme.” Mark Hart, professor of small business and entrepreneurship at Aston Business School and leader of the GEM UK team said: “Entrepreneurial attitudes and behaviours will be critical for the recovery after the pandemic as they were after the Great Financial Crisis over a decade ago. “The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) project provides policymakers in the UK with unique data to understand the ability of local and regional economies to develop financial independence and create future growth. “The recent UK Government White Paper on Levelling Up was somewhat disappointing in that respect as it ignored this key dimension of economic development across the regions and home nations of the UK”. Globally, the GEM report found that in 15 out of these 47 economies, more than half of those starting or running a new business agreed that the pandemic had led to new business opportunities. In 2020, this had been the case for just nine out of 46 economies. In 2021, more than 50% of entrepreneurs agreed that starting a business had become more difficult in 18 of 47 economies. In 2020, almost twice as many (33 out of 46 economies) had 50% or more of their would-be entrepreneurs agreeing that this was the case. The Dominican Republic had the highest levels of early-stage entrepreneurial activity while Poland had the lowest. The Scotland GEM Report 2020 published in September last year by Strathclyde researchers estimated that 7.3% of the Scottish population – 247,000 adults – were actively engaged in setting up a business or already running an enterprise established in the last three-and-a-half years, including 60,000 young people in Scotland, or 13% of 18-24 year-olds.
Widening participation expert joins Aston University as visiting professor
Liz Thomas is a leading researcher in widening participation and closing the achievement gap She has a very strong international and national reputation for using her research to inform policy and practice Professor Thomas will work within the University’s College of Business and Social Sciences. A leading researcher whose work addresses patterns of under-representation in higher education has joined Aston University as a visiting professor. Liz Thomas is an expert in widening participation and closing the achievement gap. She has joined the University’s College of Business and Social Sciences to work largely with Aston Business School on inclusivity and employability. Professor Thomas has previously worked on the Teaching Excellence Framework Main Panel (Widening Participation Expert), been Chair of Advisory Group, Evaluation of pre-16 outreach work, Office for Fair Access (now Office for Students) as well as an International member of the Vice Chancellor’s Quality Review, University of South Wales, Australia. During the next Research Excellence Framework (REF) period her research will focus on higher education student and graduate experiences in the ‘new new normal’. The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in an emergency pivot by higher education providers worldwide, from predominantly present-in-person teaching, to primarily or exclusively remote and online learning. As the pandemic has progressed, HE providers have adapted to the new normal, providing a range of hybrid learning, engagement and support opportunities. Employers are also seeing the advantages of more flexible and hybrid ways of working, and this suggests that graduates will need demonstrate additional skills and competencies in relation to autonomy and time management, team working, digital skills and effective communication through a wider range of media. Professor Liz Thomas said: “I am very excited to have been appointed visiting professor in the College of Business and Social Sciences at Aston University. “I'm very much looking forward to working with colleagues on equity in higher education and employment. “Belonging will continue to be an important theme within my research, both conceptually and practically, and within higher education and employment, in the post-pandemic world. We need to capitalise on the advantages that have emerged, and ensure inclusion, and equitable outcomes for all.” Professor Helen E Higson, associate dean accreditations at Aston Business School, said: “I am looking forward to welcoming Liz to Aston Business School to share her knowledge on inclusivity and employability. “She will bring further leadership internally in areas which fit very well with Aston University’s values, student demographics and objectives. “She has a very strong international and national reputation for using her research-informing policy. Much current practice and policy in HE in the UK is influenced by her work.”
