We love it when Brandon Hall announces their Group Excellence Awards winners. Not only do we get to see how innovative our industry has become, but in a few cases, our software plays a role in the projects that have earned the coveted Gold Medal. We even had the honor of winning one ourselves a few years ago for SCORM Cloud. This year, we were excited to see long time SCORM Cloud customer, CA, take home a whopping 5 medals including a Gold Medal for "Best in Learning Technology Implementations" for a solution they built using SCORM Cloud. CA faced a challenge of delivering training for their Global Partners and wanted to explore other delivery platform options for their external partners aside from their primary LMS. SCORM Cloud fit the bill. With the public invite option, CA adds links to their training hosted in Cloud directly on the partner site, making it easy for folks to login and get right to the training in one step. Using tags, CA can easily run reports through the Reportage feature to quickly see training results by each partner. By simplifying access to the training, CA saw a significant increase in training consumption and ultimately sales. Congrats to CA — we are happy to play a supporting role in this great honor! The post SCORM Cloud + CA = GOLD appeared first on SCORM - .

We’re a family here at Rustici Software. We look out for each other, and we tease each other, just like brothers and sisters do. We even call Mike "Dad" and Tim "Mom" — but it wasn’t until our latest hire that we really were a "family affair." Ryan Donnelly joined us about a week ago. Does the name Donnelly ring a bell? Ryan is Joe’s younger brother! How cool is that!? …and we couldn’t be happier to have him. Ryan will be teaming up with Joe on the support side of our business. He’ll be working directly with customers to help them troubleshoot issues and help them find which of our products work best for them. If you’re curious about what else Ryan is in to, check out his bio. We’re excited to have Ryan here at Rustici Software, and we can’t wait for him to start giving up brotherly secrets about Joe. Welcome to our family, Ryan! The post It’s all in the family appeared first on SCORM - .

There’s something that we like to do here at Rustici Software — make life easier by solving problems with software. This time around, it’s solving some Tin Can (xAPI) problems in SCORM Engine and SCORM Cloud. SCORM Engine and SCORM Cloud have been updated to v. 2013.2. I won’t list all of the updates in this post, but I’ll point out a few of the big ones. Statement Forwarding. One of the advantages of Tin Can is the sharing of data between multiple LRSs, but it requires some coding knowledge and some time to make that happen. We added a new feature to SCORM Engine that makes it easy to forward Tin Can statements on to any other LRSs, and we’re currently in the process of rolling this out on SCORM Cloud New and improved Console. For those Engine customers that have used the Console feature, you’ll be happy to discover that we’ve greatly improved the functionality by adding pagination for package browsing and a new Bootstrap-based UI, among other goodies. Tin Can / SCORM Parity Reports. If you want to use Tin Can activities that live outside of the LMS/SCORM Engine environment, reporting on those activities had a bit more complexity than most would like to deal with. Tin Can / SCORM parity reporting reduces this complexity. There’s another thing that we like to do here at Rustici Software, and that’s talk! If you want to upgrade to SCORM Engine 2013.2, please get in touch. Chris and Ryan are ready and waiting to talk to you. They’ll even help you with some holiday gift buying advice, should you need any last minute tips. The post A few of our favorite things… appeared first on SCORM - .

Whew! Finally recovering from the holiday festivities and the small talk that seems to come along with it. Invariably when meeting new people, the stock question, "Where do you work?" comes up. We joke around here that this can be a loaded question. Some of us provide in-depth explanations of SCORM and Tin Can and that we create the software that handles these challenging, yet valuable standards. And others (me included) usually just keep it simple — "a software company in Cool Springs". Either way, it’s not as easy to explain when talking to folks unfamiliar with the world of e-learning. So, when we heard that one of our clients, Atomic Learning, recently launched an initiative with Metro Nashville Public Schools to assess the technical skills of over 6,000 middle school students using our SCORM Engine software, we got really excited. There’s a good chance that our kids, neighbors, family and friends might have actually interacted with our software. While millions of users around the world (many that live in Nashville) end up training via SCORM Engine or SCORM Cloud through one of our LMS partners, for some reason, this one hits home a bit more.     The Learning Technology Department for Metro Nashville Public Schools uses Atomic Learning to gauge the digital literacy of students with their Tech Skills Assessment. Another assessment is used specifically for teachers that focuses on the application of technology and 21st Century Skills assessment. Parents also have access to the Atomic Learning online video library to sharpen their computer skills. So where does Rustici Software fit into all of this? Atomic Learning uses our SCORM Engine software to manage all of the complicated, backend pieces that handle the delivery and tracking of those assessments and courses. The SCORM Engine enables the Atomic Learning platform to know if users are new or returning to the courses, tracks scores and how long they spent taking the assessment, and how they answered the assessment questions. By partnering with Rustici Software, Atomic Learning not only gets best-in-class SCORM support for their platform, but it also frees up their developers and resources to focus on their core business — making technology work better in the classroom. The post Bringing it Home appeared first on SCORM - .

Origin of DELETE Latin deletus, past participle of delēre to wipe out, destroy First Known Use: circa 1605 Ever hit "delete" only to later find the file hiding somewhere in a trash folder, refusing to let go? That’s really annoying, right? Especially when you intended for it to be gone—forever. Many people have become used to having a trash folder or recycle bin that piles up all your garbage. Well, we don’t like garbage—it takes up space. We think our customers are just as smart (or smarter) than we are so we try to be particular and intentional about the way we make our product decisions. So, we set up the "delete" button to do what its name promises. When you hit "delete" in SCORM Cloud, it really means delete. The course, invitation, or registration doesn’t go to a graveyard where it waits to be resurrected. Instead, it disappears, as if it never existed. Don’t worry, you’ll still have access to the reporting data connected with that course, but the course and the invitation links associated with it are gone. Why does this matter? If you’re in the habit of hitting "delete," you may end up getting rid of important info for good. We suggest you don’t delete anything unless you really mean it. Here are a few tips to save yourself from saying "what now?!" when working in the Cloud: Don’t click "delete" unless you never want to see that item again. Don’t invite learners to a take a course if you’re just testing the API. If you happen to delete the course, any user that tries to launch an invitation or link to that course can’t do it anymore. If you’re paranoid about deleting your courses, don’t worry, we added a built-in feature that automatically keeps them safe. If you just want to test the API, create a test realm. You can delete everything you want in there and it won’t affect your live environment. In summary: The post SCORM Cloud: What Now?! Delete Button appeared first on SCORM - .

