As we continue to move through this season of challenges and uncertainty with COVID-19, it’s easy to become focused on the events and activities we can no longer participate in. With health and safety a top priority, many professionals today no longer see each other every day in the office, travel for business or attend conferences and events. In our personal lives, we’ve been forced to limit social gatherings, find new ways to conduct celebrations virtually and staycation at home this summer. 

Though it’s disappointing not being able to gather with our colleagues, clients, partners and loved ones in person, our team has utilized this time to pivot and focus on developing new opportunities for serving others in this challenging environment. 

While remaining dedicated to serving our clients from our homes in Texas, we have also been brainstorming ways to make a bigger impact and be a resource for those who want to establish mission-driven thought leadership. We knew that now was the moment for us to use our time strategically in order to elevate our offerings and realize a dream we have had for years, driven by a vision of creating a broader impact.

I’m excited to officially introduce you to our new initiative: Zilker Academy – a digital learning platform featuring strategies and knowledge about people-driven marketing that our team has curated over the course of over a decade serving healthcare professionals, authors, thought leaders, business executives, speakers and brands. 

We have dreamed about this concept for the past five years, and we are so excited to share the first course with you. Before we dive into the specifics, I want to give a shout out to our amazing Zilker Academy team who poured in additional time and effort over the last few months to launch our first course. 

First a shout out to our Founder Rusty Shelton, who sat through hours of filming with me during quarantine. (Please forgive our appearance throughout these videos — we’ve both had a lack of haircuts and sleep for a few months!). Chief Strategy Officer Wes Fang has taken the lead on this initiative for our entire leadership and operations teams, bringing to life the vision that he, Rusty, Shelby, Nichole, Patti and myself had for this platform. Brand Strategist Sara Pence, Digital Strategist Anthony Rivera, Brand Director Nichole Williamson and Creative Lead Melanie Cloth created the majority of the design, content and logistics throughout the course. Our PR team, Shelby Janner and Fabiana Meléndez, collaborated on the course content and shared their favorite PR tools and trade secrets. StoryChef Media aligned with our vision and executed the production on this course in record time. Last but not least, Nick Alter with Alter Endeavors tirelessly worked with our team to build a fully customized platform to fit every need we could dream up. 

The first Zilker Academy course is The Personal Brand Bootcamp for Healthcare Professionals. This community has been heavily on our mind the last several months, and we are thankful for the sacrifice, courage and bravery these frontline workers have shown as they lead the fight against this terrible pandemic. 

But even before COVID-19, we understood how digital shifts have led to many challenges for healthcare professionals. Our goal with this first course is to provide a roadmap for physicians and other healthcare professionals to make a broader impact with their careers through mission-driven thought leadership. This course focuses on teaching how to develop personal-brand assets, leverage social media to build relationships, pitch yourself to the media for interview opportunities and build an audience that you fully OWN. If you are a healthcare professional or know a healthcare professional and are interested in learning more, visit our course page here: https://zilkeracademy.com/.

We would also love to see you at our Personal Branding for Healthcare Professionals webinar tomorrow. Register here to hear from myself, along with the Zilker Media team and Dr. Lynelle Schneeberg, PSYD as we discuss the long-term impact of building mission-driven thought leadership.

Our vision is to develop Zilker Academy courses and offerings into a resource for individuals in a variety of industries, no matter where they are in their personal branding journey. We are grateful for the support we have received, and we are excited to continue growing this platform to make a more significant impact on the clients we serve, as well as to cultivate communities for others. 

Stay tuned as we announce new offerings within Zilker Academy in the coming months!

– Paige Velasquez