Tempo and Performance Support

My clients are always interested in doing things better. That’s definitely true for the training function. When we discuss this topic, I always like to ask the following:

“What’s better than training your people really, really well?” My answer is, "Not having to train them at all. Isn't it better if they could already do their jobs?"

Of course it is. This is where the fields of training and performance support overlap. Performance support deals with helping people do their jobs accurately and efficiently. Modern practitioners of corporate learning know how to combine training and performance support into a single discipline.

Learners don’t always have to attend a formal training course to execute new tasks. It is often that a memorandum on the new procedure outlining the new tasks together with a quick reference chart is more than sufficient.

TEMPO users have even more flexibility in this regard. TEMPO’s course catalog feature allows users to quickly and easily locate a module covering a specific task. With today’s video tools a TEMPO author can quickly create a demonstration of the new procedure, show how it fits in the field and have the CEO speak to the importance of its adoption. Upload that into TEMPO and a five minute video viewed when and where the user needs it is now ready to support the user.

No need to schedule classes, rooms or people. The solution is available enterprise-wide immediately. TEMPO is not just a training tool, it’s also a performance support tool.

Rick Darby
Rick Darby is President of SEDATA, LLC , consultants specializing in video-centric Interactive Distance Learning and technology-based training.

Virtual is Still Real. Image is Everything

For the longest time computers were actual physical hardware machines and software made the difference. This software was called "the image" and each machine had one. Now virtual technology allows a hardware machine to support many soft machines, meaning that the software image is now the computer.

Tempo allows for installing an operational image on existing hardware. This provides a selection of modular features within the Tempo ecosystem, and integrates within currently managed IT systems. Streaming, On-Demand, and Interactive training are all features available through the image, along with many more options.

Supporting existing hardware, or as an appliance, the reality of Tempo is that software image is everything; and it extends the possibility for solutions anywhere and everywhere!

James Brown, Sales Engineer, Tempo

Tempo & Play Network: Expanding The Vision Of One Platform

Last week's announcement of a strategic alliance between Globecomm and Play Network to integrate their music and digital signage services into our Tempo platform, represents a giant step forward in the evolution of the Enterprise Video Platform, and creates compelling value propositions for the clients we serve.

When we first conceived Tempo, we placed ourselves five or six years in the future and asked: "What will large enterprises need in terms of a video delivery system"? One of our guiding principles was that of "One Platform". We were living in a world where there were streaming and webcasting platforms for Corporate Communications, proprietary systems for Interactive Distance Learning, and Digital Signage systems with less than elegant implementations. We believed that all of these applications would converge into a single platform, kind of like Microsoft Office. We were correct. And as we have evolved our philosophy, items like third-party training content, mobile app delivery, and customer facing applications - including in-store music and advanced digital display systems - have become essential elements of our roadmap. The Tempo/Play Network alliance adds the Customer Experience elements of in-store music and advanced signage to our platform.

This announcement is also significant because we are now not only providing the technology, we are providing the content. The future will be defined by how users interact with content. Together with Play Network, we are now in the business of defining that experience. Nothing excites us more.

It has also been exciting to see the market response to this announcement. My favorite interaction was with a Fortune 50 retailer who said "With Tempo, I can replace five existing systems with a single platform from a single vendor." That is the power of One Platform.

Lastly, it is great to be working with the folks at Play Network. We could not have hoped for a better partner. They are a focused, knowledgable, and forward-leaning organization. I see the fire in the eyes of our team when we walk out of meetings with them. It is inspiring.

Ed Behan, Vice President of Enterprise Services, Globecomm

The TEMPO Courseware Tool

Courseware development tools have usually been expensive necessities for the learning and development department. Many tools are priced per courseware author and often cost in the thousands of dollars per seat. Some actually charge per learner as well which can add up to tens of thousands of additional dollars. In addition, many vendors charge annual maintenance fees for the tools. In my experience, these costs can be quite substantial.

Globecomm’s TEMPO approach changes all that. You can use Microsoft PowerPoint® as your courseware authoring tool, a software tool that’s ubiquitous in most organizations. That means that your marginal cost for courseware authoring is zero. So those friendly little ppt files can be your courseware files as well.

If you don’t happen to have PowerPoint® available in your shop, I still have good news for you; I have tried TEMPO with OpenOfficeTM Impress files and it works well. It is available as a free download at www.openoffice.org . Since, Impress is an open source product, your courseware development tool investment can be exactly zero when you use TEMPO.

Of course, many products claim to be able to use PowerPoint presentations as input to their courseware system. But TEMPO takes it a step further. Not only are you creating your slides in PowerPoint®, but you can create your quizzes as ppt files as well.

So how does that work, you ask?

Those clever engineers at Globecomm have come up with a easy to use coding scheme. To signal to TEMPO that you want a slide to be a quiz, you just insert a text string such as %Q. at the beginning of the slide title. You label answers with similar short little tags. You specify distractors in the same way. It’s simple and straight forward. The same coding scheme works for both interactive live broadcasts and interactive, on-demand modules.

So you already have your TEMPO courseware authoring tool – and you already know how to use it!