Last time, I cautioned you against clicking the "Delete" button. Well, some things are just too important to delete—like users. That’s why the option to delete users in SCORM Cloud is not available. It just can’t be done. But Why!? Story time! Here is a cautionary tale of why you can’t delete users: If I can’t delete them, what can I do? You do have the option to archive users. When users are archived, they no longer show up in your "People" tab. But archived users still show up in my general reports! Not to worry, we have a nifty feature in SCORM Cloud called tagging. If you tag your users, say something like "active" and "inactive", you can include or exclude specific tags when pulling reports. If you’d like to exclude users from a report, simply change their tag from "active" to "inactive." When you filter to the "active" criteria when pulling a report, only the filtered users will be represented on that report. So in summary: You can’t delete users, but you can exclude them via archiving and tagging. Next time we will share a tagging "how-to." We’ll walk through tagging and filtering users to pull customized report. Stay tuned! The post SCORM Cloud: What Now?! Deleting Users appeared first on SCORM - .

When I was younger, I would spend parts of my summer at my grandmama’s house in South Carolina. Every time she saw my brothers and me, she’d threaten to strap bricks to our heads to keep us from growing so quickly. I’ve reminisced on those moments several times over the past couple of weeks. You see, we’re growing like wildfire over here. It seems like every time I blink, we’ve added another person. We’re quickly running out of office space, but it’s really an awesome time for us. We’ve recently added three new family members to our roster and we couldn’t be happier! Ted Jones joined our Watershed sales team back in March. Along with his sweet Boston accent, Ted brings 15 years of e-learning software sales experience with him. Word on the street is that he was on The Price is Right and made it all the way to the Showcase Showdown. We don’t have video proof, so we’ll just have to take his word for it Tim Chudy also joined our Watershed sales team. Tim, also known as Chudy, is a childhood friend of Andy’s and they’ll be working closely to preach the gospel known as the Tin Can API. Chudy recently broke the record held by Jim by mocking me in exactly one day. He’s just a rule breaker like that. And last, but certainly not least, we’ve added Katie Wright. Katie is a lovely developer that’s planning on helping the guys on Dev Row make Watershed LRS even more awesome. I’ve loved Katie since our first conversation a few months back and couldn’t be happier to have another girl in the office. She’s already participated in Fancy Friday! So there you have it. At this point, I don’t even think bricks could slow down the growth spurt we’re experiencing. We might just use them to build a new office space. And somehow, I’m totally okay with that The post We’re going to need a bigger office… appeared first on SCORM - .

You don’t have to wait for content players to catch up! If you’re creating Tin Can courses but getting frustrated by the limited number of players that can actually launch and report on them, here’s some great news: SCORM Cloud’s Dispatch service has a new feature that enables a SCORM-only LMS to handle Tin Can packages—without losing reporting data. How is that possible? First, you have to understand how SCORM Cloud Dispatch works. Tin Can data is collected throughout the activity experience and stored in your CLOUD LRS. Once the user exits out of the course, the Dispatch updates the client LMS with the user progress in the form of SCORM data. Why would I want to use this? While the number of Tin Can conformant LMSs is growing, many LMSs are still in transition. Dispatch allows for an immediate way to launch Tin Can activities in LMSs that only support SCORM. You don’t have to be limited to SCORM-only courses while you wait for LMSs to catch up! Content Creator Benefits: There are now more types of courses you can distribute to customers You can now maintain detailed Tin Can statements in Cloud while still satisfying clients’ SCORM reporting needs LMS/Client Benefits: You’re no longer limited to SCORM-only courses You can continue to receive SCORM-conformant reporting data Where do I sign up? It’s available now, so try it out! We even have free trial accounts to help you get started. To learn how to create a Tin Can Dispatch, go here. The post How to Distribute Tin Can Content Through a SCORM-only LMS appeared first on SCORM - .

We love finding ways to use technology to make things better and easier, and we’ve done it again! SCORM Cloud has a pretty nifty feature called Dispatch. It lets you remain in control of your content by doing some pretty clever behind-the-scenes things, and more control over your content is awesome! Well, we’ve decided to add Dispatch to SCORM Engine (the Web Services version of it, at least.) This is a big deal for content vendors. Dispatch lets you manage all of your content in one place, but allows you more distribution. No more handing your valuable content packages off to clients—now you can manage them all from one place. What other kinds of things does it let you do? Update your content in your Engine-powered LMS, and everybody that has your content will automatically receive the update. Play your content through any LMS, while keeping it on your own servers. Cut off access to your content for clients that aren’t paying their bills. Track how often clients are accessing your content. Delivering your content as a Dispatch means that it’s using the best SCORM player in the known universe. You can play SCORM 2004 courses and Tin Can API packages in a SCORM 1.2 LMS. People have been doing these things for years in SCORM Cloud, except for one important part: playing content on any LMS while keeping it on their own servers. Using SCORM Cloud, the content is hosted on our servers. That’s no longer a limitation using SCORM Engine and Dispatch. If you want to learn more about using Dispatch with SCORM Engine, get in touch. You know we love talking about this stuff. The post This is a big deal for content vendors. appeared first on SCORM - .

SCORM Cloud Reportage provides a simple snapshot of your learners’ activities, but sometimes you don’t want a picture of ALL your learners. Want to know the completions of a specific department? The average score of learners within a specific geography? The amount of time new learners are spending per course? By using the tagging feature in SCORM Cloud, you can pull customized reports in the Reportage screen. This allows you to exclude certain criteria and to pull data about isolated groups. With SCORM Cloud tagging, you can do this with only a few clicks. The key is to add appropriate tags to your learners and then filter by those tags in Reportage. Take a look: Manual Adding .CSV Upload If you want to import tags across a large list of learners, you can also import a .CSV file. Just format your .CSV file as shown below: When adding tags to users, you have the freedom to filter data down to the specifics. To get even fancier, next time we’ll take a look at adding tags to registrations and invitations. The post SCORM Cloud What Now?! Using Tags for Custom Reports appeared first on SCORM - .

There are many organizations that have multiple LMSs, and many of them have the same problem—they wish they had just one LMS, with all of their data in one place. With Watershed LRS and SCORM Engine (or SCORM Cloud), we now have an easy solution for this, and it works for SCORM and Tin Can courses. It doesn’t even require any custom integration work. SCORM Engine (the best SCORM conformance available) is now capable of using Dispatch, and that’s one of the things that makes this possible. You can now use SCORM Engine as your SCORM and Tin Can package player, use Dispatch to play courses in any (or all) of your LMSs, and have the learning data all come back to one central location (while still recording learning data in each LMS, too). Which central location? Watershed LRS (the flagship LRS from the company that wrote the original draft of the Tin Can API, us!) has a beautiful visualization layer. It’s a great interface that allows for many different types of data reporting and visualizations. It works with "the big 4" that SCORM handles (completion, success, score, and total time), but it also works with all of the types of data that the Tin Can API enables us to use. See the diagram for how the flow of the data works, and let us know if you want to learn more about consolidating all of your different LMSs data into one place. The post If you’re working in a multi-LMS environment, you should read this. appeared first on SCORM - .

