As head of Money & Life, I’ve had the privilege of working with some absolutely amazing instructors and–since it’s my job–I get to have them teach the stuff I’m passionate about learning myself. (Keeps things interested.) As we wrap up a dynamite 2014 for this channel, I just wanted to take this opportunity to highlight some of our biggest hits.
If you’re looking for some terrifically informative (and entertaining) classes to take your creative work, business, and career in new directions in 2015, start with these CreativeLive classes:
Master Your People Skills and The Power of Body Language. Vanessa Van Edwards won the hearts and minds of CreativeLive students in 2014, hands down. In these 2 classes she covers an incredible spectrum of evergreen skills that are relevant (and hugely useful) to pretty much every human being. Broad and specific, comprehensive and targeted, each of these classes makes huge and deceptively simple promises to learners and, judging by the numbers, they both over-delivered. When people buy a lot of something you give away for free, you can bet they’re getting some major benefits.
Instagram Marketing for Small Businesses and Sell More with Instagram. Sue B. Zimmerman is an undeniable and irrepressible star, and CreativeLive students loved both her and her topic. Instagram is a surprisingly useful tool for marketing and selling stuff and Sue shows you each and every way you can make the most of it in your own creative business. Not to be missed if you sell stuff online or off.
Become Fluent in Any Language. Gabriel Wyner, opera singer, self-taught language-learning expert, and now best-selling author, made waves on CreativeLive with his systematic and powerful system for quickly absorbing new languages (and, I’d bet, pretty much any subject involving memorization). Considering how many high-tech options with everything from voice analysis to real-time feedback there are on the market, I think it speaks volumes that people responded to this class the way they did, when at heart it rests on nothing more complicated than flash cards. It really works.
Power Your Podcast with Storytelling. This American Life producer Alex Blumberg joined us to teach audio storytelling as it is practiced by the radio pros at NPR. Alex’s class coincided with an incredible resurgence in the podcasting format, culminated in the national sensation that was NPR’s Serial. America is having a podcasting moment and this is by far the best fundamental class on how to tell stories like the ones that have currently seized hold of the zeitgeist.
Facebook Marketing for Small Businesses. Nathan Latka lit up the screen as a guest on Sue B. Zimmerman’s first class with us, and returned to teach, essentially,the class you need to take on how to use Facebook to actually market yourself and your work. If you have a Facebook page with some posts on it and a few hundred likes and you’re wondering what you’re doing wrong, this is the class for you.
