[Learning Series] Applying your language research skills outside of academia

Co-hosted by ARiEAL and Words in the World. Part of ARiEAL’s Learning Series.

Contemplating a career outside of academia after graduation?

Your training in language research is highly valued and can be applied to areas such as business communication and creative commercialization.

The ARiEAL Research Centre and Words in the World (WOW) are honoured to welcome Hans Wijgh, Founder and CEO of Creative Commercialization, to lead an insightful discussion on how your skills can be applied outside of academia. Using their diverse knowledge and backgrounds, Co-Founders and Co-CEOs Karen Anderson and Hans Wijgh have helped launch 22 startup businesses in many different sectors and raised $215 million+ AUD in venture funding, mostly for university and public sector researchers who are excited about making their ideas available globally.

Karen is a content and a digital marketing specialist. She loves entrepreneurship and using her curiosity, empathy, and obsessive attention to detail to take ideas from the concept stage and make them a reality. Her expertise covers diverse disciplines such as marketing, creativity, technology, product development, web development and video production as well as training and education. She thrives on collaborating, community and helping others prosper.

Hans is a serial entrepreneur and startup business expert. He has the unique ability to integrate knowledge and methods from highly diverse disciplines to develop a holistic view. He draws on a BSc in science, BA Honours in political science, a Master’s degree in innovation, as well as decades of consulting experience in commercializing intellectual property. His core approach to life is collaboration because nothing matters if you can’t share it with others.

Over the years they have mentored and coached well over 150 entrepreneurs and touched the hearts and minds of thousands of students using our online education and training platform – BusinessNavigate – and recently, they launched Koast Media, a publishing company to diversify their product range using other forms of media.

Part of their workflow is choosing words that breathe life into ideas. Words that excite, delight, and inspire a call to action. They translate complex concepts, opportunities and features into language that describes the benefits that resonate with different users. This includes university commercialization offices, grant funding agencies, venture capital and other investors, joint venture, and collaboration partners, and most important of all end-customers.

They write for vastly different formats ranging from feasibility study reports, business plans, investment information memoranda, joint venture proposals, stock market listings, right through to marketing and sales materials, sales copywriting, blogs, video and podcasting scripts, courses, and books.

By way of example, Creative Commercialisation wrote the Information Memorandum for one of their collaborative projects to establish a new $1 billion AUD digital animation film studio in Australia. This inspired 100+ angel investors and ultra-high-net-worth individuals to become part of this audacious dream and they responded by investing $5 million AUD in cash and $45 million AUD in Promissory Notes. This is what’s possible when using the right words for the right reason.

At this ARiEAL Research Centre and Words in the World (WOW) joint event, Hans Wijgh will explore these aspects, and take a deep dive into how combining the emotional characteristics of words (i.e. Valence, Arousal, and Dominance – VAD) with their commercial characteristics can create a winning combination. The presentation will also show some useful research tools, an AI writing assistant tool, how to use words to send organic traffic to your online content, as well as discussing the importance of trademarks in your writing. Join us to learn directly from Hans Wijgh. This 50-minute event will include a presentation from Hans Wijgh and a Q&A session.

Registration is required for this FREE event. Please RSVP at the ARiEAL Zoom Page to receive your personalized confirmation email.