A while back, we introduced some new software development kits that work with mobile apps and SCORM Engine to allow you deliver and track SCORM content from your mobile app—even when it’s offline. We’ve just taken it a step further, with a new SDK that lets users download and take SCORM courses from their desktop/laptop, even when a network connection isn’t available. Whether you have a Windows or OSX app, our new SDK works with your App, LMS, and the SCORM Engine to download SCORM courses, play and track them (online or offline), and send the results back to the LMS once a network connection is available again. Click here to learn more about desktop/offline SCORM, or get in touch if you’d like to have a conversation about it. The post Offline SCORM, it’s not just for mobile anymore! appeared first on SCORM - .

The 2014.1 SCORM Engine release will be out in the next couple of weeks. And it‘s going to blow your mind. We’ve been working on some major (awesome) overhauls. With over 28 improvements and enhancements, you might want to schedule your upgrade ASAP. ** Here are just a few of the highlights: Upgraded Player UI Responsive design for enhanced user experience on mobile devices The Modern version is optional, in case you like to stick with the Classic version Supports RECIPES! ← this is a big deal Making Tin Can even simpler Automatically indexes incoming statements using Recipes specifications Engine is set up to support new Recipes as they are added to the Registry Database Improvements Increased speed and robustness PostgreSQL V3 support This is just a taste of what you can expect from Engine 2014.1. Complete documentation for the new release will be available when it launches next week. Some of the heartier features will have a deeper shoutout on the blog over the next couple of weeks, so stay tuned. In the meanwhile, feel free to reach out to us if you have questions or want to schedule your upgrade. **This work, "Engine 2014.1 Coming Soon", is a derivative of "Premade Background" by rubyblossom, used under CC BY. "Engine 2014.1 Coming Soon" is licensed under CC BY by Rustici Software. The post COMING THIS SUMMER: SCORM Engine 2014.1 Release appeared first on SCORM - .

  It’s a lot of fun working with both hosted and locally installed platforms. Yes, technically the deployments vary a lot (and I’m thankful for our super talented developers who manage both worlds), but it gives us the chance to work with many types of companies and products. Some folks gravitate towards the flexibility of SCORM Cloud as a hosted solution that scales with them as their business grows. Other folks require a more controlled, locally installed solution and need our Engine player for those very reasons. Recently we’ve noticed another benefit of offering both deployment options— migrating from one deployment method to the other as business models change. Case in point? Atomic Learning. Check out their story: Atomic Learning was a SCORM Cloud customer from the early days. They leveraged the SCORM Cloud API to integrate SCORM functionality into their K-12 Assessment platform. The flexibility of SCORM Cloud licensing worked great with their initial business model where usage spiked dramatically in May and September, coinciding with the start and end of the school year. Atomic Learning could simply scale their account size up and down to align with that usage pattern. Last year, Atomic Learning shifted their content strategy—going from two assessments per user annually to delivering smaller bites of learning more frequently. It quickly became apparent that the registration-based licensing would not be feasible with this new business model. The SCORM Engine Web Services option provided a way for Atomic Learning to move to an annual user based licensing model that better supported the fact that users who previously only took 2 courses per year could now generate as many as 20-30 registrations. And, because they had built an integration against the SCORM Cloud API, the transition to the locally installed version was fairly seamless. Once they had the server configuration set up on their end, they simply redirected the Cloud API calls to local calls and they were off and running. Need help figuring out which deployment method is right for you? This chart should help- and you can always ask us. The post What happens when your business model changes? appeared first on SCORM - .

Well, not really, but it’s the closest thing that the e-learning industry has to offer in the area of "prestigious awards for doing awesome things". The Brandon Hall Group Excellence Awards Program is the most prestigious awards program in the e-learning industry, and was the first awards program put in place in the e-learning industry (back in 1994). So what cool things have we been doing and what did we win? ADL released the official 1.0 version of the Tin Can API in April of 2013, and the e-learning world was then able to do amazing new things that weren’t possible with SCORM alone. SCORM serves its purpose, but the really exciting things happen when you start using the Tin Can API. LifeWay Christian Resources wanted to deliver and track video content in a way that would produce metrics that SCORM alone couldn’t produce, so we outfitted their systems with the Tin Can API, and tracked all the metrics they wanted to track with the Learning Record Store that’s built into SCORM Engine. What did that get us? A Brandon Hall Group Excellence Award! You can read a lot of the details here. AT&T wanted to do things with their training program that they couldn’t do in a traditional SCORM environment, so we set them up with the Watershed LRS and they began learning what motivated their employees to learn and how various types of learning affected employees’ real-world performance. And yep, another Brandon Hall Group Excellence Award! While we’re talking about awards, we’d like to acknowledge our friends and customers that also won Brandon Hall Group Excellence Awards: Accenture American Red Cross BizLibrary CA Technologies, Inc. Convergys Corporation CypherWorx KFC-US (Yum! Brands, Inc.) Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory NogginLabs, Inc. PANDORA A/S Tata Consultancy Services Ltd Tribridge Triple Creek Workplace Answers We’re happy to see so much innovation happening in the e-learning industry, and proud to know that Tin Can is at the heart of revolutionizing a fair bit of it. Click here to see a full list of this year’s winners. If you have any questions or would like to talk to us about how you can use the Tin Can API in your organization, please get in touch. We love talking about this stuff! The post We won two Grammys! appeared first on SCORM - .

Working in the Cloud is supposed to make things easier. Well, if you’re working with the SCORM Cloud API, we’ve made it even easier. SCORM Cloud is built to be integrated into other applications. To let SCORM Cloud communicate with these applications, we use identifiers called "app IDs" for each of them. THEN: Lots of applications = lots of manual work. Previously, adding a new app ID required API users to log in and use the Cloud interface. Many of our API users segment their usage across their customers, so this manual step created some serious extra work for them. NOW: NO MORE MANUAL WORK! You can now use the API to create a new app ID for each new customer you bring on board. We’ve added this functionality into the API. API users, take a moment to rejoice! To ensure that managing your service is easy and safe, we’ve added a security precaution. API users will have a dedicated set of credentials (app ID and secret) for adding new app IDs. This "Master" App ID is reserved for managing your service while other app IDs are used for managing your customers. You asked, we listened. This is in response to a customer request we get quite often. And when enough people are asking for a feature, it’s important for us to deliver! The new App Management feature for the SCORM Cloud API is available today. To read more about how it works and where to get it, go here. The post Easier App Management with SCORM Cloud API appeared first on SCORM - .

