In a time of economic pressure and technological shifts, many companies are finding that they need to redefine their products. This often includes new features, new buyers, new users, new messaging, repackaging, new alliances, new distribution methods, and increasing uncertainty. Added to these stresses are the new requirements and dynamics coming from federal and state departments of education. How are companies meeting these challenges?

Teachers want to receive student assessment results quickly in order to adjust instruction. Yet with the number of products and services that gather assessment data, it does not always quickly or easily flow to the teacher. How can providers of these resources work together, without giving up their business model or autonomy, to give teachers what they need, NOW?

In the roundtable, we will discuss:

• What assessment data is typically available to teachers
• How teachers get their data
• What techniques/approaches would benefit everyone (at the table)
• What techniques/approaches have stalled and why
• Role of the Common Core State Standards assessments

Merger and acquisition activity has accelerated for educational technology companies in the past year and has been mixed for other education for-profit companies (with little activity in the post-secondary space for much of the past year). Venture capital firms have meanwhile continued to put money to work in the education sector. Attend this session to learn which segments are most attractive today and what to expect in terms of valuations and market trends. This panel will be led by investment banker Chad Johnson of Cherry Tree & Associates.

In today’s highly competitive education market, it is more important than ever to have information that is trustworthy, timely, and actionable. Sales and marketing budgets are tight, so dollars must be spent wisely, but upon what types of information do you segment your markets or determine if your messaging will be effective? Companies are looking to expand their product offerings, but does the product on the drawing table meet your customers’ needs? The market is maturing and school districts are becoming more knowledgeable, looking for proof of the efficacy of products and services. M&A activity is picking up, but if you are looking to expand into adjacent markets, how do you learn about them?

What kinds of information do you need, where do you get it, and what can you do with it? This roundtable will explore how companies are using data to inform tactical and strategic decision making in core corporate functions—sales and marketing, business and product development, and strategic planning. Practical examples of how companies use data will be discussed, and attendees will share their experiences about how they use information to inform their decision making.

Today’s educational technology landscape is complex. For schools it often consists of many disconnected and disparate subscriptions and licenses for assessment, virtual learning environments, digital content, applications, student information, mobile devices, and cloud computing.

Yet teachers do not want to juggle multiple systems, sites, and logins. Schools and school districts do not want their technology investments to go to waste as a result. And education providers want to grow sales and ensure their products and services are being used effectively. In this session, Robert Iskander, CEO of EduTone (www.EduTone.com), discusses ideas for educational technology providers to collaborate in order to add mutual value and ensure success in the marketplace. Specific discussion points include:

• Delivery platforms and sales channels
• Single sign-on
• On-demand educational content provision (Global Grid for Learning)
• Mobile learning
• Community and social media

This session will provide an insightful look at what the industry averages are for compensation. It will include discussion on base salaries, on-target earnings, and commission structures based on differentiated criteria—average sale price of product and/or service, quota, and your target market (site, district, or state). One of the most frustrating hiring experiences is getting to the finish line with a very strong candidate and then losing that candidate to a competitor.

FieldPros will share with you some best practices to get that candidate across the finish line and what can be done to keep them there for the long run. We will encourage participants to share some of their own experiences. If you are building a new sales team or expanding an existing one, this will be a valuable roundtable to attend.

Imagine it. A new round of prospects just indicated they are interested in your product or service but are not ready to buy. How do you keep them engaged until that time comes? As a skilled marketer, you are already thinking:

• What is their buying horizon?
• What else can you do to shorten the conversion cycle?
• How do you cull “sales-ready” leads from those that need more nurturing and, most importantly, rank them in order of the best payoff?

Today we are sharing Best Practices for nurturing campaigns to streamline your marketing-sales machine and boost your bottom line. It is all about ROI, a healthy database, and accountability. Join us to find out how to make every touch point count.

Cloud computing is one of the most talked about solutions on the education scene. School IT managers and educators know firsthand that technology changes—and the potential they create for young learners—have been constant and swift. Each new offering brings opportunities for pedagogy and challenges for deployment. This roundtable discussion will examine the issues related to implementing cloud computing solutions and what you should consider when deciding if it is right for your school.

When the three top search engines, Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft Bing, came together to launch Schema.org, they opened the door for the education industry to have a direct impact on how learning resources are found on the Internet. The Association of Educational Publishers and Creative Commons are co-leading the initiative to create a metadata framework for educational products and content in the hopes it will be adopted by Schema.org, making it easier for students and teachers to search the web for the resources they need. They want anyone with a stake in this important work to have a voice in the discussion.

