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.

When it comes to getting something for free, I’ll do just about anything. Last summer, we had a new ice cream store open in East Nashville. The night before they “officially” opened, they were offering free ice cream. I stood in line for close to 2 hours in 90 plus degree weather in June for two scoops of ice cream. It was by far the most delectable ice cream I had ever eaten, but ice cream none the less. You may think that’s a bit extreme but I like to think of it as getting a good deal. Helps me sleep at night, anyways.

We really like you, so we’ve decided to give you something pretty awesome for FREE and you don’t have to stand in line or do anything crazy for it. All you have to do is agree not to make money from it. Deal?

We’ve recently released SCORM Driver, free for non-commercial use. You heard right! You can now convert your courses to SCORM and AICC for free. That means there will be more really conformant SCORM and AICC content packages in the world, which makes us really happy. Put simply, SCORM Driver wraps your content in SCORM (or AICC) and allows it to work in practically any LMS. The only thing that we ask of you in return is that you only use the free version of SCORM Driver for non-commercial purposes. Wondering what we mean by non-commercial? Check this out.

To get started, check out the Quickstart Guide, and download SCORM Driver from the Add Content page in SCORM Cloud. Then you are on your way making some awesome SCORM conformant courses. If you have questions along the way, let us know. We’ll do our best to answer them. Want to use your courses commercially? No problem, we’ll just need to talk about licensing.

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

We’re hiring a Juggler. No, we don’t need circus skills, but we do need somebody who can keep a lot of balls in the air.

Project Tin Can is generating an enormous amount of opportunity and we need somebody to help us keep moving it forward. The job involves bits of product management, project management, sales, marketing and entrepreneurship.

We’re also looking for one or two more developers.

Start here if you’re interested.

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

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

I’m that kid. When you talk about the new kid around the office, the one with a phone practically glued to her hand, constantly texting (I sent over 1,650 last month alone!), the aptly named “digital native”, you are talking about me.

When it comes to mobile technology, when you aren’t talking about kids like me, you’re talking about mobile learning. But the weird thing is, you all mean different things when you talk about mobile.

Mobile means different things to different people. Instead of spouting out my thoughts about what mobile is and what it does, I will stay neutral and point you to the eLearning Atlas instead. We’ve uncovered a lot of really great companies making waves with mobile learning, so take a look and see what they mean when they say mobile. If you are looking for a mobile solution, this is definitely the place to start. We’ve got over 100 platform providers, authoring tools and content creators working with mobile learning in a variety of ways.

Whether you are creating stellar mobile content or new ways to access it, if you aren’t a part of the Atlas, pretty please let me know. I’m running low on text messages for the month, so get in touch via smoke signal or email me at jena.lawing@scorm.com this time around. Thanks!

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

Most people think buzzwords are annoying, trendy and overused words that pop up everywhere. Buzzwords serve one purpose: to drum up excitement around an idea, product, or event. That’s why people use them.

While Chris and I worked through the Atlas, we kept an eye on words that came up to see if we could find any trends in the industry. I’m not one for graphs and charts, that’s more Chris’s speed. What I’m into are trends and patterns. (If you were wondering, I have an affinity for plaid, houndstooth and ikat patterns).

After months of observation, one of the trends we saw was a move in the industry towards social learning.

Everyone has different meanings for what “social learning” is and what it does. For some, it means collaborating with others while creating or viewing content. For others, social learning means simply the integration of social media, like blogs, wikis, Twitter or Facebook into traditional eLearning. For me, social learning is both of these things.

A few months ago, I added Cookie Intern to my resume here at Rustici Software. A match made in heaven, as I love to bake and the Rusticians love to eat.

All of the sudden, every batch of cookies started tasting like soap. I couldn’t figure it out. I changed pans, mixing bowls, spatulas, everything. I took my questions to Facebook and Twitter, begging my friends to provide suggestions, hints, anything that would vanquish this soapy situation. They posted helpful links and speculations, and finally I got my answer. Baking soda.

Old, old baking soda that began its journey with me as a high school senior, watched me matriculate at Alabama, witnessed the glory of our 2009 National Championship (Roll Tide), smiled at my graduation, and travelled with me to my new home in Nashville. Who knew that old baking soda made cookies taste like soap, right?

Anyways, my point is that I could have Googled the answer myself but I used my community, where my friends and family could brainstorm with me and the group came to the final conclusion, together. This is what social learning is all about: making connections to people and what they know.

Chris and I have been fortunate enough, through working with the Atlas, to discover companies who are integrating different forms of social learning into their solutions. Take a look at all of the different companies in the eLearning Atlas that are making the move towards social learning.

So keep your eyes open, eLearning world. We’ve only scratched the surface of what social learning is capable of.

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

I answer a lot of SCORM questions ranging from the basic to the extravagant, and I actually like it.  A huge part of what I do is teaching about SCORM.

Sometimes, though, I get questions that make me laugh.  Today, I feel like I need to share this one because it isn’t the first time I’ve gotten a question like this one.

What is Scorm Compliance?

OK, good question.  I get this one a lot, so I have a sense of where it’s headed.  My answer:

Is this what you’re looking for?  The distinction between compliance and conformance?  Or something more like this, a basic description of SCORM?

The response (slightly rephrased):

Yes both are good.  There is a training specialist job interview question? ”Which of the following best describes your experience with Scorm Compliance?” (Then # years and months choice) So what does experience with Scorm Compliance mean in this context?