With over 28 improvements and enhancements, this is the most robust upgrade for SCORM Engine since, well, ever. We’ve been working hard over the past few months to prepare for seamless installs and upgrades. We’re excited to announce that we’re ready for you, so come and get it! Here are my favorite improvements: It’s SCORM and Tin Can conformant! The new Tin Can (xAPI) Conformance Test Suite from ADL includes hundreds of tests to assess LRS conformance. Rest assured, SCORM Engine 2014 passes them all. Engine supports Recipes! It automatically indexes incoming Tin Can API statements using these Recipes’ specifications, making Tin Can even simpler. It’s even faster than before. We’ve made database improvements for increased speed and robustness. How/when can you get it? New installs and upgrades are available now! Contact us to secure your spot in line. Where can you find more information? For more top-level technical details on the new release, visit the Documentation page or contact us. The post SCORM Engine 2014.1 is Now Available! appeared first on SCORM - .

Just having a great product is not enough. Many people forget that exceptional customer support is one of the most important parts of an organization’s ongoing success. Why? It’s most often the only contact a customer has with your company. Receiving the help they need (while interacting with awesome people) encourages customers to stick around. Further, it reinforces the lifetime value of your products and increases customer loyalty. Why does it matter? We’ve had continuous, award-winning growth over the past 10 years. That’s because we love to delight our customers with excellent products and exceptional support. We hold ourselves accountable with a running tab of how our customers rate our support for SCORM Cloud and SCORM Engine. All 2517 tickets that have been opened this year are followed up with a satisfaction survey that is posted around the office and on the website. That’s why we get really excited when the Delight-o-Meter has 100 smiling Jenas in a row: What qualifies as exceptional? We looked at the global benchmark analytics from Zendesk, the help desk tool we use. The average global satisfaction rate for all Zendesk users is 83 percent. But, average is not exceptional, so we try to shoot higher. Here’s a quick look at where we stack up next to the industries in which we operate:So how do we keep our numbers close to 100 percent? 1. Giving the right help: We shoot to give customers the best answer, not just the fastest one. And when we can’t help them, at the very least, we provide a path forward. 2. Being real: "We’re two dudes in an office. You can call us on the phone, you can see our photos on the website—you can find us. We’re accessible and we want to help. People often call us and are surprised: ‘Oh, there really is a Joe?’" -Ryan Donnelly, half of the Donnelly Support Team It’s okay to want people to like you A previous boss used to tell me "people don’t have to like you, as long as they respect you." Good advice. But wouldn’t you rather have customers who respect AND like your company? A delighted customer is a heck of a lot easier to work with than one who hates your guts. So why not shoot for both? Continue to celebrate in the delight of your customers—it pays off. This is a repost from the Rustici Software Blog. The post Measure your success by the delight of your customers appeared first on SCORM - .

A few months ago, we sent out a survey to ask customers to tell us more about how they use SCORM Cloud and what other features they’d like to see. One request we heard from the survey and other conversations with Cloud customers is the ability to set an expiration date for an Invitation or a Dispatch. Well, the wait is over! We just updated SCORM Cloud so now you can set up expiration dates for any invites or dispatches. Why is this so cool? Using invitations to connect users to your courses from a link or email? Now you can set up how long they can access that course, which helps you control your costs and enforce due dates. When you create your invitations, simply add an expiration date. And if you already have invitations created, you can now add expiration dates to those existing invites. If you’re using Dispatch, you care about controlling access to your content, which might mean how many people can take your course or how long they have access to that course. Now you can set that up on the front end when creating a Dispatch so access is automatically disabled on a specific date. You can even go back to Dispatches you’ve already created and set that expiration date. No more managing this manually! Click here to get step by step instructions to get started. Still have questions? Just drop us a line and we’ll help you out. The post SCORM Cloud Feature Update - Expiration Dates Now Available! appeared first on SCORM - .

  On August 13th, 2015, we launched a heavily revised version of tincanapi.com. Andrew Downes has been working away, as he does, creating new content. Rather than direct it all at the blog, though, he’s been rethinking and restructuring the core site and sharing his insights for first-timers, learning designers, learning product vendors, and organizations. There are countless other updates laid out below. Please spend some time with them. Many readers of the site, though, will likely notice a significant change to our handling of the name… tincanapi.com. Years ago, Mike shared our perspective on the name, that we were going to call it Tin Can API. For some, this has been a contentious issue. With the new site, we’ve made the site behave as we have been personally for a long time. We call it whatever you call it. On the site, you’ll notice a toggle in the upper left. If you prefer to call it Tin Can, do so. If you prefer xAPI, that’s great too. Whether you visit tincanapi.com or experienceapi.com, the site will present everything to you using your prefered name. It comes down to this: arguing about an API’s name simply isn’t productive. We have far more important things to accomplish together. So please, enjoy the new content. Go build a brilliant activity provider. Make some statements. Or ask us for help if you need it.     Here are the new sections of the site: Understand   The existing Tin Can Explained page gives a really helpful introduction to Tin Can if you’ve never heard of it.  We’ve brought this section up to date a little and added some pages around the different components of the new enterprise learning ecosystem that Tin Can enables. We’ve also added pages targeted specifically at organizations, learning product vendors and vendors of products outside L&D. Get Started   By now, if you haven’t heard of Tin Can and got a basic understanding, you’ve probably been living on mars. These days, the question we get asked most isn’t "what’s Tin Can?" but "how do I get started?" If that’s your question, then good news - we’ve created a new section just for you! The get startedsection includes pages targeted at product vendors, content authors and organizations. It includes guides to help you see Tin Can in action, get a Learning Record Store (LRS) and run a pilot project in your organization. There’s a collection of pages to help you think about moving on from SCORM, too. Design   We already had a bunch of resources for developers, but not much really aimed at learning designers. We’ve added a page outlining the impact of Tin Can on learning design, including reflections on a handful of learning models and theories in the light of Tin Can. If you’re thinking more at the strategy level, we’ve got a page on incorporating Tin Can into your learning strategy, too. At a practical level, there’s a guide on statement design, an introduction to recipes for learning designers, and an assignment for you to try out what you learn from the new pages we’ve written. Developers   The developers section was already crammed full of resources. We’ve tidied these up to make them easier to find and created an interactive statement explorer page to help you understand the structure of the statement. The statement generator we created a few years ago was due for an update and ADL recently published a new more comprehensive statement generator. We don’t believe in reinventing the wheel, so we’ve taken the ADL tool, made it orange and included it on the site. To help you put all these resources into practice, we’ve created a series of challenges for developers to try out writing code for Tin Can. Webinars   The previous webinar list contained embedded YouTube videos for all our webinars. We’ve got so many webinar recordings now that it was getting hard to find webinars on specific topics so we’ve created a new categorized webinar list. Each of the webinars is now on its own page, making it easier to share the recording with other people. The post We call it, "I call it" appeared first on SCORM - .

