Creating Collaborative Communities

USAID needed to reach medical professionals throughout Francophone Africa as part of an educational outreach program to discuss the political ramifications of socialized healthcare. Due to budget limitations and the difficulties of traveling in Africa, USAID was looking for a secure online method to communicate their message and to open up discussions with different stakeholders.

USAID tasked iCohere to build a web conference site that could not only serve as a portal for information, presentations and discussions, but also deliver the conference in French.

Due to limited Internet access in certain parts of Africa, USAID needed an intuitive, user-friendly platform that participants could understand and begin using immediately. Meeting those needs, iCohere worked hand-in-hand with USAID facilitators to customize the conference platform so participants could maximize their experience.

Hundreds of medical professionals from a half dozen African nations logged on and participated in the web conference.

Working closely with iCohere web conference experts, USAID created multiple presentations and various discussion areas for doctors, nurses, and administrators to discuss the healthcare system in Francophone Africa.

USAID hailed the conference as a great success and they are planning to use iCohere web conferences in the future as a communication and educational tool.

NIH is the primary government agency working toward important medical discoveries that improve human health.

In 2007, NIH began a partnership with NANAINA (National Alaska Native American Indian Nurses Association). NIH nurses were to train and learn from NANAINA nurses regarding health care issues prevalent in reservations.

NIH required not only a tight and secure communication network to connect the dispersed NANINA nurses with NIH staff, but also an online platform that could facilitate eLearning with online discussions, webinar capability, professional networking, shared calendars and data gathering tools.

Working hand-in-hand with NIH nurses, iCohere configured an online community that focused on enhancing eLearning collaboration and inter-reservation communication. NIH nurses introduced the platform as a virtual home for the NANAINA partnership at a face-to-face event.

After that event, NIH published quality content relating to NANAINA and opened up multiple discussion areas for feedback and comment.

Through the iCohere platform, the partnership between NIH and NANAINA has become stronger and more action-oriented.

With a secure online platform, the program has a virtual home where participants can explore, learn, and network. Additionally, nurses now have a communication clearing house and platform for eLearning. NIH has been using the community to give presentations, hold discussions, and share stories.

The platform, hailed by NIH as a great step forward, has allowed NIH to meet its mission goals with the partnership and within budget.

NIH is the primary government agency working toward important medical discoveries that improve human health. In what is considered one of the most prestigious and competitive fellowships in the American medical community, each year 250 of the nation’s brightest medical students are chosen as NIH fellows.

In order to facilitate a richer experience for the fellows, NIH needed an online community to support the culminating program of the fellowship—a three-day conference at NIH’s Bethesda, Maryland headquarters.

In addition to serving as a virtual welcome area, NIH wanted the online community to archive conference presentations, offer areas for announcements and continued discussion, and ultimately serve as a post-conference professional networking community for the fellows.

To promote the networking and educational potential for the fellowship’s conference, NIH enlisted iCohere to build an online community to meet the program’s networking goals and to serve as an educational tool for fellows to reference before and after the face-to-face event. Fellows were invited to visit the online community several weeks in advance to introduce themselves and get to know other fellows.

During the conference itself, the site served as a virtual home with announcements, bulletin boards, calendars, and other information. Face-to-face presentations were made available on the site, along with discussion areas for continued dialogue and networking tools to help maintain relationships developed during the event.

The iCohere platform helped NIH fellows develop a working knowledge of each other prior to the conference, which, in turn, led to a more productive experience—fellows began collaboration and networking immediately.

The NIH staff was pleased with the streamlined communication and ease of use of the iCohere platform, and fellows responded positively to having a virtual home base for their conference experience. Users could access presentations, discussions and networking areas.

Working with tens of thousands of teachers across America, AACTE’s mission is to promote quality learning experiences for of all PK-12 students.

To meet their members professional development expectations, AACTE wanted to build an annual online conference platform that could virtually replicate the benefits of attending a face-to-face event. They required keynote presentations, breakout sessions, and different conference halls, all within a user-friendly and intuitive site. Additionally, due to the number of quality presenters they regularly secure, they wanted to generate revenue by charging for the events.

In 2004, AACTE enlisted iCohere to build a platform that would provide their members with tools to learn from expert presentations and breakout sessions and to share stories from their experiences in the field of education.

After setting up an eCommerce entry registration portal, iCohere worked closely with AACTE staff to customize an online conference environment that fully met their requirements. Different areas on the site were set up for discussions, webinars and presentations, while iCohere staff provided full technical support for the duration of the events.

Since 2004, hundreds of AACTE members have participated in their annual iCohere online conferences. In addition to generating significant revenues, AACTE’s online conferences have created stronger relationships with their members by providing quality professional development services.

AACTE members now have a common touch-point to the association and rely on the annual conference to support their work and make available new ideas and innovations.

Using an iCohere conference as an educational resource to bolster client loyalty and trust by linking clients directly to experts.

The Phonak Group is one of the world’s largest designers, developers, producers and distributors of hearing aids and sophisticated wireless technology.

