On June 20, we organised an Advatera* community meeting in Hasselt at Clavis Publishing. With presentations from RTBF and the online platform of Clavis, it became a nice day with a lot of exchange of knowledge and experiences.
Children's book publisher Clavis Publishing is located in a beautiful monastery building in Hasselt, Belgium. We were in the spacious attic, where two four-legged friends came to visit us from time to time. Cosiness at its best!
Digital transformation is slow
Philippe Deltenre is in charge of Digital Platforms strategy and development at RTBF. His presentation began with a very interesting lecture about the true story behind digital marketing. He plucked a series of anecdotes and experiences from his long career as a marketing strategist. The participants were on the edge of their seats and asked many questions that Philippe answered enthusiastically.
Philippe humorously recounted his adventures as a digital marketing strategist at RTBF. His passion and energy sometimes clash with the rather unwieldy organisation that RTBF is. Philippe reminded us that we should never give up trying to transform an organization.
Digital transformation is a combination of patience, love and dedication. And learning from mistakes. "Don't give up on crucial matters!" is his motto.
Making a virtue of necessity: digital books
Tanja Appeltants works on the digital transformation at children's book publisher Clavis Publishing. When all schools were closed due to the COVID pandemic, there was a huge demand for digital books. Clavis quickly decided to develop their own digital platform for their books: Klaslezen (Classroom Reading).
Klaslezen is Clavis Publishing's online platform that aims to support digital reading at school and at home. With this streaming service, teachers and students can read more than two thousand children's and youth books from the Clavis fund digitally at any time and on any device.
Classroom Reading offers a combination of digital books, audiobooks and animated books. The platform looks neat and the voice acting and animations are very professionally done. Extra attention has also been paid to accessibility for dyslexia, low vision, etc.
AI still not good enough
Tanja explained that people at Clavis are already experimenting a bit with artificial intelligence (AI), but it is not good enough yet. Also the AI voices are not yet at the level that it can be used professionally.
Philippe and the other attendees also indicated that they are experimenting quite intensively with AI, but it is certainly not 1-to-1 applicable or commercially interesting enough. People are very curious about best practices in AI, though. We will look for those for a future community meeting.
Are you ready for digital transformation?
To conclude, all participants were given an assessment "Are you ready for Digital transformation?" This questionnaire provides some statements you can score on.
It was good to see what you need to think about when you are working on or starting a digital transformation.
An assessment like this is great for conducting with colleagues in a workshop. It helps to bring out the pain points and really focus on the essence of digital transformation.
You can also use the results of this assessment as a baseline for the transformation. Take the assessment periodically and determine together what the development is and where additional attention needs to be paid.
Unique peek at other colleagues' kitchens
The local community meetings always provide a unique look into the kitchen of colleagues. You literally see where and how they work and how they deal with the daily challenges of the profession.
Of course, all meetings are confidential and without commercial agencies, consultants and suppliers. All attendees are professionals who come together to share practical experiences in a safe environment.
Each meeting is at a different organization. This gives you a good idea of what is going on. You can join a meeting for free to see if it has value for you or your organization.
September 6: A look behind the scenes at Government Portal.
The next meeting is on September 6 at the Government Publication and Communication Service (DPC) in The Hague. There we will get a look behind the scenes of the Government Portal, the government-wide intranet for all civil servants of the central government.
Join the European community
Advatera is a European community of professionals in communication, marketing and digital transformation. The community is active in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.
You can join and participate in any online and physical meeting across Europe. There are weekly meetings somewhere in Europe. In the Netherlands and Belgium we organize 6 to 8 meetings.
* TIMAF is a partner of Advatera. Erik facilitates all meetings in the Netherlands and Belgium and he is also a speaker at the annual Advatera event in Vienna: DLF 2024
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