Once again, we are rapidly approaching the "Holiday Season", or rather it is rapidly approaching us. In fact it, is tearing down the air- and digital- waves into our living rooms and dens as fast as fiber optics and satellite dishes can carry it. I could not believe it when the Gingerbread Man walked across my TV screen before I had given out my Halloween candy! Way before. September some time. I am either getting old, or we are rushing through our collective lives at breakneck pace. Or more likely, both…I am undeniably getting old(er) but I do think this is the earliest we have seen the harbingers of Christmas. In addition to a healthy "Humphhh" and a dramatic forehead slap about rushing the season it got me to thinking. Not about Christmas - I just out-and-out refuse to think about Christmas before December 1st. I started thinking about Thanksgiving which is now looming on my horizon. I know, I know - what does the Gingerbread Man have to do with Thanksgiving? It’s all in my mind - like a barn - odds and ends piled together in singularly illogical pairings that you inadvertently trip over. Anyway about Thanksgiving…and turkey…and more to the point, Thanksgiving Dinner… The picture is so New England/traditional. The one above would easily serve 8 - 10 people and the ones we used to roast when I was a kid served 12 - 15 and had to be cooked at Aunt Ginny’s and carried over to our house just before dinner because once you got it in the oven nothing else would fit. *** One of my favorite family stories revolves around Aunt Ginny dumping 5 quarts of of her famous giblet gravy on our kitchen floor as she swept through the door. (Ginny always "swept", she never "walked".) The entire assembled family dissolved into raucous tears of laughter while Ginny stood there looking at the traitor pot like it had leaped from her grasp on purpose. She gave us about 15 seconds of unbridled hilarity and then, like any good general, directed us to "Grab spoons and cups and get this all back into the pot! No one will ever know." This was patently untrue since everyone who was coming to Thanksgiving dinner had watched her dump said gravy all over the floor - but we got the message and jumped to corral the liquid gold. And everyone dutifully pretended not to "know". Dinner - and the gravy - were fine. We girls remembered this bit of wisdom a couple of years later when Nana Graves performed the same act of destruction in her upstairs apartment with a very heavy casserole of winter squash.  She was not nearly so theatrical about it…she wept rather then swept, and there was no "directing" just helpless self-flagellation (it was a generational thing, I think), but we cousins jumped into action and the eventual outcome was the same. It happened upstairs and we swore each other to secrecy, so no one "knew" and dinner was fine. (Thank you Julia!) *** Alas, Thanksgivings have gotten very much smaller these days with the extended older-generation family dead and gone and immediate family spread across five states and two foreign countries. The world is very much smaller and my dining room table is often empty but for the two of us. These days I find it is memory that serves to fill me up… *** "You can always die." It was actually said very quietly.  Not at all like most of Daddy’s pronouncements, which were delivered at parade voice and accompanied by the occasional pounding fist on the tabletop and helter-skelter scattering of offenders for cover. Aunt Ginny was the only one with the wit to break the ensuing silence.  "And too many did just that, didn’t they Dick?  We remember them."  She expected, and got, no answer - just reached out from her customary place of honor on his right with her perfectly manicured hand to gently touch his.  His hand gripped hers like a drowning man’s. She smiled her beautiful, red-lipped smile at him as if he had just commented on how lovely she looked this afternoon in her pearls and white lace and then turned a predatory smile to the rest of the table inviting anyone fool enough to take her on, to try. This group knew better - mostly from disastrous experience. Even Uncle John’s pretty but clue-less wife, Mickey, subsided without a word. "Now," Ginny withdrew her hand gently and spoke directly to her host, pretending she did not see his quivering chin and little-boy-lost look,   "I would like two small spoonfuls of squash, if you don’t mind."  She pointed sadly to a spot on her plate.  "I am coming out uneven." While Daddy reached for, and served the squash, the rest of us obediently observed her plate to note that, indeed, her neatly arranged little piles of turkey, onions, turnip and cranberry sauce were all about the same size, but her squash pile was decidedly smaller.  And while we all watched him add exactly enough squash to create a pile of the required dimensions, Ginny explained as if we had not heard her say so for the past ten or twenty Thanksgivings (depending on our relative ages), "I like everything to come out even, you know."  The slushy little plop of squash falling on her plate released the rest of us and we resumed eating and chatting politely. *** I don’t actually remember the comment that elicited that statement from Daddy, though I could guess easily enough. Viet Nam was in the air at the time. Courtesy: http://www.vintag.es/2011/02/35-years-after-fall-vietnam-war-in.html Probably someone made an off-hand comment about it that triggered his memories about World War II and too much food and drink made him careless enough to speak his thought out loud. Although, it is just as believable that there might not have been any particular comment at all; Thanksgiving being a time when the lines between present, past and future blurred for those of us sitting at dinner on Green Street. *** My first coherent memories of Thanksgiving dinners come from the Green Street years - and the first of those from when my sister and cousins and I were still considered too young and too boisterous to sit at the formal dining room table with polite company.  We were banished to the kitchen to sit with our grand-relatives who presumably were old enough to accept the task of riding herd on us with quiet dignity.  We used the everyday china and glassware and yearned for the day when we could eat in the dining room and exchange adult conversation.  While we waited, we consumed our first lessons in family history along with turkey and stuffing with giblet gravy. It’s like being at the kids’ table at Thanksgiving - you can put your elbows on it, you don’t have to talk politics… no matter how old I get, there’s always a part of me that’s sitting there. John Hughes "They’re saying grace in the dining room. We should say grace."  I folded my hands and waited.  I was a stickler for pomp and still hoping to one day become a Catholic Priest (soon to be squashed by the realities of Catholic dogma, but at the time fervently rampant). "They’re praying loud enough, they can say it for us too."  My sister, on the other hand was not - fervent or rampant. "You sister is right, we should say grace."  Nana Graves - while eternally mortified that her only daughter had eschewed the Methodist faith for Catholicism - was sure we were all going to hell anyway and clutched at any opportunity to save our souls. "Can we just say something and start eating?"  Cindy was always ready to eat. "How can you be hungry?  You ate a whole box of chocolates before dinner."  I snorted. "Not the whole box." "Oh, how many didn’t you eat?" "Aunt Ginny caught her at it.  She got swatted and Ginny took the box away."  My sister smiled unpleasantly.  I wondered if Ginny had been alerted by a spy. "There were some left."  Cindy started to snivel and although I had little sympathy for Cindy’s tendency to cry at the least provocation, I knew it would delay our dinner even longer if the Grandmothers had to calm her down or, God forbid, Aunt Ginny actually had to leave the adult table and come out to the kitchen, so I came to her aid.  Or started to… "There were some…" Grand Uncle Will’s dry-leaves-on-cement voice interrupted us.  "Children should be quiet at the dinner table." We all stared at him.  He sat with a fork in one hand and a knife in the other.  He was waiting on us and he was not pleased.  Nana Graves reached for the riced potatoes and started serving him. "Let’s eat before it all gets cold."  It was more a question than an admonition, but as one, we decided that moving forward was more interesting than grilling Cynthia about the chocolates she did or did not eat. We were more interested in soaking up family stories about the adults sitting in the other room. So through mouthfuls of food dutifully chewed and swallowed before we spoke, we quizzed them. "Nana Graves?  Tell us about the time Mother led cousin Eleanor through the manure pit…" "Yeah, when she and cousin Eddie knew where the solid places were and Eleanor didn’t…" "Right…and how they had to burn her clothes and wash her hair four times before she could even go in the house again…" "And how Eleanor threw up manure all afternoon…" "And how Mother and Eddie only had cornmeal mush to eat for five days afterwards as punishment…"  That was the part we liked best.  We really did not care about poor cousin Eleanor. It was our rather jaded opinion that anyone stupid enough to walk into a manure pile without checking out the lay of the land deserved what they got.  Cousin Eleanor was a city girl…she never had a chance nor did we think she particularly deserved one.  But we were terribly interested in the fact that our always correct, school-teacher mother had done such a thing.  It gave one hope. "Nana Sawyer, tell us about the time Daddy and his friends led the milk cow up to the top floor of city hall…" "And how the city fathers could not get it to come back down…" "And how they had to get a farmer to get the cow down and by the time he got there the cow had pee’d all over the court room…"  We were in tears…just thinking about it. "Why couldn’t they get the cow back down?"  Nancy was the youngest cousin in attendance and had not heard this story before. "Because, silly," Those of use who had heard the story numerous times felt greatly superior, "cows can’t walk down stairs. Their knees don’t work that way…you have to get them a ramp." And on it went.  We dug and delved into our grand elders’ memories of the past searching for tidbits that appealed to our fancy and could possibly be used as blackmail at a later date.   It filled the time while we waited impatiently to be admitted into the dining room to sit at the adult table.  The grandmothers accepted our urgency to get on with things as a matter of course and never once voiced melancholy at the turning of the wheel that would release all of us in the kitchen to the room beyond, young and old alike.   It seemed to take forever. *** Will was taken to the Odd Fellow’s Home in Lewiston to live until he died when Nana Graves was put in Files’ Nursing Home.  She had fallen on her way out to the porch and broken her ankle.  She was never quite "with it" after that.  Dr. Love suspected a mild stroke and when she started leaving the stove on until it melted holes in her pots, the family decided she had to be put where someone could watch over her.  We went to visit her every Saturday between our trip to the Post Office and grocery store.  In a very little while, she stopped knowing who we were and Mother and Ginny told us we didn’t have to go anymore.  I remember the last day I went to see her. "Hi Nana, how are you?  You look great."  I thought she looked awful, a thin bird of a woman stretched out on her single bed, rocking her head to and fro on the pillow in time to some song I couldn’t hear.  But I had been taught to have manners, and I used them. "Who are you?"  The head stopped but the eyes continued to move back and forth. "I’m Melinda, Nana. Faith’s daughter.  Her youngest." "No, you can’t be.  Faith is only a girl still.  She can’t be old enough to have a daughter of her own.  Can she?  You mustn’t plague me so."  The eyes finally came to rest on my mother’s face. "No, Annie, it’s all right."  Mother assured her.   It was surely not all right, but who was I to question? A skeleton hand snaked out from under the pink blanket and locked around mother’s wrist.  "I wish Fred would hurry up and come take me home.  I don’t want to be here.  They’re terrible to me here, you know.  They take me away at night and hook wires to me and bedevil me. They do." "He will come soon, Annie, he will be here soon…"  Mother tried to gently undo the fingers wrapped around her wrist.  She kept repeating:  "It will be fine, Annie, it will be fine," all the while and finally the old woman on the bed who had once told us stories and nursed us when we were sick lost interest and releasing mother’s hand went back to rocking back and forth on the pillow, back and forth. We left her there waiting for the husband who would not come, dead these twenty-odd years, buried in the family plot on Fort Hill.  She didn’t have that long to wait.  Fifteen months.  An eternity of rocking her head. That made two empty chairs in the kitchen. Nana Sawyer took a tumble one early November day on ice and ended up in the hospital with a broken hip. "Dick, be a good boy, call me a priest."  She looked very tiny on the hospital bed.  We were all there in a neat semi-circle around her hospital bed, come up from Gorham to see her the day after she had fallen. "Margaret, you’ve just broken a hip.  We’ll have you up and about in a day or two on a walker." "I won’t go into one of those homes.  And I won’t be where I’m not wanted."  She spoke in that flat way someone does when they have made up their mind.  "Get me the priest, Dick.  Please." "Yes, Mum." So the priest was gotten and Margaret said her last confession and received Last Rites.  Daddy served as altar boy and she got to take communion.  The priest was happy to oblige and do anything to make one of his oldest parishioners more comfortable with this change in status. "Don’t worry so Dick.  She just needed the reassurance of it.  She’ll be fine." "Thank you, Father."  And so he left her promising to return the next morning. All this on a Tuesday evening.  Wednesday morning she was dead.  By Monday she was in her grave.  Doc had been gone for ten years at that point.  Margaret was laid beside him at the top of Western Avenue in Saint Mary’s cemetery. That made three empty chairs and the next Thanksgiving, all of us cousins at the kitchen table graduated to the dining room. *** And so we all now sat at the finely polished mahogany table in the dining room. And we heard the occasional same story from a different perspective. "We really were terribly mean to poor Eleanor," Mother would say to Phil. "Oh, I don’t know.  She was pretty mean herself as I recall."  Phil would counter.  "Isn’t she the one who used to tease you in front of the boys about your butter and mustard sandwiches?" "Well, yes, she did.  But she didn’t know any better.  She had money.  She didn’t know what it was like to be poor." "Mmmmph."  Father didn’t like the Parker sisters.  They had snubbed him when he first came courted Faith. "Mean group of women."  He would say.  "They could use a little Christian charity or," and here he would pause for the desired effect, "a bath in manure."  He would laugh heartily at his own joke whether anyone else thought it amusing or not and then menacing a fork at the newly graduated adults at his table would speak for our benefit alone.  "Never let me catch any of you making fun of people just out of spite or some notion that you’re better than they are.  Hear me?" "Yes, sir."  We would chorus. "Because you’re not."  And he would return to his gravy and potatoes. Usually, however, the fare at the adult table was new to us.  And sometimes even the people were new to us.  I remember the year Daddy brought home a young man and his wife from Augusta with him.  The young man had just come to work in Daddy’s office and all his family were out in the mid-west somewhere.  They had been planning to eat Thanksgiving hamburgers on crates in their tiny apartment when Dad swooped down on them and gathered them up to come spend the weekend at our house.   Mother was polite until they climbed the stairs to the third floor and shut the door on the hastily prepared bedroom.  She then dragged Daddy into the den and shut the door. "Richard, what were you thinking of?  Bringing strangers into our house without so much as a warning.  And on Thanksgiving?"  Mother only called Daddy "Richard" when she was seriously put out. "They had no family to go to." Dad seemed to think that covered the bases. "So?  Why is it our problem?"  Even I knew that was a stupid remark. "Why?"  Penny and I could see him turn to her through the crack in the doorjamb.  We leaned back, expecting the blow.  It never came.  Instead his voice became a whisper. "Because I say so, if you can’t manage to think of a more Christian reason.  No one will go hungry or unwanted at my door while I have the means to prevent it and you will smile and be polite even if I sit a drunken hobo at your right hand."  And that was that. More often than not, dinner at the adult table started gay and turned somber as alcohol loosened memories and tongues and someone inevitably said something that would remind Daddy of the dead boys from WWII who would not be with their families this day.  Actually, now that I have thought about it for a bit, I do remember it.  What brought on Daddy’s comment. "Did you read about those poor boys in Viet Nam who were tortured and forced to read statements against the US?"  Mickey was a source of constant amazement to us all, even her devoted husband, Uncle John.  She had known Daddy for twenty-five years at least, seen him war-weary, hurt and half starved she could still babble on as if none of the people at the table had ever ventured outside the drawing room. "They’re writing such horrible things about them, you know.  Saying they were cowards. Even traitors."  Her disbelief may have been honest but voicing it at the Thanksgiving dinner table was just plain stupid. Daddy had very little patience with stupidity and that was when he said, "You can always die."  And Ginny leaped to the rescue and the rest of us pretended like nothing had happened.  Later, when John and Phil were sleeping over the football game, Ginny and Mickey were doing dishes in the kitchen and mother had retired to her bed with her now annual sick headache, Daddy stood watching the rain out the back door.  Our dog, Samantha, sat beside him resting her shaggy head on his thigh where his hand could just reach to rub her ears.  I went and stood on his other side and he rested a hand on my head too. "There is never an excuse for not doing your duty.  Never. " He tipped my head back just enough to get my full attention.  "You need to remember that.  No matter what it costs, you do your duty.  Promise me." "How do I know what my duty is?"  It was one of those moments when you know you need to be very clear on what is going on…even at 12. He leaned over a bit and tapped my chest with his finger.  "You will know in here.  And no matter how much it hurts, or how afraid you are, or who tells you different, you do what’s in there.  Promise me?"  His eyes were so sad I thought I would burst into tears.  But tears were not what was expected.  I squared my shoulders. "I promise." That’s a good girl.  We both basked in the warmth of our hero’s approval - the dog and I - while he patted our heads and returned to watching the rain. *** Our feast this year will be small. But there will be turkey - I am a purist about some things. And there will be stuffing and squash and cranberry sauce and we will eat it for five days afterwards until we cannot stand the thought of turkey for another 365 days. And we will raise a glass for all those who are accounted for in our memories but not present. And we will take a moment to give thanks to all those who cannot be with their families because they are off somewhere in the world doing their duty. Be thankful for what you have. Your life, no matter how bad you think it is, is someone else’s fairy tale. Wale Ayeni

