Hippo Leadership Campus Update

Community Newsletter – Insider News

Fall 2021

Hippo Leadership Campus received its final NASBA approval in April 2021 and we have been working with our team of 25 Subject Matter Experts since the start of the summer to create some of the most powerful and transformational content in the market today. As the saying goes, “It always takes longer than you expect, even when you expect it to!”.  The summer took hold of much of the development process and as we all know, COVID took its toll as well. We are back on track and expect market delivery in the fourth quarter of the year.

Now that we are back in the development cycle, we are pleased to announce that there are 36 courses currently in development and we are attracting new SME’s every week. The vetting process continues apace!  We continue to source additional SME’s and content partners and are confident in our platform’s ability to create certifiable content quickly. 

At the present time we have offerings in development in all seven of the NASBA areas for certification and will be releasing them in groups of 12 – 15 courses as completed.  Our anticipated first launch is for late October 2021!

In addition to the creation of content we are currently in negotiations with three platform partners to expand our reach and to offer our technology to the leading firms and content providers in the accounting industry. This includes content providers with a need for an exceptional learning community development platform, larger firms with the capacity to provide in-house training in a variety of specialty areas, and state associations with an interest in expanding their role in the area of state specific education.

One final note concerning our “whole firm” approach to course development. In each subject area we are developing three tiers of instruction around the key concepts offered by our SME’s.  We offer Partners the 10,000-foot overview of the content to incorporate this effort into the firm’s mission, vision and values, Directors and Managers will address the same content as it applies to their level of responsibility – the 5,000-foot level, and the Staff members will learn the concepts in a way to integrate their performance using the same language and skills to improve overall firm performance in any given area of study.  This whole firm approach will assure that any HLC Leadership course offers the power of consistent language and skill development across all levels of an organization.

Updates will be offered as we near the launch date for our first tranche of courses. Wishing you all a healthy return to your fieldwork.

December 2019

Welcome to the inaugural edition of the Hippo Leadership Campus – Insider News. Hippo Leadership Campus, LLC (HLC) was formed in 2019 to provide a platform for leaders in the CPA education community to create on-line content for today’s practice professionals. The name is a play on the role that the Hippocampus plays in transferring knowledge around the brain. And, it all centers around Leadership. You are receiving this invitation as one of the most influential thought leaders in the industry.

The concept is straightforward. To provide an approved content development platform for leaders in the industry where they can create and sell their most productive content to the industry at large. This will open your market to all 655,000 CPA’s practicing in the United States. We view ourselves as content aggregators and distributors. In much the same way that a professional bookstore operates, the content will be curated. Charlie Flood will serve as the curator of the platform. He has created a proprietary tool for the formatting of your information to assure that it is compliant with NASBA standards for credit.

We have invited our first round of 20 content creators to participate in the launch effort in the first quarter of 2020. Invitations were offered to pre-screened experts based on the Hippo team’s personal and professional relationships. We are open to nominations from the industry and from all of our Subject Matter Experts. We anticipate that all of our content providers will want to expand their footprint in this arena and we have created a way for you to do just that. More on that in the next edition of Insider News.

One of the most interesting challenges we faced at the outset was the selection of a technology partner for the delivery of our programming. After an interesting search and some serious budget analysis we came to rest on Peer-Tree as our Learning Community platform. This unique platform offers more than just content presentations. You will be able to “build a learning community” around your content. John Dunavan is our technology partner at Peer-Tree and as a bonus, he serves as the Director of Learning and Development at LBMC in Nashville. The Peer-Tree platform was selected based on its unique ability to build online learning communities while training accountants in specific knowledge, skills, and abilities. It was a perfect match for our information and presentation styles.

With the platform under contract, we then set about the content creation process for our demonstration lesson and for the “How to build a course” course. These were done in order to comply with the NASBA process to become an approved online provider. I am pleased to announce that we are in the final throes of that process as we close out 2019. To say the least it has been a steep learning curve. We anticipate to have our application approval or comments back from NASBA by the end of the year.

We have selected SME’s that specialize in one or more areas of the NASBA curriculum areas. We will open our course development platform immediately following our certification as an on-line content provider to the accounting industry by NASBA. Charlie will work with the providers to make the content creation and upload process as painless as possible.

Once we have the approval to develop we will offer approximately 50 contracts to leaders to start the construction process. We will be posting contract information and a full Q&A section on our invitation-only web-site. Our goal is to post approximately 25 learning segments by the end of April 2020. We can post as many as will become available once the course has been fully vetted. This includes the field testing of the course and especially the testing sections. We will guide you through that entire process as part of our course development component.

Like the ducks on the pond, it may appear that we are gliding along on the surface, but I can assure you that beneath the waterline we are swimming as fast as we can. If any of you have questions, please don’t hesitate to call Charlie Flood, the “Dean” of the platform to have all of your Hippo sized questions answered.

Best Wishes for an amazing 2020!

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