List of Courses

Course Offering

STRAT 201: Research & Strategy

  1. LEVERAGING NEXT-LEVEL RESEARCH
    To be “The Nation’s Leading Agency for Brands That Work & Play Outdoors”, you need to know your clients’ audiences, and how to turn them into fans. With real client examples and step-by-step instructions, you’ll leave this session with the knowledge to leverage our research tools and turn them into actionable insights.
    Instructor: Tony Sattler
     
  2. HACK YOUR BRAIN INTO 4D THINKING
    Strategic thinking isn’t just planning—it’s perception. In this quick, high-impact session, you’ll learn how to expand your mental field of view from one-dimensional answers to four-dimensional insight. Discover how to challenge assumptions, anticipate outcomes, and craft sharper ideas in less time.
    Instructor: Casey Mills

TEAM 250: Culture & Collaboration

  1. ATTITUDE OVER EVERYTHING: FUELING CREATIVITY, COLLABORATION, AND CULTURE 
    Success in marketing and branding isn’t just about strategy; it’s about attitude. In this high-energy, interactive keynote, author & speaker Aaron Davis shares how Swanson Russell’s core values, Be a Team. Be Real. Be Thankful. Be Honest. Be Hungry, come to life through his AOE Formula: Aware + Assess + Advice + Attack = Adjusted! Aaron will challenge and inspire you to take ownership of your attitude, communicate with authenticity, and show up every day with gratitude and grit. Walk away with practical tools to strengthen collaboration, elevate creativity, and protect the positive culture that makes Swanson Russell one of the best in the business.
    Instructor: Aaron Davis
     
  2. THE PITCH 
    Veterans of countless new business pitches dissect the anatomy of a winning pitch. What really goes into winning the room? What do they really want to see? What does it take, and Dos and Don’ts.
    Instructor(s): Katie Sands, Kylie Legree and Jason Schmaderer
     
  3. The Inclusive Decision Lab: Practical Tools To Harness The Full Wisdom Of The Team 
    Decision-making is the most important function of a workteam. Yet too often, teams default to poor habits: dominating voices go unchallenged, good ideas remain unspoken, meetings end unresolved, and outcomes fail to reflect the group’s best thinking. This interactive lab introduces the Inclusive Decision Framework (DECIDER): a step-by-step process that transforms how teams define, discuss, and deliver decisions. Rooted in psychological safety and designed for practical application, the framework ensures clarity, fairness, and speed while building team trust and alignment. When teams learn to decide inclusively, they don’t just make better choices, they elevate their team intelligence, harnessing the collective wisdom that drives stronger results.
    This session empowers participants with:
    • A structured decision-making approach to reduce confusion and enhance inclusion.
    • Hands-on practice with methods like the Decision Scoping Canvas, Inclusive Ground Rules,
    • Impact/Effort Mapping, and Fist to Five voting.
    • Tactics to balance diverse input with decisive action for faster, smarter, better overall results.

CREA 302: Storytelling & Craft

  1. SWAN 190: Show, Don’t Tell: Illuminating the Scene with the Unseen 
    Writing, whether copywriting, brief writing, providing direction, or sharing ideas through Slack, isn’t just about communicating ideas, it’s also about sharing emotion and connecting with your audience on a primal level. In this short session, you’ll learn how to level up your writing, moving from a communicative approach to an emotionally impactful style of composition that utilizes rhythm, word choice, and callbacks to ensure your audience remains riveted.
    Instructor: Paul Garth 
     
  2. THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A GOOD SHOOT…AND A GREAT ONE 
    Chris VanKat’s 10 keys, tips and tricks to producing high-quality shoots that elevate imagery, and tell a better story. 
    Instructor: Chris Vankat

EDIT 401: Refine & Define

  1. SWAN 150: Choice Cuts: Ways to Sharpen Your Writing to Connect With Any Audience 
    Everyone’s been to meetings that should have been an email, but the email that goes on too long, contains too much information, and isn’t clear might be even worse. In this session, you’ll learn how to edit to make your point stand out to a variety of audiences - without sacrificing style or personality.
    Instructor: Paul Garth
     
  2. WEBSITE ANATOMY
    How does development help ideas come to life, and what makes it a great storytelling tool? Team Dev dissects what makes a website work…the necessary layers in layman’s terms and how we can impact the front end by understanding the backend, and what’s in between.
    Instructor: Quiller Caudill

INNO 401: Innovation & Technology

  1. REAXIS: THE REAL DEAL
    By now you’ve heard of reaxisTALK, but have you seen it in action? In a live demo, you’ll participate in a brainstorming session with personas and an AI expert agent, giving you an inside look at how we will soon be using our proprietary AI tools to be integrative enhancements to our teams, not replacements.
    Instructor: Brent Schott

COMM 220: Presentation & Performance

  1. SWAN 101: PRESENT LIKE A PRO
    Great presentations aren’t about performance. They’re about connections. In this session, learn how mindset, integrity, and authenticity can transform the way you share ideas. Explore how to ground yourself in what you truly believe, present your message with curiosity and confidence, and help your audience understand, not just hear, you. From managing nerves to staying true to your story, you’ll walk away ready to present with honesty, clarity, and purpose.
    Instructor: Wendy Van
     
  2. IMPROV FOR PRESENTERS: THINKING ON YOUR FEET 
    In this 30-minute improv workshop led by The Backline's Comedy Theatre's Founder, Dylan Rohde, have all the fun thinking on your feet as we run through a series of quick games, warm-ups, and exercises, designed to help you work better with others, handle tough questions yourself, and overall be a better presenter. You'll even learn how to keep doing some of these activities on your own or with a group so you can continue to sharpen your skills.
    Instructor: Dylan Rohde