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

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.

Queues are live!

Eiffel Tower Queue - Alexandre Duret-Lutz from Flickr. Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike

Yesterday Cultivate added a long awaited feature for our users – queues.  This will allow users to check out multiple titles at a time, and have them sent in sequence.  No more logging on every time you want a title.  It’s been a long requested feature – there must be a lot of Netflix users out there!

Here are the details of how we’ve implemented it so far.  Keep in mind this is version 1.0…we will be rolling out some enhancements to it shortly.

- Users will be allowed to have 5 titles in their queue at a time.

-We’ll ship the titles in sequence, unless we have an inventory problem….then we’ll send the next title on your list.

-Users will receive a shipping confirmation email letting them know a title is on the way

-Users can check the status of their queue by logging on and clicking on the Manage Account link in the nav bar.

This release is the first of many to come.  We’re almost finished with a complete rewrite of our entire codebase into a more flexible and scalable architecture.   In simpler terms it means that very soon we are going to be able to add new features much more quickly!

Thanks to all of our users for your patience, and enjoy the queues!

Congratulations!

Congratulations to Cultivate client Beers + Cutler for winning a 2009 Apollo Award!  The Apollo awards are presented by Helios HR and SmartCEO Magazine.  The award recognizes Washington DC area companies that do a superior job promoting and investing in employee development.  Way to go B+C!!

A list of all the winners can be found here:  http://www.helioshr.com/PR-2009-06-05.php

21 New Titles For May ’09

After taking a break from audiobooks so we could add 100+ podcasts to the library, we’re back to audio.  21 great additions to the library!  Up next?  Queues!

How To Have A Great Day Everyday!

Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist

How to Get to the Top: Business Lessons Learned at the Dinner Table

Emotional Freedom

Nonviolent Communication

Speaking Peace

Showing Up for Life

10-10-10: A Life-Transforming Idea

The Power of Small: Why Little Things Make All the Difference

The Smartest 401(k)* Book You’ll Ever Read: Maximize Your Retirement Savings the Smart Way! (*Smartest 403(b) and 457(b), too!)

Ten Lessons to Transform Your Marriage: America’s Love Lab Experts Share Their Strategies for Strengthening Your Relationship

The Education of an Accidental CEO: Lessons Learned from the Trailer Park to the Corner Office

The Game-Changer: How You Can Drive Revenue and Profit Growth with Innovation

The Three Big Questions for a Frantic Family: A Leadership Fable…About Restoring Sanity To The Most Important Organization In Your Life

The Three Big Questions for a Frantic Family: A Leadership Fable…About Restoring Sanity To The Most Important Organization In Your Life

The Spectrum: A Scientifically Proven Program to Feel Better, Live Longer, Lose Weight, and Gain Health

Making a Good Brain Great: The Amen Clinic Program for Achieving and Sustaining Optimal Mental Performance

Leadership Is an Art

The Exhaustion Cure: Up Your Energy from Low to Go in 21 Days

Be Happy Without Being Perfect: How to Break Free from the Perfection Deception

Ageless Memory: Simple Secrets for Keeping Your Brain Young-Foolproof Methods for People Over 50

Eight Weeks to Optimum Health, New Edition, Updated and Expanded: A Proven Program for Taking Full Advantage of Your Body’s Natural Healing Power

Podcasts Directory Added

Over the last week we’ve added a significant new section to the Cultivate library – a directory of podcasts that fit within our theme of personal & professional development.

To start we’ve added 75 podcasts, and we’ll be adding more in the coming months.  Why did we add podcasts?

- It adds a downloadable component to the library for people who want to use their MP3 player or blackberry

- It allows us to add content that just isn’t available on audiobooks.  We can begin to address more niche areas that our customers employees are interested in.

- Podcasts keep fresh content constantly coming in to the library.

You can access the podcasts by clicking on the ‘Podcast’ category once you’ve logged in to the library.  Feel free to contact us with any questions – hope you enjoy the additions!

18 New Audio Titles For February 2009

Today 18 new titles were added to the library – ranging from Social/Emotional Intelligence to Sales to Persuasion.  Enjoy!

The UltraMind Solution: Fix Your Broken Brain by Healing Your Body First
Managing Transitions, 2nd Edition: Making the Most of Change
Yes!: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive
Enough Already!: Clearing Mental Clutter to Become the Best You
Who:  The A Method For Hiring
Squawk!: How to Stop Making Noise and Start Getting Results
The Power of Presence
Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3,000: Running a Business in Today’s Consumer-Driven World
The Heart of Change
Saving the World at Work: What Companies and Individuals Can Do to Go Beyond Making a Profit to Making a Difference
Stumbling on Happiness
Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships
Mindfulness @ Work  -  A Leading with Emotional Intelligence Conversation with Jon Kabat-Zinn
The Power of Truth: A Leading with Emotional Intelligence Conversation with Warren Bennis
Working with Presence: A Leading with Emotional Intelligence Conversation with Peter Senge
What Makes a Leader?: A Leading With Emotional Intelligence Conversation with Jack and Suzy Welch
The Breakthrough Company: How Everyday Companies Become Extraordinary Performers
What the Customer Wants You to Know: How Everybody Needs to Think Differently about Sales

Poll Results and 14 New DVD’s

DVD's, Podcasts, or Online Video?

For the past few months we’ve had a poll on most of the library homepages asking whether you’d like us to focus on adding more DVDs, Online Video, or Podcasts.  Well the results are in and it’s…..a tie!  Overwhelming support was given to two of the options – DVD’s and Podcasts.

So today we’ve added 14 more DVD’s – including some more workout videos, a number of pregnacy fitness/health videos, and some cooking DVD’s.  Please let us know what you think and what else you’d like to see added!

We’re currently working on adding Podcasts – that’s a larger project but we’re on the case.  Podcasts are exciting because it will allow us to point people towards material that just isn’t available in an audiobook.

Here are the DVD’s we added.  All of them have been added to the DVD category (clever, we know) and to the New titles For 2008.  Enjoy!

New DVDs for Cultivate December 2008

We’re throwing our hat in the ring…

We’ve been nominated for an award called The Crunchies – which focuses on tech based startups.  You can help us out by voting for us.  The good news?  It’s only 2 clicks!

It’s quick and easy – click on the badge below, and then on the Nominate button.  You can vote every day (and we would certainly appreciate that) but we’ll be happy with 1.  Feel free to let other people know as anyone can vote for us.   Thanks for your vote!