The roundtable will cover:

• Project scope and goals
• LRMI leadership
• A review of milestones and a project timeline
• Ways educational content developers can get involved
• How to sign up to receive regular updates on LRMI

Do not miss this chance to join in the conversation around this groundbreaking initiative!

Discovering, obtaining, and using digital content aligned to standards are a daily challenge for teachers nationwide and one of the key impediments to the effective integration of technology in education. Learning.com has recently developed and nationally released a new, innovative Digital Curriculum Marketplace based on the award-winning Sky Digital Learning Environment. The Marketplace helps teachers use a single login to find, purchase, organize, and assign digital resources aligned to state and national standards. In this session, Learning.com will provide an overview and demonstration of its Marketplace technology that is currently being implemented statewide in Florida in partnership with the Florida Department of Education and in Colorado in partnership with eNETColorado. We will explore how providers are leveraging these marketplaces to:

• Make it easier for current customers to find AND use provider resources
• Improve utilization and potential renewal rates
• Gain visibility and preference at the teacher and school/district buyer level
• Explore new modes of selling

Come and find out more how Learning.com’s Provider Program gives you protection of your proprietary resources, publisher control of pricing/ packaging/presentation, and multiple opportunities for promotional activities to new and existing markets.

With the sea of changes impacting companies across the education sector, most executive teams are proactively identifying significant changes as part of their long-term Strategic Planning Processes.Common strategic considerations include heightened M&A activity, geographic and cross-vertical expansion, changes in channel strategy, new product and platform launches, new partnership activities, and the deployment of new and often radically different business models. These can have a profound impact on overall skill and human capital requirements and capacity.

The proper planning of talent and capacity can be absolutely critical for success. While many companies are fluent in financial planning (forecasting their revenue and determining investment and capital needs), few include or know how to thoroughly address long-term Talent Capacity Planning as part of their processes.

This session will specifically address:

• How some of the current changes impacting the education sector may translate to requirements for new strategies and business models, how this may translate to needs for new skill sets and capacity or capacity allocation, and why education companies should link the two issues in their strategic planning process
• One way that a Talent Assessment and Roadmap can be incorporated as a vital component to the Strategic Planning Process
• Illustrative case studies on how companies’ Talent Planning has impacted their overall success

Willa Perlman and Zac Fisher will lead the session, providing perspective and guidance that blends their consulting and recruitment experience from working, real-time, with education companies that are currently addressing these issues to ensure that they remain vital and competitive in a dramatically changing market.

Businesses are collecting data from more sources than ever before—including online, mobile, and even cloud applications. But how can that data be integrated, managed, and shared as information that is easy to access, timely, accurate, and relevant?

In this roundtable, we will examine a methodology for integrating organizational strategy, operations support, and marketing and sales efforts in a holistic way to inform your business decisions. Come with your information management challenges; let us test our expert to provide you with strategies and specific steps for success.

About your guide: Pierce Baugh has been immersed in all facets of information technology in a career that spans more than 25 years, specifically in the education market for the past 15. During this time Pierce has been the lead architect and designer of numerous applications. Working with MMS Education, he has developed a Total Information Management methodology to help clients build and maintain a pipeline of business intelligence they use to make decisions.

Attend this roundtable to discuss the pros and cons of seeking acquisition/merger partners as funding plateaus.

The Party. Challenges districts face in the 21st century K-20 education marketplace

Party Theme. Positioning. The key to driving revenue for your business is the crystal clear positioning of your product or service. Learn how to position, or reposition your product or service both inside and outside your company.

Party Favors. You will leave with an understanding of:

• Key internal and external questions you must be able to answer about your product or service
• “Must have” elements of successful pitches to publications and potential purchasers
• Core strategies for educating the K-20 marketplace about how your product or service fills a need

Join our party for morning mimosas!

Students nowadays from kindergarten to post-secondary have more training in computers and social media than some professionals in these fields. While they are already using the technology, they might not be in accessible places or having conversations that educators can engage with. In this roundtable, let's talk through the ways educators are connecting with their students effectively, how students can be your brand ambassadors, and how to get social media-exposed generations on the same page to work toward an overall goal. This discussion may also touch on the ideas of building a community that is right for you and your students, as well as any issues that educators have overcome in using social media.

This roundtable discussion will provide an update of the post-stimulus federal and state money trends and how companies should adjust their programs to meet the latest challenges and opportunities.