To advance its mission of becoming the educational leader in the field of audiology, Phonak sought to expand its successful but limited one-hour webinar series into a multi-day online learning conference that could provide Phonak customers with a broader understanding of hearing systems, wireless technology and developments in the field of audiology.

In addition, they wanted to create a user-friendly but dynamic learning environment where participants could actively engage with presenters and where a robust collaborative community could open doors to new ideas and new trends in hearing systems.

Phonak enlisted iCohere to build and manage the multi-day online conference. iCohere’s web platform provided a ready-made, highly configurable conference site fully equipped with the tools that Phonak needed to meet its goals. The platform could be navigated in English, French and Spanish, allowing for wider audience participation.

For the conference presentations, Phonak recruited the world’s top audiology experts, just as it would for a face-to-face event. The Phonak team, in coordination with the participating experts, set up an engaging agenda for presentations and discussions. Throughout the multi-day conference, participants were free to visit any number of discussions and interact with other participants from around the world. For those who could not virtually attend, or for those who wanted to recap a particular presentation, participants were able to listen to archived presentations after the event.

Knowing that participants were busy professionals and would not have a great deal of time for training, iCohere ensured that the site was intuitive to understand and easy to navigate. In addition, a 24-hour help desk was set up to assist any participant who encountered problems.

Phonak met its participation goal with over 400 participants signing on for the multi-day online conference and many of those providing positive feedback through formalized evaluations, direct emails and phone calls.

For many participants, this was a first experience in the world of multi-day online conferencing, and they were pleased with the ease of use of iCohere’s platform and the ability to receive help when needed.

By offering a platform for audiology experts to communicate their ideas and learn from each other, Phonak has tightened its relationship with that community. More importantly, Phonak has created a collaborative bridge between those experts and its customer base, helping to establish itself as a leader in audiology education and online communities.

Phonak plans to continue its partnership with iCohere and has scheduled additional online conferences. In this way Phonak is continuing its goal of advancing its mission to become not only the technological leader but also the educational leader in the field of hearing systems and audiology.

Hosted annually by the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University, the Business as Agent of World Benefit Summit brings corporate and thought leaders together to combine theory with practice in seeking to respond to social issues like poverty, the environment, and health, while also making a profit.

As wide-scale participation was a critical piece of the BAWB summit, BAWB enlisted iCohere to create a multi-day web conference to support the face-to-face event and link those attending in person with a global audience online.

Over 600 people from more than 30 countries participated online, bringing with them a global perspective on the issues. Major corporate CEOs, academics and business thought leaders led multiple real-time webinars and on-demand presentations.

The iCohere platform supported the collaborative experience that helped participants envision possibilities for future corporate citizenship.

As the association for all other associations, ASAE & The Center for Association Leadership is committed to educating their members on association best practices and accrediting qualified members as CAEs (Certified Association Executives).

Center U is ASAE & The Center’s university offering dozens of classes each year for CAE training and continuing education for association professionals.

To accommodate their widely dispersed membership, ASAE & The Center sought to make many of their classes available online in a secure and user-friendly virtual environment. Planning to provide the same quality content as in face-to-face classes, ASAE & The Center wanted the eLearning platform to come with a full suite of features to encourage a vibrant learning community.

• live and prerecorded webinars
• document and syllabi management tools
• multiple discussion areas
• instant messaging
• networking areas and member profiles

iCohere staff fully trained ASAE & The Center education experts and then worked closely with them to configure the platform to meet all design and branding requirements.

In addition, iCohere and ASAE & The Center worked closely to ensure that the online learning environment matched a face-to-face learning experience as closely as possible by setting up networking and continued discussion areas. Once the basic class template was created, it was cloned for used in dozens of classes across many different topic areas.

Since Center U went virtual, thousands of association professionals have gained CAE certification and taken continuing education classes though the iCohere platform.

By opening up learning opportunities for association professionals around the world, ASAE & The Center has increased the services that it provides to its members. The virtual capability of Center U allows thousands of ASAE & The Center members to gain access to a wide range of educational resources and to be in closer and more frequent contact with ASAE & The Center.

Working to advocate sound educational policies and best practices to promote the success of each learner, ASCD represents over 175,000 educators in over 135 countries.

As an extension of their mission, ASCD sought to bring educators in contact with emerging ideas in education, present keynote addresses on best practices and connect educators from around the world—especially those working in highly specialized fields.

iCohere was tasked to create one web conference that could not only meet those goals, but also open up networking opportunities to ASCD members.

Exceeding their expectations, over 600 people from around the world participated in the web conference and collaborated with an exceptional list of educational experts.

Diane Jackson, ASCD’s Professional Development Programy Manager said, “We posted 24 conference sessions, so that was about 600 hours getting the content ready. What we didn’t have to do at all was worry about the technological aspect of it. If we did have an issue, iCohere was always there and just fixed it. That was wonderful.”

ASCD plans to build off their success by hosting future multi-day online conferences with iCohere.