Rick Darby
Rick Darby is President of SEDATA, LLC , consultants specializing in video-centric Interactive Distance Learning and technology-based training.

TEMPO Courseware Development

In my last post I told you how TEMPO uses PowerPoint and a simple coding scheme to allow you to build state-of-the-art interactive courseware while eliminating the need for expensive courseware development tools. In this post I’d like to show you how the TEMPO courseware development approach expands your reach and solves many common training problems.

Most mature training organizations that have a large number of people to train on a consistent basis have gravitated to video-centric training. There have been some very good reasons for this. People are used to getting their information from video. Its production techniques are well understood. The huge installed base of consumer television equipment has had pricing advantages. The broadcast industry has been a driving force for innovation for years.

But just as the bandwidth for video centric training across the Internet has become affordable for even the smallest organizations, the playing field has expanded. The job of delivering training has become much, much tougher.

More and more people are on the go and need training wherever they are: in the office, at home or on the road. Now you need to deliver training to TVs, desktops, laptops, smart phones and tablets. Most of these are attached to the Internet, but not all the time. Not everyone is on the same continent, let alone in the same satellite footprint. That means not everyone can participate at the same time, so you need the on-demand experience to be as rich as the live experience.

There have been piecemeal approaches to delivering training across all of these environments, so it’s possible to address each scenario individually with point solutions. But it is most ideal to address them with a single, integrated, video-based training and delivery platform. You need an enterprise-wide solution. You need a system that understands that it must be part of a complex environment with subsidiaries, divisions, regions and districts. You need a platform that integrates with your learning management system and yet can also track the training activities with more granular data.

TEMPO is the first of its kind video-centric delivery platform that addresses all these training needs using a single integrated tool. It allows you to deliver synchronous training to a remote class or a remote individual. Mobile workers on laptops, smart phones and tablets can participate in a live training event or catch up on their own time by viewing an interactive video-on-demand.

For the first time, there is an integrated platform that provides the high quality video-centric training demanded by business in the 21st century.

Rick Darby
Rick Darby is President of SEDATA, LLC , consultants specializing in video-centric Interactive Distance Learning and technology-based training.

Tempo Rocks...and James Brown Knows it!

Solutions Engineering: Noun: Assurance that products and services fit each customer, and that these services are applicable to both horizontal and vertical markets targeted for the use of Tempo!

Now let me introduce myself: James Brown, (yes, I can dance) Solutions Engineer.  I joined the Tempo team this week, and spent time in Hauppauge, NY meeting my new team members and investigating the technology that is Tempo.

I was excited to see the mechanics of technology creation in motion. The Tempo team defining, designing, documenting, and planning for the delivery of a digital signage feature.  But this was only a small subset of the truly focused, service-oriented delivery machine that is Tempo.  My initiation, (they call this jumping from the pot to the fire where I come from) to real service support was watching the team react in real time supporting a live customer's network. The immediate call to action of the team and the rapid resolution of the issue gave me a thrill to see that process, protocol, and engineering proficiency are native to the team I've joined.  I also jumped into the mix of determining the success criteria (internal and external) for the Tempo Satellite Challenge. It sounds "Field of Dream-ish", but actually is a fabulous idea based on taking a built out satellite network and extending a formerly limited audience network to any mobile employee anywhere. Cool!

My background:  For those that are meeting me for the first time, I bring a history of electronic design engineering, satellite system engineering, cellular networks and services design, and yes software products - as my last job was with KenCast as the Director of Sales and Marketing.

I am, as I mentioned, thrilled to be a part of the Tempo team, and look forward to focusing all my efforts on the global success of this service product that can reach any device, anywhere at anytime.    

Flying with Ann

The End User Could be Next to You!

Yesterday, I boarded a flight home following a week on the road.  The adjacent seat was occupied by a very sweet, southern lady named Ann.  She quickly introduced herself and advised that this was only the second time she had ever flown in an airplane and to excuse her if she got too nervous.  I did my best to assure her that everything would be alright.

We struck up a nice conversations that winded through her life in rural Georgia, her children, the Braves, and then onto her employer.  It turns out that Ann is a regular user of our Tempo platform.  This was my lucky day.

I inquired about her Tempo experience.  She shared that she is often intimidated by technology.  In both her work and home lives, change and new technology have recently been hitting her at "too wicked a pace."  As a result, she avoided Tempo for as long as she could.

When she finally had no other choice, she approached it apprehensively, logging in from a mobile device that she had only recently mastered.  After completing her first training course, she said that she felt empowered.  "Tempo is really easy to use."

She also shared that many of her co-workers have had a similar experience.  Whew!

The conversation served as an important reminder that although our Tempo team is deeply engrossed in the world of technology, our users are not.  Our solutions must always be simple and inviting, as should our service.  When someone calls our help desk, we need to always remember that our users may not be as technically sophisticated as we are.  We must be clear and competent.  Fortunately, we are.

After landing, Ann shook my hand and said she was going to tell everyone at work that she "sat next to The Tempo Man."  But the pleasure was all mine.  Thanks Ann.

Ed Behan, Vice President of Enterprise Services, Globecomm