  It is interesting to note that the title of Ken’s blog is "How WE lead," instead of "How THEY lead." This clearly sends the message that we share a responsibility in leadership. My name is Francisco Gomez and I am this month’s guest blogger. In previous posts, Ken has mentioned how important is the leadership that the new president and his team will need to exercise for positive change to occur and last, starting with the VISION that he should set for all of us. But once that vision is clear for all, it is our turn to contribute our share, it is our turn to act. President Obama also thinks this way, as can see when he said "we are the ones we have been waiting for." It is an important responsibility for each of us to realize that the change we want will require that WE act differently as well. We will need to unlearn some things we have adopted as habits, learn new attitudes and behaviors, and relearn some fundamentals that we forgot along the way. I want to invite you to contribute to this discussion by selecting one change you want to see happen over the next couple of years, and then providing your responses for the following questions: ·         What will I need to START DOING to help this change happen? ·         What will I need to STOP DOING to help this change happen? ·         What will I need to CONTINUE DOING? To kick off the discussion, one change I would like to see is a new kind of relationship between the United States and the rest of the world, based on what is good for the world at large, not just what is good for America. This means that sometimes we would be willing to do things that are not solely in the best interest of our country, but are desirable for the greater global good. To help make this change happen, I will: ·         Get better informed about the world and the issues different countries face ·         Become more tolerant of different points of view ·         Accept that we, as a nation, are not immune from making mistakes ·         Have renewed faith in our political leadership ·         Express my views and participate in the political decision making process What is one change YOU would like to see? How will you contribute to it? Let’s share our visions and inspire others to do the same.

