The Other SME

Many of you are familiar with SME, the Society of Manufacturing Engineers. I’d like to talk about the other SME, the Subject Matter Expert. As a member of the content team at ToolingU, I have met many Subject Matter Experts. An SME is a vital component of our training development process. Largely behind-the-scenes, SMEs validate the content of our products by testing its accuracy and relevance. From my experience, all the great SMEs possess four essential qualities: Knowledge, Experience, Accessibility, and Enthusiasm.

As the name implies, an SME is an expert in a subject. SMEs know the "theory" (from the Greek theoria, which means to view something as a witness) of our topics, and ensure our research is accurate and reflects the most up-to-date advances in a particular field.

An SME is an experienced practitioner of knowledge, putting knowledge to work in a practical manner. SMEs "practice" (from the Greek praxis, which means to enact theory) what they know, and have the ability to make our material relevant to our students. Theory and practice, or knowledge and experience, are inextricably linked.

Knowledge and experience are nothing without accessibility. An SME is accessible, which in today's world is achieved in many ways: via phone, conference call, email, and on-site visits. Being able to readily tap into an SME's knowledge and experience is invaluable.

Lastly, and incidentally my favorite part of SME interaction, SMEs enjoy sharing their knowledge and experience in order to help others and to improve the workforce of tomorrow. Enthusiasm is infectious. Every SME I know loves sharing their knowledge and experience, and is committed to the advancement and long-term success of manufacturing.

The SME contribution to our training materials is passed to our students, and that contribution is likely to stay with the student long after they log off their accounts, into the future of success in the field.

Ben Johnson

Senior Content Developer

ToolingU.com Website Update

ToolingU.com has been updated with new features to improve user experience and simplify common user tasks.

On ToolingU.com

• Assessment Tests – an Excel export has been added.


• Solution Pages – new pages featuring the Administration Center and the Student Center have been added.

For Administrators:

• Student Passwords – can now be reset by Administrators.


• Subscriptions – a new feature has been added to allow Administrators to lookup Subscription numbers to view details and determine if the number is a valid Subscription.


• Student Names – in the case of misspelled student names, an easy method has been created to allow Administrators to request a correction. Once set, a student name cannot be changed. However, in the situation of a misspelling a Tooling U Customer Service representative can correct the name.


• Student Groups – a new method has been added to provide Administrators with an easy and flexible method to view and print the students that have been assigned to a group or a range of selected groups.


• Bulk Approvals/Disapprovals for Competencies – Administrators can now select competencies as being approved or disapproved in a single click. Prior to this change an administrator was forced to approve or disapprove each request one at a time.


• Student Templates – can now be applied to all students within a selected group.


• Student Permission – a new permission has been added to give the Administrator the option of requiring only that a Final Exam be completed before marking a class as being complete.


• Administrator Accounts – Administrators can now update their own account information without being required to have permissions to manage other Administrator accounts.


• Manage Administrator Accounts – a new feature has been added which allows multiple administrators to be added to a single Administrator Role. Prior to this change, it was only possible to apply an Administrator Role by opening each Administrator account and making the change.


• Competency Manager – offline tasks can now be applied to a class, creating a direct relationship between an offline task and a class. This shows a student which offline tasks they should be completing in conjunction with a specific class.


• Class Goals – can now be configured to reset on a recurring role. For example an organization may require each of their students to complete Fire Safety and Prevention 101 by July 1st every year.

If you have any questions or need assistance using any of the new features please contact support at info@toolingu.com.

Tom Torres

Web Developer

Another Successful Sales Meeting!

The 7th Annual Tooling U golf outing took place on Friday, July 24th at Big Met Golf Course in Ohio's Rocky River Reservation. The culmination of our annual sales meeting, the golf outing is our chance to catch up and interact with team members we may not necessarily see on a regular basis. The day and night were exceptional, even if the golf skills were not.

The gorgeous-weather day began with lunch at the award-winning Rocky River Brewing Company. Granted that waiting on a large party is not easy, the food and service at RRBC were outstanding. The foursomes then assembled at the golf course for a series of tee times beginning at 1:30 PM. Despite a shortage of carts (Big Met is, after all, the busiest course in Ohio…allegedly) the Tooling U golfers managed to tee off and subsequently grind the pace of play to a near-halt. Special thanks to the starter at Big Met for his patience, cordiality, and lightness of mood.

Shooting a scorching 1-over-par, Wes Howard, Dan Pruitt, and Tom Torres managed the best score of the day. The winning team had the right combination of power drives and precise approach shots, which gave the biggest competitive advantage.

The team with the lowest number of putts consisted of Michelle Robinson, Hamid Farzad, Carlos Sarmiento, and Chad Schron. Last and certainly least, Cindy May, James Vickers, Chris Pinner, and Gretchen Schultz managed to shoot an amazing 8-over-par in this scramble. That is no easy feat. Nice job guys!

