Our customers trust Convergence to help train their employees. They recognize the effectiveness of our custom and retail training materials, which incorporate audio, 3D animations, 2D graphics, photos, video, text on screen, and interactive assessments to create training that makes a difference. And they appreciate the power and flexibility that our Convergence Server Enterprise Learning Management System (LMS) provides for training their employees: content import and creation, training delivery, tracking, reporting, and more.

But in addition to all this, many of our customers need a separate solution for providing online orientations to contractors or for other training needs. And that’s why we’ve developed Convergence Server Express, a simple, easy-to-use, flexible LMS that still packs all the power you’ll need for delivering, tracking, and reporting.

Some features of Convergence Server Express include:

• Hosted on our servers (this reduces your liability issues)
• Simple, self-guided registration process for contractors
• Automatic training assignments after registration
• Simple administrative security role for basic administration needs
• Streamlined “report viewer” security role to run reports and see who’s completed training
• Low costs that don’t get billed back to your company by contractors/outside workers

If you provide orientations to contractors before they can work at your site, the Convergence Server Express LMS may be just what you need to make your job easier.

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Our Heat Stress Causes course is now available from our BuyBetterTraining.com online store. Check it out!

Although it’s the dead of winter, summer heat is coming sooner than you think. You’ll be sweating like a pig and sticking to your car’s leather seats before you know it.

We know our customers face special challenges in the summer time trying to keep their work forces safe while working in high temperatures and humidity.

With that in mind, we’re working now to produce two training modules related to heat stress:

• Heat Stress Causes
• Heat Stress Symptoms and Prevention

The Heat Stress Causes training module will explain:

• What heat stress is
• What causes it (including the relationship between heat and humidity)
• Factors that affect individual tolerances to heat

The Heat Stress Symptoms and Prevention training module will address:

• The different types of heat stress, including heat rash, heat cramps, heat syncope (fainting), heat exhaustion, and heat stroke
• Factors that contribute to heat stress
• Ways to reduce the risk of heat stress, including ventilation, air cooling, shielding, insulation, hydration, and proper clothing

We’re sure these Heat Stress training courses will be selling like hot cakes once they’re on the shelf and that you’re probably burning to get your hands on them. We’ll keep you updated, posting some previews as production continues and then letting you know when the two modules are ready.

Be sure to come back and add these to your collection before the dog days of summer are on. And know that we’re also working on a Cold Stress training module to cover the rest of the year.

Until then, treat yourself to a listen of this scorching classic.

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One of the first things companies want to know about a learning management system (LMS) is: Can I use it for management of change and document management, and how will it work with my existing management of change and document management systems?

First, let’s define our terms.

Management of Change (MOC) is a process in which key company documents, such as standard operating procedures (SOPs), are created by some people, reviewed and edited by others, and then saved in a final format.

A Document Management System is a system that stores documents and gives some people the right to edit them and others the right only to view and read them. Microsoft SharePoint is a commonly used document management system.

Got that? Now that our terms are straight, let’s see how the Convergence Server Enterprise LMS works with these systems, below.

(more…)

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As part of our process of updating our existing training materials, we’ve turned our attention to our Bloodborne Pathogens training course.

Our Bloodborne Pathogens course is popular with our customers—it’s our best-selling health and safety course, and has been for years. Still, we found some things we could add, and wanted to make sure our training didn’t just meet expectations, but exceeded them.

Here are some of the new things to look for:

• Materials on hepatitis C virus (HCV) to accompany existing materials on hepatitis B (HBV) and HIV/AIDS
• Information about the hepatitis B vaccination sequence and an employer’s responsibility to offer the vaccination to employees
• New assessments
• 3D animations that match our current production capabilities (even though we’ve been creating 3D animated safety training for more than 10 years, we get better every year)

We’ll post updates here during the revision process and again when the revised module is complete.

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Recently we began work on a series of 3D animated training modules covering the industrial uses of valves. If you’ve been reading our blog closely, you know we posted on our blog asking for input from our customers and blog readers.

We’re happy to report that we did get feedback during that phase of production and that lead to the inclusion of several topics that we might not have included otherwise. So, thanks to a certain training manager at a large paper mill located in the Pacific Northwest for the help!

We mention this all now for two reasons:

1. To let you know we value our customer feedback.
2. Because we’re beginning the research phase of new training materials on the industrial uses of pumps and are looking for feedback again.

So, if you’ve always wanted quality training materials on pumps that’s well researched, well-written, and presented in multimedia with 3D animations, audio, and assessments, this is good news for you. Feel free to drop us a line or comment here on the blog to let us know what topics you think we should cover.

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Welcome to our 2nd edition of the Convergence Training Celebrity Minute. Today we ask “why.”

Why did Alec Baldwin fail to respond to flight attendant requests? Simple. He hasn’t taken our Hearing Conservation course, which suggests wearing hearing protection only in high noise areas, not all the time. And by his continued comments and his apparent deafness to the high-volume feedback from the plain old regular people, looks like he’s still got his ear buds in.

Why is Kris Humphries a prime candidate for our Pedestrian Safety video? Simple. Since Kim Kardashian kicked him to the curb abruptly ending their celebrity nuptials, we want to ensure that in the event that happens to him again, his walk home is as safe as possible.

Why is Tom Cruise more awesome than all the rest of us? Simple. Because the self-professed “expert of the mind” performs his own stunts, dangling (possibly hovering) effortlessly from the world’s tallest tower, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. An unconfirmed report indicates that when asked if he had taken our Fall Prevention and Protection training, his response was, “No, but I held the DVD in my hands and absorbed all the necessary information… with my mind.”

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With temperatures plummeting and the mercury dropping, and with the ice, snow, and high winds of winter upon us, it seemed like a great time to expand our training course library to include a new module on Cold Stress.

The training module will cover these chilly topics:

• The three types of cold stress—frostbite, trench foot (also called immersion foot), and hypothermia
• The cause of cold stress, including the three members of the “cold stress equation” (cold, wind, and wetness)
• Factors that affect an individual’s ability to tolerate cold weather
• Signs, symptoms, and treatments for all three types of cold stress
• Prevention of cold stress

Be sure to check back for the cool low-down on this module. We’ll post updates during production to show some of our fancy 3D sets and again when the course is completed. Also, keep your eyes out for our two new Heat Stress modules, which are also in production.

Until then, maybe you’d like to check out this cool video?

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Everyone likes it if their hard work is appreciated. That’s true at Convergence Training, too.

We’ve recently created and released the new Convergence Server Enterprise Learning Management System (LMS), and our customers have been very pleased. One customer said our LMS “was the missing link” for great training; others have simply said “Wow!”

In addition, though, we’ve been in the middle of a big production push to create more of our 3D animated EHS safety training videos. And we’re happy to note that our customers are appreciating our new titles, too.

On a recent morning, we came to work to find this comment posted to our sales webpage in response to a newly purchased copy of our Emergency Action Plan training module:

“I used this video for my training business. It covers all the pertinent information about emergency action without being boring. The graphics keep your interest.”

We at Convergence are glad that our customers like this (and our other) safety training modules, and we thank you for the kind words. Know that we’ll keep doing our best to create more great training materials and keep the compliments coming.

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