How do you maintain trust in uncertain times? Trust has been an important concept since the beginning of our country. On our dollar bills, we have said In God We Trust. Yet today it’s hard for us to trust people—particularly our business leaders, whose greed and self serving leadership seem to have been a major cause of our economic crisis. Yet, if we are going to pull out of this present situation, we have to realize that none of us is as smart as all of us. There are companies that realize this simple truth and have maintained trust before, during, and I’m sure after this economic downturn. All these companies seem to have two characteristics in common.             First of all, they have a higher purpose than making money. As an example, Southwest Airlines, from its beginning, has been convinced that it is in the freedom business. The freedom of all Americans to be with friends and relatives during good times and bad times—thus their low price structure. Chick-fil-A’s purpose is to glorify God by having a positive influence on everyone who comes in contact with Chick-fil-A. They aren’t open on Sundays, even though that is often the busiest day in the fast food industry.             Secondly, they value both people and results. The way that plays out is that their leaders and their people respect and trust each other by celebrating good times together and working out tough times together.             I first realized the importance of trust and respect going together by listening to Ichak Adizes, a long-time consultant and professor at UCLA. He argues that respect and trust have both nonverbal and verbal messages. If you respect someone, you face them, because you are interested and want to hear their opinions. If you don’t respect someone, you turn your back on them, because you couldn’t care less what they think. If you trust people, you will turn your back on them because you are convinced they mean you no harm. If you don’t trust them, you watch their every move. How does that work at Chick-fil-A and Southwest Airlines?  In both cases, they respect their people and therefore share information with them about the performance of the company in both good times and bad times. In good times, they celebrate together, and in bad times, they are problem-solving partners. Does that work? You’d better believe it. Unlike many companies today where the top managers are locked behind closed doors, cutting costs and having everybody’s fate in their hands, these two great companies open their books to everyone so they know what’s happening and immediately go to work to cut costs as well as increase revenue.             This is exactly what our company, The Ken Blanchard Companies, did after 9/11 when we lost $1.5 million in sales that month, and what we are doing today with sales and operating income going down. We believe that none of us is as smart as all of us, and we are convinced we will pull out of this together.             What are you doing? Are you betting on the brain power of your top managers or on the brain power of everyone in your organization?  What’s at stake? The future of your company, trust, and respect.

