It all started with Albert Haynesworth. Albert Haynesworth, you see, is a NFL defensive tackle, a big man who used to play his football at the University of Tennessee and for the Tennessee Titans. A year ago, he left the Titans via free agency to play for the Washington Redskins. He was given a massive contract, and he had a mediocre year.
This year, he came back to camp, and the coach wanted him to prove that he was in shape. He failed.
So yesterday, we caught wind of a couple of folks who had tried the challenge themselves. Mike Golic of “Mike & Mike in the Morning” on ESPN tried it… but he’s a former NFL player. Some of the employees at The Virginian-Pilot tried it with varying degrees of success.
Frankly, this struck me as just my kind of stupid. And so I brought the stopwatch to work today. And invited all comers to join in the fun. And the smack talk.
From one David Ells:
And so the fun begins:
- David Ells, 27 years young: Shuttle 1: 66 seconds, Shuttle 2: 83 seconds. #fail
- Troy Foster, 34 years: Shuttle 1: 64 seconds, Shuttle 2: 68 seconds. #pass
- Joe Donnelly, 37 years: Shuttle 1: 75 seconds, Shuttle 2: 77 seconds. #fail, but Joe could keep up this pace forever
- Mike Rustici, 33 years: Shuttle 1: 70 seconds, Shuttle 2: 73 seconds. #pass. And let me tell you, I have respect for someone who does just the right amount.
- Tim Martin, 35 years: Shuttle 1: 64 seconds, Shuttle 2: 69 seconds. #pass
I came away for the experience with two conclusions.
- That Ells kid got what he deserved.
- This is exactly the kind of thing every single workplace needs more of.
Truthfully, Rustici Software is pretty good at doing fun stuff. We play disc golf, we have a ping pong table, our office environment is exceptionally casual. But we often fall into the same trap that so many offices do. One day simply can’t be distinguished from another.
Today is a day of work that I’ll remember. I’ll remember it because what we did was stupid (no, really, the heat index was over 100… the HR department is not happy.) I’ll remember it because it was different. I’ll remember it because we abused ourselves and each other.
Note to self: Do more of this kind of stuff. Give yourself and others a way to mark the days at work… not just wander through them. Work is way too big a part of our lives to plod through day after day.
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We write about working here more often than we ever post that we’re hiring. Small company, only so many slots to fill, yada, yada, yada. Seriously, when you have a great place to work, who wants to leave?
So now’s your chance. We’re hiring. Developer types. All sizes. Bonus points if you can beat Tim at ping pong.
- Why you want to work here. (Well most of why. It doesn’t mention the cookies.)
- How to make it happen
- Some background on how we look at hiring.
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We believe in being up front. Honesty. Transparency. Frankness.
So we’re a bit disappointed that we won’t be joining you guys for some conferences this year. We could, but … well, we’d have to pay to be there. I’m not talking about the registration fee. I’m talking paying to be up on the stage.
Yep. There were several conferences we looked at that were eager for us to speak – as long as we were willing to pay for the privilege. Whether we had something good to say wasn’t the criteria, and that just didn’t sit well with us. Kind of a switcharoo on those who want to hear from people of substance and not just those of means and opportunity.
That kind of wheeling and dealing certainly doesn’t increase credibility for vendors who do take the stage. And hurts attendees by not focusing on what makes for good content first. Our call to conferences would be to cut the games and judge presentations on the fit for the audience first and foremost and only. (And for you, the attendees, to demand and expect that!)
Understand, we’re not trying to whine about it… or whinny. We’re just sorry we won’t have as many opportunities to “spread the gospel” of learning standards and meet as many of you as we originally hoped. However, we will be able to catch you at a few places in the next few months:
- Learning Solutions – Not a speaking gig, but you can hook up with Mike next month in Orlando.
- e-Learning DevCon 2010 – Mike gets the really technical, heavy-lifting presentations. He’s got two at this conference, one talking about what to include about SCORM in an RFP for an LMS (based on his white paper) and a hands-on technical session showing how to take advantage of our open platform to develop modules and plugins and extensions that take learning anywhere.
- International Conference on e-Learning in the Workplace – Tim and I (or one or both) are scheduled to present here. Two sessions, one explaining SCORM in plain English (as plain as I can make it) and one looking at the kind of reporting you can get out of SCORM.
- Campus Technology 2010 – Mike will be in Boston for this one with a longer version of our SCORM in plain English presentation. Check him out on Wednesday afternoon (July 21) and be sure to ask a lot of questions.
Got something specific you’d love to see us cover in a session? Let me know and we’ll make sure to answer it! (Well, OK, I’ll try to make sure it’s on the agenda. Can’t control what happens after that sometimes.) Going to be at the same conference? Definitely let us know because we love putting face/voices/reality to online connections.
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“You want to work here.” That’s how we’ve always begun our job postings, and we constantly strive to live up to that promise. Being a great place to work is at the essence of Rustici Software. Tim and I want to create a company that we enjoy working on everyday and where others are just as pleased. We think we’ve done a pretty darn good job, but we’re pleased to see that others agree. Last month, the Nashville Business Journal announced that it too thinks Rustici Software is one of Nashville’s Best Places to Work. So thank you NBJ. And thank you employees…it’s really easy to create a great company when you have a group of talented and driven folks making you look good!
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People often ask us to recommend an LMS for them. We shy away from doing so because we don’t want to pick favorites amongst our clients and potential clients. More significantly though, we really don’t know all that much about the functionality and utility of a particular LMS beyond its SCORM interface.
“Well then,” the inquisitor asks, “who has the best SCORM interface?”. Well duh, our SCORM Engine clients of course.
“Come on,” he presses, “who else is good at this stuff?”. One of the first names that comes to mind has always been SumTotal. That judgement is far from a scientific; we don’t go out and technically audit the details of every LMS’s SCORM implementation. Rather, it is an empirical judgement based on how many problems our content customers report with an LMS. More than that, though, it is the experience in working with the vendor if a problem is found. Are they receptive and supporting? Do they have a pragmatic attitude that leads to collaboratively fixing the problem rather that just passing blame?
Historically, we’ve rarely had to deal with SumTotal problems. That bodes really well for the quality of their implementation. On the few occasions where we have had occasion to iron out a problem, we’ve had the pleasure of working directly with their lead SCORM developer, Ben Clark.
SumTotal is closing its Bellevue development office and sending Ben’s job over to India. When we heard the news, we jumped at the chance to bring him onboard. He accepted and will be starting with us next week!
The guys here often joke that I am “one of the top ten SCORM professionals”, well in my mind, Ben is a fellow “top-tenner”. We’ve worked together on the ADL Technical Working Group for several years and Ben has always impressed me with his insight, knowledge and reason. He’s equally adept at seeing the big picture and navigating the technical weeds.
SCORM is at a crossroads now. It needs to evolve and needs to be improved. There will be a lot of work done at ADL, LETSI and others over the next couple years. We plan to be heavily involved, contributing our time, energy and vision to ensure SCORM’s successful evolution. Ben will be joining me in this effort and should enable us to provide a lot more bandwidth to standards development activities. We’re looking forward to great things to come.
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