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Blackboard’s K-12 president, Jessie Woolley-Wilson, invites you to attend our annual users conference, BbWorld ’08, in Las Vegas, July 15-17:

The BbWorld Program Committee, comprised of 55 Blackboard clients, reviewed more than 325 submissions from peers seeking to present at the conference this year.  Among the client presentations selected are a high number of very useful sessions for K-12 educators, that directly address the priorities, opportunities and challenges within K-12 education.

I went to my first NASCAR race this month in Richmond, Virginia.  I will be honest and say that my expectations were low.  Before going, I just kept wondering, you stand at the track watching really loud cars drive around and around and around, so: “Where’s the real excitement?”

Wow, were my expectations blown out the tailpipe!

First, the feeling of adrenaline in the crowd at the track thrilled me.  Then there was the excitement of the race itself, with car crashes, position changes amongst the leaders, more crashes and more lead changes.

My NASCAR evening was one of the most exciting times I’ve ever had at a sporting event.  Now I am officially a NASCAR fan.

So, of course, the point of this post is to demonstrate that you never know what will happen when you try new things.  This is the attitude I’m taking to a “Customer Care” conference I’ll be attending next month for our Client Success initiative.  Customer care is what we do, but I can always learn more.  And my work at a conference like this is to take every opportunity to discover new ideas about how other organizations are facing the challenge of communicating with, and providing the best service to, their clients.

For clients there are many ways to become more involved with us at Blackboard, such as joining a user group, participating in the Blackboard Idea Exchange, or reading and posting to one of the client-driven listservs.

And, during BbWorld ‘08 in Las Vegas this July, I encourage you to take every opportunity: try out a session you normally wouldn’t attend, grab a Blackboard employee and ask her or him that question you’ve been dying to get an answer to, or – like a NASCAR driver – just take another lap around the buffet table for that third serving or piece of dessert.

Many Blackboard team members are involved with the planning for BbWorld ’08, our annual e-Learning conference for members of the global Blackboard user community, so BlackboardTV recorded a series of short videos in which some of the planners just sit and discus a few things about the conference that they look forward to, and extend an invitation to join them in Las Vegas, July 15–17.

Here’s a message from Blackboard’s senior vice president of Product Development, Jessica Finnefrock, who, in her office, has the most comfortable arm chair I may have ever sat in:

(The music at the end?  From one of my favorite songs: "Big Butter and Egg Man" recorded in 1926 by Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five.)

You can find Jessica’s video invitation and more BbWorld clips at the BlackboardTV Channel on YouTube.

By Eric Wilson, Technology Trainer/Part-time Faculty and Blackboard Certified Trainer, Orange Coast College

BbWorld ’08 is nearly around the corner now—it looks to be exciting and, as you know, what better way is there to learn about and share lots of different teaching and training techniques with e-Learning tools.

I look forward to attending this year’s users conference as both an attendee and presenter.  I’m thrilled to be able to present during a pre-conference workshop, on collaborative learning and how the Blackboard Learning System – Vista Enterprise License can be an easy and effective tool for this.  The title of my workshop is “Learning Together Online – Collaborative Learning.”  Check out the list of pre-conference workshops for details about mine and others.

My hands-on workshop will include a workbook I’m developing with lots of useful information, best practices and resources.  Here is a sneak peak of the topics I’ll be covering:

Hello, All.  My name is Matt Painter and I’m the newest addition to the Blackboard Client Success Blog team.

I started at Blackboard in June of 2005, as a technical support manager (TSM) and worked my way up the ranks to become the director of North American Support.  Last August I decided to leave Blackboard to pursue a career in reporting and analytics.  Luckily I had kept in contact with many of the good people at Blackboard and was aware of the company-wide Client Success initiative being planned.  After discussing the position with Craig and Jan, I agreed to come back to Blackboard as the business intelligence analyst for the Client Success team.

In order for Blackboard as a company to become more proactive and foster greater client success, we’ll need to use the information we gather to find and react to problems before they are brought to our attention by users.  It is my job to work with each of our departments across the company to determine the key factors that enable our clients to be successful, and then create reports that notify Blackboard employees if a client is not succeeding in the areas affected by those factors.  This process might be easier for me to explain with an example.