Wanted to let you know about this recent article that was published in Forbes: http://www.forbes.com/2009/03/23/trust-respect-employees-leadership-managing-blanchard.html Leadership Make Sure Your Employees Trust You-Or Else Ken Blanchard and Terry Waghorn 03.23.09, 5:48 PM ET How do you keep people trusting you at a time like this? Trust is essential in our lives, and it has been since the beginning of our country. Our dollar bills say In God We Trust. Yet today trust is all but vanishing, especially trust in our business leaders, whose greed and short-term selfishness seem to have been a major cause of our economic crisis. With negativity running amok, it is no small wonder that trust within the organizational context is slipping. Yet that need not be the case. "Managed properly, trust can actually grow in such adverse conditions," says Shawna O’Grady, associate professor of management at Queens School of Business, in Kingston, Ontario. "Taking this point to the extreme, consider the bonds forged between comrades-in-arms in a theater of war." The key to building trust in both good and bad times is to realize that none of us is as smart as all of us. There are companies that have embraced this simple truth and used it to maintain trust before, during and, we’re sure, after this economic downturn. All these companies seem to have two characteristics in common. First, they have a higher purpose than simply making money. Let me give you a couple of examples. Southwest Airlines, from its beginning, has expressed the conviction that it is in the freedom business. The freedom of all Americans to be with friends and relatives during good times and bad times-thus, their low price structure. Herb Kelleher, who co-founded Southwest, not only wanted to give his customers the lowest possible price, he also wanted to give them the best possible service. As a result, Southwest is set up to empower everyone, right down to its frontline employees-to make decisions, use their brains and be customer maniacs so they can create raving fan customers. Chick-fil-A’s purpose is to glorify God by having a positive influence on everyone who comes in contact with its stores and foods. The stores aren’t open on Sundays, even though that is often the busiest day in the fast food industry. S. Truett Cathy, the founder of Chick-fil-A, first did this for religious reasons as a devout Southern Baptist and lifelong Sunday school teacher, because Sunday is the day of rest. But it has turned out to be a good business decision. Chick-fil-A attracts many of its employees, including managers, because they know they will be able to be with their families and friends every Sunday. Has it paid off? The chain has by far the lowest turnover of restaurant managers and frontline employees in the quick-service business. Second, companies that engender trust democratize the decision-making process by soliciting input and sharing the decision-making itself with as many people as possible. In his primetime address to Congress in February, President Barack Obama acknowledged "difficult and trying times" but sought to rally the nation with an upbeat vow that by working together "we will rebuild, we will recover." How do you do that in business organizations? It isn’t complicated. When leaders treat their people as their business partners and involve them in making important decisions, those people feel respected, and respect leads to trust. If you respect your people and they trust you as a leader, they will give their all to get the best results they can for your organization. Ichak Adizes, a longtime consultant and professor at UCLA, observes how respect and trust are conveyed by both nonverbal and verbal messages. If you respect someone, you face them when you speak to them, because you are interested and want to hear their opinions. If you don’t respect them, you turn your back, because you couldn’t care less what they think. If you trust people, on the other hand, you can turn your back on them, because you feel certain they mean you no harm. If you don’t trust them, you watch their every move. How does that work at Chick-fil-A and Southwest Airlines? In both cases, they respect their people and therefore share information with them about the performance of the company in both good times and bad. In good times, they celebrate together; in bad times, they are problem-solving partners. Does that work? You’d better believe it. Unlike many companies today, where the top managers are locked behind closed doors, cutting costs while holding everybody’s fate in their hands, these two great businesses open their books to everyone so they can know what’s happening and go right to work cutting costs and increasing revenue. Many leaders are afraid to share negative information with their people, because they fear appearing vulnerable and therefore weak. We have found the contrary to be true. Everyone knows leaders are not perfect. When leaders admit problems and involve their people in problem solving, respect and trust rise. Corporate leaders may also fear Wall Street’s reaction to their trusting moves, but that’s like playing tennis with your eye on the scoreboard and not on the ball. The ball in business is results and people. If the focus is only on results, you’ll never be able to maintain or build trust in a time like this. What are you doing? Are you betting on the brainpower of your top managers, or on the brainpower of everyone in your organization? What’s at stake? The future of your company, based much more than you may realize on trust and respect. Ken Blanchard is co-author of many New York Times bestsellers, including The One Minute Manager and The One Minute Entrepreneur. He serves as chairman and chief spiritual officer of the Ken Blanchard Companies. Terry Waghorn is an adviser to senior executives in companies ranging from small to Fortune 500. He is co-author of Mission Possible and author of The System.