RM Education, Smart Technologies, and the IMS Global Learning Consortium (IMS) recently announced the formation of an implementation work group to create a set of conformance tests based on the Common File Format (CFF) for interchange among interactive whiteboards (IWBs). The CFF has initial potential to ensure that there is the ability to exchange content created by the software provided by one IWB supplier to be rendered on an IWB provided by another supplier. In the longer term, the CFF may provide an interoperable format for third-party digital content providers, such as education publishers, for publishing content to IWBs. Join this session for an update on the status of the work group and a discussion of how CFF may soon impact your development efforts.

Learn how any education publisher can use SAFARI Montage® to deliver a fully digitized curriculum to K-12, complete with rich media, formative assessment, tied to a school district’s LDAP, SIS, LMS, and classroom technologies (such as interactive whiteboards, document and web cameras).

Learn how to boost your chances of securing e-Rate funding and find out what four common mistakes to avoid.

Customers are demanding proof of effectiveness before buying educational products and services. Education publishers and technology providers have heard the message: Conduct efficacy research or risk lost sales. But opinions vary widely regarding the value of quantitative versus qualitative data. In this session, we explore the strengths and weaknesses of quantitative (e.g., experimental trials, quasi-experimental designs) and qualitative data (e.g., interviews and observations) for evaluating efficacy. Join Scott Elliot and Gerry Bogatz of MarketingWorks in exploring the challenges and opportunities presented by mixed quantitative and qualitative research approaches.

Are you satisfied with your digital media investments? Most education marketers, when asked this question, respond with a whirlwind of buzzwords involving likes, views, fans, followers, and traffic. But beneath the hype and excitement, what do these numbers mean for measuring success in marcom and sales?

In this roundtable, we will explore:

• The top 5 myths about social media in K-12
• Volume versus Engagement in measurement methods
• How to use social media to predict future trends in education
• Third-party tools for measuring (and defining) success in social media

Participants will leave with a clear understanding of how to use analytics to build a snowball of interaction and measured engagement, while measuring specific sales impact along the way.

Education Market Research (EMR) has estimated that in the U.S. the market for digital interactive whiteboard content was US$592 million for the 2010-2011 school year. Until now, education publishers and content developers have not had a cost-effective way to reach this lucrative but dispersed market.

To help you reach millions of educators using interactive whiteboards, SMART will be launching an e-commerce store on the SMART Exchange website. SMART is the leading interactive whiteboard provider in North America, with a 62% product category share in the U.S. The SMART Exchange website is an established online community for educators that averages over 800,000 visits and over 1 million file downloads per month.

Find out how to reach this growing community of educators by cost-effectively promoting your software and content on the SMART Exchange store. Be among the first to list your products and establish your brand in the minds of customers, positioning your company for long-term revenue growth.

Join us for this roundtable session and discover how you can establish a solid revenue stream in the market for interactive whiteboard content.

Texthelp Systems’ senior executives will lead a discussion of current web-based solutions that assist students who struggle to read in English. As more and more schools look to mobile learning devices, such as SmartPhones and Tablet computers for their students, it is important that publishers provide a consistent user experience across platforms. Examples of effective web apps that support students with language-based learning differences will be provided.

Everyone is scrambling to figure out how they can do things differently to get greater results with their resources. One thing is clear: Optimizing your strategies into multi-channel marketing tactics is one way to crack the code.

Join this conversation to discuss:

• How are companies measuring return on social media marketing investments?
• How do you generate leads from social media marketing programs?
• How can you utilize tools to ensure program delivery to the right “audience” for your brand?
• How do you efficiently combine marketing and PR to give your brand a value perception among teachers?
• How do you transform a traditional marketing campaign into something sustainable and viral?

Join us at this roundtable to hear how other companies are addressing these questions for 2012.

During ISTE 2011, C. Blohm and the Winter Group conducted a series of panel discussions with K-12 educational technology leaders about their professional media habits, engagement in social media, and use of search, as well as their suggestions for product launches and useful insights for their vendor partners. In this session, we will “unpack” their comments, reactions, responses, and what it all means for education marketers who want to cut through the clutter, cut costs, and build demand and revenue. Each roundtable participant will receive an executive summary from the ISTE 2011 sessions, and we will all have the opportunity to compare and share experiences with multi-channel, integrated advertising, direct, PR, and social marketing programs. And, yes, since this is a joint event, we have room for 24 participants. Join us!

The interest in, and demand for digital content and mobile applications in the education market has never been greater.

In this session, experienced eLearning professionals from Young Digital Planet lead a discussion about the various development approaches and technologies that publishers can utilize to create and deliver digital educational content and applications for a wide range of mobile devices, including the iPad®, iPhone®, and Android® as well as the Mac® and PCs.

The session explores how a web-based development approach can help publishers navigate the myriad of devices and system requirements for mobile and interactive content while still controlling their level of investment during an emerging market.