Podcast: Germany’s caution over Russian aggression ‘disappointing’ NATO
Russia’s threat to Ukraine has highlighted differences between east and west Germans over handling of Russia, and the country’s cautious foreign policy Aston University academic explains why German soldiers shooting at Russian counterparts would be seen as a “tremendous failure” New Chancellor Olaf Scholz faces massive challenges including how to handle Covid-19, “crumbling” infrastructure, and climate change targets. Germany without its stalwart former leader Angela Merkel faces a number of huge challenges – not least the threat of Russia invading Ukraine. While Germany wants to provide leadership within the European Union, its diplomatic stance over Russia is at odds with many other countries within NATO. Those are the views of Dr Ed Turner, a reader in politics at Aston University, who was interviewed in the latest episode of the 'Society matters' podcast series, presented by journalist Steve Dyson. The episode, subtitled 'What Germany's new government means for the UK, Europe and Russia', follows a political shift following the departure of Chancellor Angela Merkel last year after 16 years in charge, after the defeat of her Christian Democratic Party. Dr Turner said the immediate priority for new Social Democrat Chancellor Olaf Scholz was “undoubtedly the crisis in Ukraine and the positioning of large numbers of Russian troops on Ukraine’s border, and the real worry that Russia will invade”. He said Germany wants the issue addressed, “but is doing so in a way that is really very cautious and is disappointing to many of Germany’s allies”. Dr Turner, who is also co-director of the Aston Centre for Europe, said Germany’s “very different approach” was reflective of its history with Russia. He explained: “There is a strong sense that Germany owes a significant debt, has a particular responsibility towards Russia for the losses incurred in World War One and, particularly, in World War Two. “The perception is that German troops once again firing at Russian soldiers would be a tremendous failure. Germany also places a strong emphasis on diplomacy as a way of engaging in foreign relations rather than hard military interventions.” There were also “economic angles”, he added, with Germany needing Russian energy at a time when it was committed to phasing out coal and nuclear power. Dr Turner, whose fascination with Germany began when he cycled through the country as a teenager, said a “carrot and stick” balance was dividing the country, with 68 per cent of west Germans but only 34 per cent of east Germans last year supporting EU sanctions against Russia. This reflected “really big disparities” more than 30 years after German reunification, with 60 per cent of east Germans feeling they are treated as second class citizens. Dr Turner said post-Merkel Germany faced big challenges including handling Covid-19, large parts of German infrastructure “really crumbling” with a big backlog of investment needed, and a pledge to move faster towards net zero emissions. But he added that UK-German relations in the wake of Brexit were not on the list of big things. “Good relations between the UK and Germany will depend on the nature of the UK’s relations with the European Union,” he said. “If the UK is at loggerheads with the European Union, in particular if there was a worsening of the situation in relation to the Northern Ireland protocol, then relations with Germany would get worse.” But Dr Turner said there was “huge affection” for the UK in Germany. “Germans are willing to disentangle the UK from Brexit and to say ‘we want to move on and don’t think badly of you’. I really want to see bridge-building between the two countries over the coming years.” Dr Turner said Germany remained “nervous” of the advance of the far right, especially if numbers of refugees coming to Germany were to grow. He said Angela Merkel would be remembered for Germany’s “humane response” to the 2015 refugee crisis, but others were “much more critical” over her policy. This, he added, led to German society becoming divided and the far right gaining ground. But Dr Turner acknowledged Mrs Merkel as a “remarkable leader who really broke the mould” as the first woman Chancellor and first from the east. In contrast, her successor is seen as a “steady hand on the tiller” as he heads a “traffic light coalition” of Social Democrats, Greens and Liberals. Episode 6 in series 2 of the ‘Society matters’ podcast and all previous episodes can be found HERE.
The Nesta study looked at innovation as applied to industrial policy and focussed on migrant micro-enterprises in Birmingham Experts found while there is some face-to-face business support in Birmingham, the majority of it is provided online and in English The Community Organising for Inclusive Industrial Policy study was conducted by Citizens UK Birmingham and the Centre for Research in Ethnic Minority Entrepreneurship (CREME) at Aston Business School. A new report by Aston University and Citizens UK Birmingham has found the UK Government must do more to include micro-enterprises with business support. The Community Organising for Inclusive Industrial Policy study, which was conducted by Citizens UK Birmingham and the Centre for Research in Ethnic Minority Entrepreneurship (CREME) at Aston Business School for Nesta, concluded micro-enterprises in principle can take advantage of business support that is available in Birmingham, but in practice there are several limitations. Experts found while there is some face-to-face business support in Birmingham, the majority of it is provided online with most of the various government and other websites which provide extensive business support information largely in English, and not directly accessible to those who have inadequate English language skills or lack a good level of digital skills. In Birmingham, the business leaders group successfully bid for a local authority contract to create public health videos in community languages, featuring community members in familiar locations as a way of making the content more relatable to the target audience. Professor Monder Ram, director of Centre for Research in Ethnic Minority Entrepreneurship (CREME) at Aston Business School, said: “It is wonderful to see CREME and Citizen UK’s highly impactful initiative on migrant business support receive this recognition from NESTA as an exemplar of ‘grassroots’ social innovation. “Our collaboration demonstrates the value of communities working together to support businesses and tackle common challenges.” You can read the full report HERE.
