(Rachel Knutson) Medill faculty members are at the forefront of understanding the shifts occurring in the media industry and the impact of these changes on media leadership practices. Through executive education programs at the Media Management Center, Medill's faculty is enabling media executives to lead their organizations for growth in a new media era. 

The Media Management Center offers both open-enrollment programs such as its flagship Media Executive Leadership Program in July, as well as custom programs for individual companies and trade organizations. Through its partnership with American Business Media, the Center hosted a five-day, customized executive education seminar, "B-to-B Advanced Leadership Program," January 8-12, 2012, at the Allen Center on Northwestern University's Evanston Campus. The seminar provided executives from leading B2B media organizations with an immersion in media audience understanding, cross-platform content asset management and strategic innovation and leadership.

"The biggest challenge that today's media executive has is learning how to balance today with tomorrow, keeping one foot grounded in current business practices while building the business model to succeed in the future," said Judy Ungar Franks, lecturer in Medill's IMC program and senior director of executive education at the Media Management Center.

Rachel Davis Mersey, assistant professor at Medill and senior director of research at the Media Management Center, is a leader in media audience understanding who frequently shares her knowledge at the Center's executive education programs. In her opinion, the key issue facing media organizations today is understanding audience engagement. 

"Media companies today are in the business of counting eye-balls but not really in the business of understanding why those eye-balls are engaged with their content," Mersey said. "At executive education, I help executives understand how to get the audience engaged and how to use metrics to sell advertising against that engagement. We give them both the theory and the practical steps."

At the conference, Tom Collinger, executive director of the Medill IMC Spiegel Digital and Database Research Initiative and senior director of the Medill Distance Learning Initiative, expanded on Mersey's key message of engagement. During his session, he sought to help media executives understand the benefits of audience loyalty. He also demonstrated the skills necessary to measure and to monetize audience loyalty.

Whenever Collinger holds a session for the Media Management Center, he tries to help executives understand that success will not necessarily come from obtaining a particular skill or depth in one area, but rather from possessing a breadth of knowledge.

"It's not the skill of writing a headline that is Tweet-able, although that's useful, its more understanding the way in which the audience is consuming information and thinking about how what you do fits into their lives best," Collinger said.

Understanding audiences was not the only shift for executives suggested by Medill faculty. During Franks's presentation, she encouraged executives to optimistically embrace the challenges presented by the new media ecosystem. "One of the key themes that I wanted to open the conference with was the theme of optimism," Franks said. "The main message that I wanted to get across was that the media system, yes it is changing and yes it may even be in a state of chaos, but chaos and apocalypse are two very different things."

Abe Peck, professor emeritus-in-service at Medill and senior director of strategic alliances at the Media Management Center, said that the new perspectives introduced to executives mirror the academic thought present in both Medill's journalism and integrated marketing communications programs. "A key aspect of teaching at Medill is the benefit of linking academic and professional knowledge," Peck said. "B-to-B, with its growing emphasis on cross-media storytelling, interactive data and precise audiences, dovetails with some of our school's strategic directions."

Twenty delegation members from the Shanghai Municipal Administration of Culture, Radio, Film and TV visited the Media Management Center at Medill Northwestern University Thursday, Dec. 8, for a seminar series on changes in the media landscape. The administration is responsible for municipal regulation of the television and radio industry along with the strategic development and implementation of radio, television, and film culture and the arts.

The delegation was sponsored by the 21st Century Institute, whose mission serves to promote the global exchange of knowledge, culture and human resources for a better future. The Institute focuses on promoting exchange between the United States and Asia-Pacific region.

"Medill has consistently been one of the top-ranked schools in the USA and the leader of education in the media industry, focusing on both the media and integrated marketing communications," said Annie Yuan, program manager for 21st Century Institute. "After meeting with Abe Peck, senior director of strategic alliances, and Judy Franks, senior director of executive education, we were convinced that the Media Management Center offered the best opportunity for the delegation to receive training on media industry future trends and new technologies."

