A few months ago, we asked our support staff (which is made up of project managers, and developers, and others) to focus on one word: delight. Ultimately, we feel like making customers happy is the most important thing we can do as a company. So we reminded the crew that delight was important, and encouraged them to find a way to watch that.

Through our help desk software, we’re able to ask our customers how we’re doing as we close out tickets. This was an interruption that we didn’t want to impose on our customers, but it’s pretty light, and it’s pretty important, so we went ahead with it. The data from this feedback shows up on our big board in our gathering room constantly. In a competitive office (OK, I’m competitive), scoreboards help us know how we’re doing.

Of late, I’ve heard a few of the folks who work on support walking around muttering about “getting one more happy face”. Why the muttering?

This is our scoreboard. Every time someone answers the question, “How did we do?” it adds a new face to the top of the queue, and pushes one off the bottom. And now you, too, can see why the obsession is cranked up right now. The team is on the verge of pushing their approval rating from 98% to 99%. 

Speaking generally, SCORM professionals are probably as beloved as say, tax professionals. People don’t usually get happy about SCORM. But our support crew (which includes most of the people who work here in one way or another) is killing it. 

So, thanks to Joe, and Jena, and Troy, and the Thomases, and all of the other folks who work with tickets for being obsessed enough to push from 98% to 99%, even though 98% would be good enough. Thanks for being delightful.

Oh, and thanks to the 100 people who have rated our support since my last ticket was rated. The blame for keeping us at 97% for a while was crushing me.

Brought to you by SCORM.com, the e-learning standards experts.

Brought to you by SCORM.com, the e-learning standards experts.

These days, with one click, you can buy a song from iTunes and automatically sync it to your iPod. Remember how long it used to take to buy a CD, burn the songs to your computer and transfer them to your MP3 player? Just think about how much time you saved from this one little improvement- more time to listen to your music, which is what you wanted to do in the first place.

What if you could do the same thing with your content?

It’s not always a simple process to import a SCORM package into an LMS. It may take 3 steps, or in some cases a dozen or more clicks to publish that course into your LMS. Multiply that by a few courses, and this time and effort adds up quickly.

Imagine a tool that lets you export a course directly from your authoring tool into your LMS. One click puts that new course directly where it needs to go.

Here is where PENS comes in.

PENS (Package Exchange Notification System) simplifies the process of content publishing by automating the transfer of content between systems. While SCORM standards make content and systems work together, PENS takes it one step further. Think of it as rocket fuel for delivering content.

As standards geeks, we get excited when specs emerge that further improve the efficiency of how content and systems play together. We see great potential with PENS and are eager to see its benefits realized by the larger eLearning community.

So, how can you get started?

We recently deployed PENS support in two of our products- SCORM Cloud and SCORM Engine. Now you can publish content directly into your Cloud account or SCORM Engine LMS. Check out how it works. If you’re using an Authoring Tool, see if your provider supports PENS.

Have you already adopted PENS? If so, tell us about your experience in the comments section below.

Brought to you by SCORM.com, the e-learning standards experts.

You pay for Rustici Software products, and we want to make sure that you’re getting the most out of them.

Some of our customers prefer to tuck their use of our products away, and we’re fine with that. But others want to scream from the mountaintop that they’re using the best SCORM conformance software available. If you’re a screamer, then we want you to let the world know that you’re using our stuff. We’ve waded through all the legalese and created a way for you to do just that.
 

“Powered by” images are now available for you to put to work. Just visit our “powered by” page and grab the HTML or files for print that you need.

We’ve provided 3 sizes for each image, but we understand that there will be exceptions. If you need a different size or format, just email support@scorm.com with your needs and we’ll get a custom image made for you — pronto.

Brought to you by SCORM.com, the e-learning standards experts.

There are so many channels now.  Whether we’re talking radio, TV, or the web in general, there are so many ways that information is pouring over us.

Like many companies, we’re doing our best to reach everyone wherever they are… Of late, we’ve been finding that people are missing some important things we have to say.  So, I wanted to lay out the different places we’re talking so you can be sure to visit if you care.

Our Blog (RSS)

Well, you’re here, so you must know about it already.  For the most part, we tell our big stories here.  Big new projects and products, major software releases, occasional client announcements, and industry brouhahas.

support.scorm.com

Many of you probably have no idea that our support forum even exists.  We’re constantly answering questions from customers and others in these forums.  As a customer, you’re invited to create tickets whenever you have a question you’d really like help with.

More than anything, though, I’d really like to see our customers subscribing to the forum for the product they license.  SCORM Engine customers can follow the RSS feed or use the built in email subscription.  No matter how you do it, this is a great way to know about our newest releases.  (This applies to SCORM Driver customers too, of course.)

Project Tin Can

Project Tin Can might be the most important bit of work we’re doing these days.  Along with a huge community of real SCORM users, we’re helping to figure out what comes next for SCORM and learning experiences in general.  You can see our contributions daily on the User Voice site, and we’d love to see your contributions there as well.  You can also follow @projecttincan on twitter.

Twitter

OK, half the time you’ll get inane stuff, but that’s the price you’ll have to pay to get the relevant stuff.  Tim’s tweeting regularly, Mike too, and Joe even has something to say on occasion.

If you’re a big SCORM Cloud user, we also use twitter to let the world know when we’re having issues or changes.  @scormcloud is pretty quiet, but it could be useful in an emergency.  (SCORM Engine and SCORM Driver even have accounts, but we rarely use them.)

Old School

That’s the big picture.  If you need something you’re always welcome to call or email too.  My phone number is 615.550.9522 (yes, that’s me, directly) and my email address is tim.martin@scorm.com.  I actually want to hear from you, so bring it on.

Brought to you by SCORM.com, the e-learning standards experts.

It’s that time again…we just announced the availability of our latest SCORM Engine version, v2010.1. And, yes, I know you’re thinking: “BUT, it’s 2011 now dummy”. Of course, you’re right, but only because this blog post was delayed a few days while we migrated our site to a new server…I promise, we really did put it out in 2010 .

But, really, who cares about the name? There’s some really good stuff in this release. You can find the full release notes from either our SCORM Engine History page or on our support site (you do know you can subscribe to product notifications there, right?).

I’m most excited about the two new standards we now support: LETSI RTWS and PENS.

LETSI RTWS is a web services communication framework that alleviates some of the common technical barriers SCORM imposes on content deployments. RTWS is a huge step towards enabling remote content hosting, games, simulations, virtual worlds, offline content, secure communications and mobile delivery.

PENS is a standard that allows for the automatic publishing and import of content. With a PENS enabled authoring tool, you can publish new or updated content to your LMS with a single click.

Brought to you by SCORM.com, the e-learning standards experts.