Let’s cut to the chase.  The answer is none.  You have no experience if you don’t know what it is.

Funny, yes.  Uncommon?  Not entirely.  People think, or more accurately hope, that their products are SCORM conformant.  Let me put it simply… if you haven’t tried, or worked at it, your product simply is not SCORM conformant, or IMS BLTI compliant, or AICC conformant.  These things take effort.  And so does acquiring SCORM experience as an individual.

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

My Atlas Haiku

How to use Atlas
Enter search criteria,
browse, select, repeat.

Not the world’s greatest haiku, but you get the picture. Sure, you can search and find what you are looking for no problem, but you can do so much MORE. The great thing about the eLearning Atlas is you can tailor it to fit your needs. If you are looking for career development content, chances are we have quite a few to choose from. If you are looking for something a little more obscure, like cat noises, well, that’s precisely why we integrated Google Site Search. Here are some of our favorite things to do with the eLearning Atlas.

Search Criteria

We think variety is the spice of life, (well that and attacking the net in ping pong), so we’ve given you some options when it comes to how you search. Whether users type in products, vendor names or keywords, their search will pull up the most relevant entries for them. Keywords can be any number of things, ranging from specific to extremely vague. For example, say a user is looking for K-12 content, their search would look something like this:

If you’re more like Chris and decide “cat noises” is what you’re into, type it in and it will look like this…

(Someone please ask Chris why he is always typing this in the Search bar.) It amazes me every time that we even have search results for the most obscure keywords! This is where Google Site Search becomes a great tool. If we don’t have a tool that offers exactly what you are looking for, we bring in Google results that mention whatever you are seeking.

Users can also change how the results are displayed, depending on the types of entries they are looking for, making each search a unique experience. Each search can be sorted by Relevancy, Product Name or Description as well as Vendor Name or Description or Powered by Scorm.com (that’s us!) Pretty cool, huh? We think so too.

Filter Options

Who has time to search through the thousands of entries we have available on the Atlas? For the more discriminating Atlas user, have we got news for you. You can filter the results for exactly what you are looking for. Just select the options that are most important to you, anything from Product Type, Installation or even by tags, we have over 100 to choose from. You really can have it your way, so give it a whirl!

This ain’t your Grandma’s map

We have been saying since before we started the Atlas, that we were going to ‘map’ the eLearning industry and we’ve done just that. Literally, we made a map. You can now see that eLearning isn’t just concentrated in one region, it is spread across the entire globe. We have companies representing every corner of the world, minus Antarctica of course. So take a look, see who is in your neck of the woods. Just click Browse the Map on the Atlas homepage.

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

Once upon a time, well, that’s not exactly how this starts. This story actually started about 7 months ago when Chris and I first started working here, at Rustici Software. We were hired to embark on a journey together to find all of the eLearning companies and highlight them in a neutral environment, so you all could find one another.

This was the birth of the eLearning Atlas, a comprehensive map of the eLearning industry and all the products available on the market. The genius of our pairing is that we complement each other. Chris is level headed, pensive, deliberate, and I’m just…not. We found thousands of possible companies, supporting a wide variety of standards. So off we went and these are our stories…

Jena’s Journey:

 

Photo from Wikipedia

The Atlas is my Jabberwocky and I am Alice. During my journey through the Atlas, I learned more about myself, about the companies listed, and the eLearning industry as a whole. At the beginning, I was terrified of the companies put in front of me. There were over 3,000 companies to reach out to, with the list growing everyday. Chris and I split up the list and I went to tackling these companies, one by one.

The Atlas was still a creature looming in the distance, one day I would have to face it, but for the time being, I was only learning. Learning about how the industry is moving, changing, evolving. Companies moving into the unknown to push the boundaries of what learning is and how it was accomplished. The list began to shrink, albeit very slowly, and I became more comfortable speaking about complex concepts, standards and the companies themselves. In a sense, I grew stronger, more capable.

All of the learning, conversations, and time, have been leading up to this. The moment I slay my Jabberwocky. And I am proud to say that finally, the Atlas is ready. Well, at least Phase 1. The Atlas is an ever-evolving project, we will add companies as we find them. So if you are out there and not on the Atlas, please let us know.

Chris’s Take:

To translate, we’ve mapped all the companies on our radar. We’ve discovered some interesting trends and noted the use of the various standards. Completion of the eLearning Atlas is a moving target, there’s plenty of work left to do.  If we’ve missed a product, let us know.  If you see something we could have done better, tell us. If you are a talent management tool, you’re up next.

I’m currently looking into the patterns we’ve collected, exploring what standards are used throughout the industry, comparing adoption rates and analyzing trends among products. The Atlas is designed to be a useful way to find products that compliment one another, or fit a specific need. We’re building a community that is focused on helping eLearning companies work together, sharing courses and systems. We’re keeping it free, because free is good. I hope you’ll get involved and join the conversation. We’ve built a commenting tool into each product in the eLearning Atlas. So go ahead, comment away, tell our community about your experience using the products we’ve found.
Have some ideas on how we can help the eLearning industry play nicely with one another? Interested in the trends the Atlas shows? Have questions about eLearning products or standards? Want to join Jena and fight imaginary creatures? Drop us a line, we’ll be happy to help.

Check out our Press Release for more information.

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

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