Aston University linguist awarded prestigious research fellowship
Dr Emmanuelle Labeau is one of three academics to have been appointed Research Fellows by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) for the Future of Language Research They will carry out a horizon-scanning exercise which will inform the future of AHRC investment in language research The research team will also engage with language stakeholders from across the UK to inform their work. An Aston University linguist has been appointed to a key language leadership role by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). Dr Emmanuelle Labeau, reader in French language and linguistics and director of the Aston Centre for Applied Linguistics (ACAL) at Aston University, has taken up the new post informing the future direction of research funding for languages. Dr Labeau will work to identify existing, new and emerging research themes in language research, as well as relevant policy areas that future language research could address, taking into account the needs and expectations of both academic and non-academic communities, wider stakeholders and government departments. She will work with Professor Nicola McLelland, University of Nottingham and Professor Michelle McLeod, University of Aberdeen, wias part of a research team which brings together a wealth of experience in language research. They will engage with language stakeholders from across the UK to inform their work and help the AHRC decide which areas of language research to support, as well as identifying potential threats, risks, emerging issues and opportunities. In addition, Emmanuelle will be carrying out a survey of the presence of languages in Birmingham. Her project, Birmingham Research for Upholding Multilingualism (BRUM), will focus on languages in education, business, public services and cultures. Dr Labeau said: “I am thrilled to be trusted with such a strategic task for the future of my discipline, while serving the region. I will be bringing to the team my experience of contemporary and relevant language research and teaching that widen participation and serve the needs of the community. I have started contacting stakeholders in Birmingham and I am keen to hear from all of Aston University’s beneficiaries.”
Podcast: Academics behind new course say ‘team leaders are the future’
Inspirational Team Coaching course aims to develop leaders for the 21st century New course needed because occasional team-building activities and ‘away days’ are not enough for the needs of today Inspirational Team Coaching will be split into three modules with launch due this autumn. Top business academics at Aston University are devising a new team coaching course with the aim of ‘upskilling’ the entrepreneurs of tomorrow. The Inspirational Team Coaching course, to be launched this autumn, will lead to a Postgraduate Certificate from the Centre for Innovation in Enterprise Education at Aston Business School. It has been developed by senior lecturer Dr Uwe Napiersky and senior teaching fellow Dr Elinor Vettraino, who discussed their plans in the latest episode in the ‘Aston means business' podcast series, presented by journalist Steve Dyson. Dr Napiersky, who spent more than 20 years in international consultancy, explained that his motto for team coaching was “team excellence doesn’t come by itself”. He said: “Focused team coaching makes the difference between muddling through or performing as one – the team as a whole is the key, not the different egos. We all know the old ‘sum of the parts’ sentence which is more important than ever.” Dr Napiersky said the new course helped their learners in areas such as collective team objectives and processes, and improved team dynamics. He said coaching was a “billion-dollar” industry and team coaching was one of the “newest kids in town. He added: “One of my slogans is ‘innovation is a team effort’. Many leaders still believe in this model of the 20th century, but it’s more about the 21st century, leadership more in a team direction.” His colleague Dr Vettraino, who incorporates team coaching into her consultancy work, said: “Organisations make an assumption that people know how to work together in teams and actually that’s often not the case.” She said that while employers tend to have team building activities, “they don’t address the day-to-day challenges and benefits of working in teams the way a coaching process can.” Dr Vettraino explained that team coaching can lead to increased motivation for staff, enabling innovation and creativity to grow, along with collaboration – which she said was “a key to surviving in industry nowadays”. She added: “Being supported by a team coach adds tremendous benefit to an organisation.” The course, to be delivered by experienced coaches and team leaders, is divided into three modules, with the first on ‘foundational knowledge and essentials’. Dr Napiersky said: “We go into team learning, we go into the area of innovating teams, and we will definitely look into real world team challenges our students will have.” The second module is focused on ‘Tasks and Mindset’. Dr Vettraino said its purpose was to take some of the foundational knowledge and put it into practice, by “looking at developing participants’ innovation, creativity, problem-solving and risk-taking capacity and mindset”. She added: “It’s going to enable the participants to really dig into the playfulness and creativity of their own coaching practice that will enable them to find new and different ways of working with teams.” The third and final module looks at developing ‘Professional Practice’. “It’s really in the third unit that participants start their own swimming and with their own swimming style,” explained Dr Napiersky. The understanding goes from unprepared to clear for themselves, from singular to systemic, from messy to focused or muddling through to structured.” Dr Vettraino chipped in: “There’s a lot of opportunity here to develop really rich projects in relation to their coaching practice. What we want them to do is hone their skills and capacity for inspirational team coaching with real clients they are working with so they can develop a very rich understanding of putting the first year module’s learning into practice.” To prepare students for the real world, Dr Napiersky said: “There’s a lot for internal coaches to do – getting teams clearer, getting them working, and helping them to build up more capacity, and applying the skills they will learn on this course.” Dr Vettraino said: “This skill base will enable people who are currently practising, perhaps as consultant coaches of their own practice, to develop something that adds to their toolkit. They can take it into their own practice and potentially even coaching other organisations.” To find out more about the programme email e.vettraino@aston.ac.uk or u.napiersky@aston.ac.uk. ▪ Episode 5 in series 4 of ‘Aston means business’ podcast can be found HERE.