Match ReMade in Mecha?

Today I wannabe a wedding crasher.

KP and Eedo have decided to 'renew their vows' and recommit time and effort to the strategic partnership between the two companies. This is music to my selfish LCMS ears as the success of this relationship directly impacts our success with our KP Content tool.

Although this will be a "private ceremony" held next week in Boston, KnowlegePlanet has asked if we'd like to provide our top areas of interest with regards to future enhanced integration between the two systems: LCMS and LMS.

Here’s a peek at my list:
Prescriptive learning. A learner should be able to take a pre-assessment that contains questions or grouping of questions tied to specific learning objectives. Depending on how the learner answers these questions, a course would be generated that would include only the content the learner needs to master. The EEDO tool has the beginnings of this functionality with their ‘Self Test’ feature. However, because we use the LMS as our learner access point, we would want the activities of the learner to be seamless to them in the system…Be presented with a test, take test, be pointed to the appropriate remediation content, re-assess and ultimately complete the course all within the LMS interface.
Course Publishing. Today in order to publish a course developed in the LCMS to the LMS, we manually export the SCORM manifest and load it as we would any other SCORM content. I know that there is also a KP Content Data Load link (today just in our Test LMS site) but not sure what the intention is for it's use. I would like to see the integration plans further streamline this process.
LMS Portal/LCMS Portlet. Our learners are accustomed to their Learning @ Agilent main page. If we ever get to a place where we can actually use some of the KP Content Portal features (Knowledge Sharing and Content Search/EPSS to name a couple) we would want those portlets fully integrated into the LMS interface.
Custom Completion Certificates. Another related but further confusing piece is the handling of certificates. Agilent has done a customization with KnowledgePlanet so that all courses and learning events can now have a standard, printable certificate from a learners training history listing. Many courses created today in the LCMS also have designed a customized certificate presented at the end of the completed course. Today, this LCMS certificate is accessible through the KP Content portal under “Reports and Certificates”. Since we have this access turned off, it is not confusing to the learner. But it would be wonderful to have it work so that we have flexibility to have a custom certificate (one from the LCMS course) be the one available in the learners history.
Reports. We have just begun to scratch the surface of what types of data we will want to pull out from our LMS/LCMS integration. That’s why I see it a perfect opportunity to get KP/EEDO aligned with how to integrate the two systems to streamline reporting. COGNOS, Actuate, LCMS standard reports...and still we are not certain where we go to get the information our customers require.

So those are my 'Top Five'. I will be sending if off in pretty paper and bows to the KP and EEDO crew in advance of their meeting. And although I won't actually be 'crashing' the event, I will be anxious to hear the outcome and direction of this very important partnership.

New Course Well-Timed for Agilent Audience

Today I wannabe in control of my personal information.

On March 22nd news broke that a Fidelity employee attending an off-site meeting had their laptop pinched. This became national news when it was reported that this laptop contained sensitive and personal information for 196,000 individuals that participated in HP retirement plans...including many current Agilent employees who came from HP when the company split.

Ironically, on this very same day, our weekly "InfoSpark" newsletter announced a new self paced data privacy course being made available to all Agilent employees: Data Privacy: Protecting Personal Information. This course developed by one of our most intrepid LCMS early adopters, William Ewy, outlines how Agilent protects employee, customer and supplier information as well as what everyone needs to consider while handling this data in the work environment.

Excerpted from the InfoSpark announcement:

“In these days of expanding technology and pervasive use of the Internet, privacy is an important area for everyone,” said Jim Allen, Agilent’s chief privacy officer. “Individuals are concerned about it, and this course will help them learn how to take control of their own personal information.”

Amen.

Congratulations William on delivering a very informative and timely course. At last count, over 170 learners have already registered for it...I happen to be one of them.

What's in a Name? KP Content Becomes Firefly Content Manager.

Today I wannabe Shakespeare's Juliet.

There wasn't any formal announcement, but it appears that KnowledgePlanet has renamed their KP Content learning content management system (LCMS) product to "Firefly Content Manager". I suppose I really don't care what they call it. But personally it was a bit confusing during the conference to see this tool referred to with several different names for no apparent reason.

There are still references to ForceTen (the Eedo name for this product) in the both the application and documentation. Consequently I struggle daily with keeping Agilent users clear to the difference. Now I assume I will also have the Firefly Content Manager name to contend with.

On the one hand I can see that the use of the Firefly name helps tie the product to its organizational structure within KP. Firefly = Develop Content. They have an entire team defined under their 'Firefly Suite' that already includes the LCMS product manager. What makes it awkward is that their flagship Firefly simulation and publishing tools can't play nice with the LCMS today.

So it may be a marketing dream to have a nicely packaged name 'Firefly Suite' to include Firefly Simulation Developer, Firefly Publisher, and now Firefly Content Manager. However, unless there are specific plans to integrate the suite, I think the new name is fluffy and misleading.

KnowledgePlanet Customer Conference

Today I wannabe Roger Ebert.

KnowledgePlanet held their 'Imagine' Customer Conference this week in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This was a reinvention of sorts from previous Customer Advisory Board meetings they have regularly held in the past.

This day and a half gathering of KP customers and KP staff provides a venue to hear product and company updates from the leadership of KnowledgePlanet as well as allow their customer base to interact and share with one another what is going on in our organizations that use all or part of the KP product suite. Both Carol Monk and I attended this year's event representing Agilent and our learning technology platform.

What I think they did right this year?
I was impressed with the KP teams' willingness to scramble a bit and shake up their formal agenda to accommodate attendee feedback throughout the two days. It reinforced the 'responsiveness' vibe they are trying very hard to live for us. I also liked their approach this year of making available 'one on one' mini-sessions with every KPer in attendance. Being able to schedule 15 or so focused minutes with someone was an excellent way to make sure everyone had the opportunity to meet with those they really wished to connect within the short time together. It struck a nice balance between an overly formal 'sit down' meeting and a more chancy 'let's try to catch each other in the lunch line' approach. Closely related to this was the KP presence itself. It was great to have such a large contingent of the KP team there participating. More than the value of 'putting a face to a name' it showed again the commitment of their team (at all levels) to know and understand their customers.

What I think fell flat?
The room they used for most of the conference sessions was set up with rows of long tables. A simple thing like layout can really play against the intention of fostering interaction. I personally noticed the difference in the amount of interaction I had both during and between sessions from last year's round table set up. They did have a few round 'overflow' tables set up in the back this year...I was not surprised to see the number of people choosing to sit back there steadily grew over the course of the two days. I was also disappointed that they chose to bag their group dinner plan for a 'every man for themselves' approach this year. I felt this put the KP CRMs and PMs in a tough situation of worrying about covering their multiple clients...who was going where with whom when...Too much coordination after a long day. I personally liked the previous year's 'cooking school' dinner. It was a fun, interactive way to extend the day of sessions and allowed for me to meet and talk more with other customers.