After a long day on the links, the group headed to the home of James Vickers for dinner and to claim their prizes. Individual prizes went to Tony Keating (longest putt), James Vickers (longest drive), and Tim Cunningham (closest to the pin). Bryan Knaack, Chris Petty, Carlos Sarmiento, and Aleah Kapusi took away some pretty nifty door prizes.

Once again the golf outing proved to be a great way to foster camaraderie here at Tooling U. I would like to thank everyone for their participation and enthusiasm. Lastly, special thanks to Greg Herlevi for his efforts in organizing the event.

Ben Johnson
Senior Content Developer

Dislocated Workers & ToolingU

The Government and Education team has been working with several dislocated worker programs throughout the country. The goal of these programs is to provide workers whose companies have either closed or laid them off with the skills they need to obtain new jobs. In the process, some of these workers have even gained valuable computer skills. Check out this article to learn more about one of these programs.

Bryan Knaack

Director of Business Development

Junk In, Junk Out

One of my jobs at Tooling U is to clean up the database. We are currently using Salesforce to organize all of our leads and contacts. CRM software plays an important role in our Client Executives’ everyday tasks, and as part of the marketing department it has been useful for planning our overall marketing strategy and campaigns.

There are many reasons why it is important to keep your CRM clean and up to date. As data is entered, it is not always double checked against existing records. Therefore, duplicate accounts need to be merged or deleted. Records also need to be updated frequently, as addresses may change and people frequently change jobs.

The data housed within the CRM helps sales and marketing to analyze data and prospect more effectively. There is no real way to measure marketing effectiveness, but if the lead source is correct for each record, we can determine where our customers are finding out about Tooling U. This helps us determine if we are advertising in the right magazines and websites and can also improve our SEO (search engine optimization) on sites like Google and Yahoo.

This year, we did a lot of research to determine the characteristics of our typical customer in order to prospect more effectively. This process involved quite a bit of database cleaning. Continuously updating and taking the time to put in the correct information can make running a report to find this information simple, instead of requiring months of filtering information.

For marketing purposes, another reason to keep your database clean is to make your direct mailing and campaigns much easier. It is time consuming to ensure every contact’s name and information is correct. When putting together direct mail campaigns, I have noticed names on labels that look like this:

Vincent Shay – Gone
Or like this:
Sean (scene) O’Malley

These are great examples of how records can be up to date and yet still clutter up a database. Vincent’s last name is not Shay-Gone. Vincent Shay happens to have left his company, hence, “gone.” And as for Sean, it is important that our staff does not mispronounce his name, but receiving a piece of mail with “Scene” is also a little offensive. It is important that all employees are writing this type of information in the notes or archiving old employees. The most important lesson? Since you can never guarantee correct names, always double check your address labels before you mail them.

For a database to stay continuously updated, it has to be an overall company goal. Training, making crucial fields required, incentives, and communicating the importance of why your database needs to stay updated can be helpful in accomplishing this goal.

Krista Maurer

Marketing

Informal Learning

We recently returned from the ASTD in Washington DC. One of the many popular topics with the presenters and exhibitors was around the idea of Informal Learning. The statistic used was “70 Percent of learning within an organization is informal or social learning.”

I would tend to agree that this statistic would be accurate in manufacturing today. Whether it is time spent debugging a CNC program, discussing a weld, deciding on the best way to fix a machine or discussing an employee issue, all of these events are training events.

If 70 Percent of all training occurring is informal, how do you capture this training? Track the training? Budget for this training? Measure the training? With all of the new and emerging social media like YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook, how do you keep up with it?

Since social media like this is new to all industries, I doubt that any industry—particularly the manufacturing industry—has an answer as to how to capture informal training and learning that occurs in the workplace. But, it certainly has gotten -ideas flowing at ToolingU. Stay tuned for some exciting new products, sites, and features being added for students, administrators and manufacturing community to address the Informal Learning occurring in manufacturing today.

Chad Schron

VP Operations

On the Road Again: Skills USA National Leadership & Skills Conference

Tooling U’s Cindy Bernosky and Amy Solis attended the Skills USA National Leadership & Skills Conference in Kansas City June 21-June 26th. Students that have won their regional contests advance to the state competitions and students that win at the state level advance to the National contests. The National Leadership & Skills Conference showcases contests in 91 different disciplines ranging from Advanced Manufacturing to Cosmetology. The students compete with a written test, hands-on skills, and then a leadership competition. Advanced manufacturing was well represented with competitions including CNC Milling, CNC Turning, Precision Machining, Mechatronics, Robotics, and Automation and Welding.

“There is sometimes a negative perception of career and technical education. If those people could have seen the talent, commitment and professionalism of these students, they would be blown away. These students are training for highly skilled occupations that are vital for the future of the American economy,” said Rich Stape of Mahoning Valley Career & Technology Center. Rich is not only active in the Skills USA program at a regional, state, and national level, but is also a longtime Tooling U customer.


We would like to send our congratulations to all of the students that competed at the national level, but especially to ToolingU.com student Chris Harkless from Miami Valley Career & Technology Center for his silver medal in the Precision Machining Technology competition.

Toni Neary
Government & Education