Penn State Corporate Learning has solved one of the age-old issues that plague the corporate workplace:

How to get everyone’s honest option during a meeting in a timely, anonymous manner.

Employees can be concerned about expressing their true opinions in a traditional meeting environment if they contradict management and end up following the status quo.

Many new and innovative ideas can be lost due to traditional corporate meeting structures. Penn State Corporate Learning took on this challenge and invented the Team Decision Center (TDC). 

Penn State Corporate Learning’s TDC software allows members of a meeting to collaborate and share their opinions anonymously. Employees can be honest without the fear of going against the grain.

This leads to faster, more productive meetings. It gives corporate leaders confidence that the results of a meeting are honest and a fair representation of the collective group. These results are rarely achieved in traditional meetings and even the results from a seemingly successful meeting cannot be trusted to be without bias.

TDC can also be applied to brainstorming. Employees can express new ideas without the fear of failure. Some of the best ideas are stumbled upon when you take chances and express ideas that might initially be unpopular.

The TDC software allows these brainstorming sessions to take place without fear of expressing an unpopular idea or being scared to honestly critique someone else’s idea. Not only is this innovative software available at the Penn State Conference Center Hotel, wireless mobile labs have been developed to bring the technology anywhere. Meetings can be hosted at any facility or done from any distance in a web-based session.

Not only has this software been successful in its own right, the marketing plan implemented by Penn State Corporate Learning is an exemplary strategy for marketing the product and growing the client base. The TDC marketing campaign began with a revamped website that included video testimonials from the CEO’s of organizations that have utilized TDC and a free demonstration request form to aid in lead generation. Website page views increased 95 percent in one year and page views for the Peen State Corporate Learning home site went up 37 percent during the period.

They produced new print materials that included a well-designed brochure, as well as stand-up displays for permanent use on campus and to take to conferences and trade shows. Lastly, they achieved excellent results through online banner ads, press releases, and a LinkedIn social media campaign. Penn State Corporate Learning’s marking campaign resulted in a 300 percent increase in inquiries about TDC and an increase of 200 percent in paid sessions from the previous year. Internal customers have grown from zero to seven in one year, helping reduce external marketing costs.

Penn State Corporate Learning has demonstrated both innovative new programming and an effective marking campaign to promote that product. Too often, new products fail due to poor marketing efforts or effective marking is wasted on an inferior product.

With TDC, Penn State Corporate Learning has shown how a superior product and excellent marketing can work harmoniously and, because of that, LERN is pleased to present them with the Outstand Programming Award!

Read about the other 2015 LERN International Award winners.