Ending our audiobook service…

Cultivate has decided to end the corporate audiobook rental program that we have been running now for over 5 years.  We made the decision some time ago, and should be done shipping titles soon.  There were a number of reasons behind the decision and included:

1 – The increasing cost of new inventory coincided with a downturn in the economy.  We found it more difficult to finance the addition of new titles.

2 – More business titles are not being released in audio format.  Publishers are releasing a hardcover and an ebook, and then waiting to see if the demand is there before committing to the expense of an audiobook.  The result?  Our clients asking for titles that never got produced in audio format.

3 – Unknowns around digital rights has prevented the industry from moving to a digital rental future.  Even the largest physical rental companies on the web still only sell digital copies – the digital rental market never matured the way we expected, and that prevented us from servicing all the worldwide employees our clients wanted to offer the service to.

While we’re sad to shut the service down we are excited to start fresh with something else!  We’ve launched a new service called TeamSpark, which grew out of many of the requests our clients had that Cultivate couldn’t fufill.  You can learn more at http://goteamspark.com and sign up for a free individual account.

We are in the process of selling off our inventory, so if you are looking to supplement your internal library please contact us – we’d be happy to let you know what we have left.  Thanks again to everyone who supported Cultivate the past few years!

Sincerely – Chris Patton / Founder

New product launch – TeamSpark

Today we’re taking the wrapper off of our latest product – TeamSpark.

TeamSpark is designed to let managers, business owners, consultants, and really anyone take advantage

of the great videos available online by using them with a group.  We’ve created a curated directory of videos you can browse to find good content quickly.   The library is small today, but it will get much larger over time.

TeamSpark then helps you create a group of people who you want to view the video, and then have them participate in a private comment chain via email.  Why? Brainstorm new initiatives, gather feedback, and get people’s opinions – the video will get them talking and the comment system keeps it organized for you.  TeamSpark is mobile ready from the start.  Participants watch the videos online and can participate via email regardless of where they are.

We developed TeamSpark to take advantage of a few changes that have taken place recently.  First – the boom in online video.  The fact is there’s a TON of great free content on sites like YouTube. But finding the good content can be difficult.  Second – the spread of smartphones throughout the enterprise.  Today it’s standard that most employees have a device that lets them watch web video almost anywhere they are.  Third – the growth of remote teams.  Your co-worker may not be in the next cube anymore, they might be on another continent.  TeamSpark lets you use online video as a catalyst to start a conversation, brainstorm ideas, and get feedback all without calling a meeting or having yet another conference call.

We’d love you to check the program out, start a group and give us your feedback – there’s a link on our site with a simple form to fill out.  Use of the program is completely free during our beta period.  Check it out today at http://goTeamSpark.com

Thanks!

Chris Patton  -  Founder / Cultivate

A change to our email newsletter

We’re making a small change to our bi-monthly email newsletter, and want to explain the reason why in more detail here.  What’s the change?  We’re removing the client branding that each newsletter used to have.  Newsletters from here on out will have the Cultivate logo instead of our clients.  Here’s why:

1)  Technical problems – there were some changes made by our email newsletter provider that make it more difficult to swap the correct image in for every newsletter.

2)  Employee confusion – we’ve been getting feedback from our client’s employees that they didn’t understand who the newsletter was from.  The ‘From’ address is from Cultivate, but the header image and logo are from their own company.  Huh?

3)  Online reading – Custom branding the newsletter makes it impossible to put them all online.  More and more clients are asking to have the newsletter available as a link so they can include it in their own material.

4)  Mobile formatting – It’s clear that more and more of our newsletters are getting read on smartphones.  We’re working to reformat our newsletter to be more smartphone friendly, and customization makes that much more difficult.

While we understand this is a bit of a change (especially for our long tenured clients) the end result will let us create a much better newsletter and help drive up utilization of the program.  Feel free to contact us  or comment with any feedback.

Chris – Cultivate

Admin enhancement – Auto email new users

We’ve made adding new users to Cultivate easier for our client administrators.  The big enhancement is the ‘Send Welcome Email’ – if you leave this as the default ‘Yes’ then new users will automatically be notified about their account and how to get started.

The jobcode field is optional – some clients use this field for data they want to report on (job titles, departments, employee codes, etc.)

New Feature – Comments for titles

We’ve pushed our last feature for 2009 – the ability to comment on a title.  Now users can write up their thoughts on each title, and start a conversation around each one.   We’ve implemented a system from a great service called Intense Debate.

Users will see the comments below every title description, and can enter their own comments at the bottom.  If you have strong feelings about a title we’d encourage you to write up your thoughts – you’ll help the entire Cultivate community make better decisions about what titles will help them.

This is just an initial implementation – in the future we’ll be adding things like the ability to search comments, to rate them, and to comment/review a title via email.   We hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday season!