The Media Management Center draws from the Medill and Kellogg School of Management faculty to deliver both open enrollment executive education programming and custom programs for specific industry groups and organizations. The seminar series for the Shanghai Municipal Administration of Culture, Radio, Film and TV was tailored to address specific issues raised by the delegation:

• How to better identify and explain the current media system in ways that are more holistic and productive? What role can television play in a new media ecosystem?
• How can the media use multiple platforms to create more holistic content experiences that add to, as opposed to distract from traditional media distribution channels?

The seminar was delivered by Peck, who is a professor emeritus in-service at Medill, and Franks, who is a Medill lecturer.

"The group was avid in wanting to understand and implement global trends and best practices," Peck said. "They asked keen questions about sharing content across platforms, regulation and market-share shifts. They were open and fun to work with."

Franks added that moving forward it will become increasingly important that the academic community, government sectors and the media community adopt a common media language that is both optimistic and productive.

"The evolving media ecosystem represents incredible potential for the creation, dissemination, and engagement of news, entertainment, and marketing content," Franks said. "I am looking forward to continuing our relationship with the 21st Century Institute. We look forward to hosting future programming for both business and government officials from China."

John Lavine, Dean of Medill Northwestern University, announced the expansion of the Media Management Center's leadership team with the appointments of Judy Ungar Franks as Senior Director of Executive Education, Rachel Davis Mersey, Ph.D., as Senior Director of Research and Abe Peck, who will continue as Senior Director of Strategic Alliances.

"The Media Management Center was founded in 1989 with the mission to provide research, scholarship and training to help deal with the toughest challenges facing the media around the globe," Lavine said. "Since its inception, the Center has done more than $10 million in specialized media research and has trained thousands of global media professionals. The appointments of Judy Ungar Franks, Rachel Davis Mersey and Abe Peck helps position the Center to remain at the forefront of the most pressing issues facing the media today and in the future."

As senior director of executive education, Franks will be responsible for the development and execution of the Center's premier Media Executive Leadership Program. This annual seminar runs for two weeks in mid-July on the Northwestern University Evanston campus. It gives current and future media leaders an intensive immersion into the latest strategy and innovation related to media audiences, content, and strategy. The program draws from proprietary research, as well as the leading faculty from Medill and the Kellogg School of Management. Franks will develop new programming to meet the broader challenges in the areas of technology, strategic content management and audience valuation. She will also oversee customized programming for individual companies and member organizations that desire tailored and proprietary instruction from the Center.

Franks is also a lecturer in Medill's IMC program, where she earned "Top 100 Faculty" honors for the past two academic years. She joined Northwestern following a long professional career as an award-winning media strategist at Chicago's top advertising and media services agencies. As a media agency executive, she led executive education initiatives around the globe for marketers that include: Procter & Gamble (Advanced Media Training U.S. and Canada), Hallmark (U.S. Media Training) and the Wrigley Global Marketing College (Americas, Europe and Asia/Pacific). Franks is also the author of "Media: From Chaos to Clarity." She is a frequent keynote speaker and the author of numerous thought pieces on positive and productive changes in the media for both the marketing and media trade press.

As senior director of research at the Media Management Center, Assistant Professor Rachel Davis Mersey will be responsible for the vision, strategy and oversight of the Center's current and future research. The Center did pioneering research on audience engagement that led to collective works and the book, "Medill on Media Engagement." Currently, Mersey is exploring studying differences in news use between mothers and fathers, and how that impacts delivery of news to fathers, as well as identity and engagement for community media across multiple platforms.

As senior director of strategic alliances, Abe Peck will continue his responsibilities steering the strategic alliance between Northwestern University and American Business Media (ABM) to provide research, scholarship and executive education tailored specifically for the business-to-business media sector. Additionally, Peck is responsible for guiding alliances between the Center and media interests in Asia, where Peck has deep expertise across all media platforms. Peck is a professor emeritus-in-service at Medill, where he heads the school's Business-to-Business Journalism programs and is co-author of "Medill on Media Engagement."