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Common Questions:

Do we moderate? Comments are posted immediately, but we do review them and will edit/remove posts that we find either off topic or offensive.  Because we service such a great group of professionals we don’t expect this to happen though!

What if I find a comment that is offensive? Please let us know right away, and what title it was posted under.

Will other people know who I am if I comment? No – all comments are anonymous.  Just put your first name in the ‘name’ field and type your comment.

iPhone Access is live

You can now access Cultivate from your iphone, as well as most web enabled smartphones. We’re excited about this feature for a number of reasons.  Here’s what you can (and can’t) do:

- You can manage your account and view your active orders

- You can browse the library and check out titles.  You can’t currently download them directly to your phone or stream them.

- You can browse and listen directly to Podcasts.  This works GREAT on the iphone.  Simply browse the podcasts directory and the iphone’s built in RSS reader will automatically format any of the Podcasts so you can view more information and stream them directly to your phone.  Now you have mobile employee development where the content is constantly being updated.

We have a short screencast that shows the features here:  http://screenr.com/YnU

To get started simply visit http://www.cultivateminds.com with your phone’s browser.  Cultivate has always been focused on audio, and that means we’re focused on mobile.  We’ll be working hard in 2010 to improve the mobile access to our program.  If your company currently uses the iPhone as a ‘company phone’ please let us know…we’d love to work with you.

Drag, Drop, Delete – new queue functionality is live

When we released our queues, the functionality was basic.  Now that has changed – you can rearrange your queue and also delete titles.

How?  Click on the ‘Manage Account’ link once you’ve logged in.  Check title you want to delete titles, and drag-and-drop to re-arrange your queue priority.  Then just click update at the bottom.  This has been a heavily requested feature, so we hope you like it. If you find something that doesn’t work please let us know at support@cultivateminds.com.

You can view a short (1 minute) overview of how the features work here:

http://screenr.com/60B

We’re in the cloud…

Late last week Cultivate went live on the Rackspace Cloud, which brings our site hosting infrastructure up to world class levels.  Rackspace hosts some of the biggest web sites & services in the world, so we’re in good hands.

While you (the users) haven’t seen much of a change (yet!) things have become much easier for us to manage, to test, and to push live.  And that means we’ll have more time to roll out more features and functionality to the program.  We’re excited to have finally made this move!

For anyone who is more interested in exactly what ‘Cloud Computing’ is, check out the links below.

Wikipedia:  Cloud Computing

YouTube: Cloud Computing Plain & Simple

23 New Titles Added to the Library

23 New Titles For August 2009

We’ve just added 23 new titles to the library – 20 audiobooks and 3 DVDs.  Some additional titles from authors who are currently popular (Louis Frankel, Jim Collins, Neil Fiore) as well as some new authors.

The Talent Code should be popular – one of the most rented titles in the last few months was Talent Is Overrated.  In today’s “hiring-budgets-are-frozen economy” it is more important than ever to find the right people.

Here’s what has been added – we hope you enjoy them!

DVD’s
Women’s Health: Train for Your Body Type
Dancing With the Stars – Cardio Dance
Total Body Cardio Toning

Audiobooks
The Talent Code: Unlocking the Secret of Skill in Sports, Art, Music, Math, and Just About Anything
Flow: The Psychology Of Optimal Experience
Nice Girls Don’t Get….Box Set
Conquering Procrastination: How to Stop Stalling & Start Achieving!
Throw Out Fifty Things
How the Mighty Fall CD: And Why Some Companies Never Give In
How to Have That Difficult Conversation You’ve Been Avoiding: With Your Spouse, Adult Child, Boss, Coworker, Best Friend, Parent, or Someone You’re Dating
Your Money or Your Life: 9 Steps to Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence
The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude: How to Find, Build and Keep a YES! Attitude for a Lifetime of Success
The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way: How to Speak, Write, Present, Persuade, Influence, and Sell Your Point of View to Others
The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick)
Leadership And Self-Deception: Getting Out Of The Box
Developing The Leader Within You
The 60 Second Procrastinator
Preparing, Not Over-Preparing, for Sales
Managing Information Overload
Fearless Speaking
The Power of Self Confidence
Get A Life!
The Slight Edge

Free for free

Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail, has come out with his new book called Free: The Future Of A Radical Price.  It’s a fantastic look at the price of Free, and we highly recommend it.  In keeping with his theme, he has provided numerous ways to access the book for free.  He lists them all on his blog – : http://www.thelongtail.com/ There is a way to access the audiobook – both through iTunes and through an MP3 download.

We’re finding the title especially interesting because free is part of our business model – the users of Cultivate access it for free – it’s their employer’s who pay.  Chris’ title is certain to make you think about all the free services and products you use every day.