CERTPOINT -VuePoint and Carlson Marketing Group Announce Continued Partnership to Increase Employee Usage of E-Learning

... MyWorkLink^sm, Carlson Marketing Group’s Online Rewards System, Linked with VuePoint’s Learning System 2.0 ...

LONG ISLAND, N.Y. – Oct. 17, 2000 – VuePoint, a comprehensive e-learning company focused on creating competitive organizations, and Carlson Marketing Group, the world leader in Relationship Marketing, are pleased to announce their continued e-learning partnership to motivate employees worldwide.

The VuePoint/Carlson Marketing Group partnership is successfully addressing one of the most pressing issues in the e-learning world: motivating employees to actually take and complete courses. The two companies have linked Carlson Marketing Group’s online employee recognition and reinforcement system, MyWorkLink^sm, with VuePoint’s e-learning system, VLS 2.0.  Through this linkage, employees who complete training courses online are immediately recognized.  Upon completing a course, the employee instantly receives a recognition certificate called a Bravo.  What’s more, his or her supervisor also instantly receives notice of the employee’s accomplishment. Earning a Bravo also gives online learners a chance to earn points that can be redeemed for concrete awards, such as frequent flier miles and restaurant gift certificates, automatically and as soon as they win.

“Together, VuePoint and Carlson Marketing Group help clients realize greater possibilities for creating value through e-learning,” said Ira Kasdan, Vice President, Employee Marketing, Carlson Marketing Group. “Linking online reinforcement with e-learning offers companies a significant new capability that can take them a long way in their efforts to build a well-trained, highly engaged workforce.”

Carlson Marketing Group executives realize that e-learning plays, and will continue to play, an important role in the future of most major corporations and that early implementation of online training creates a huge advantage. Carlson Marketing Group chose VuePoint, a one-stop shop for creating smarter organizations, to capitalize on the speed-to-market advantages, improved productivity, employee retention, and streamlined costs its enterprise-wide VLS software provides.

“You may have the best e-learning software in the world, but it’s not effective unless people use

it,” said VuePoint CEO and founder Ara Ohanian.  “Bravos are a great way to motivate people to continually expand their knowledge, which benefits their own careers as well as their companies.”

Carlson Marketing Group is currently using VuePoint’s updated VLS 2.0, which adapts to each learner to create a unique, personal experience, increasing knowledge transfer and retention. Its recently developed Offline Viewer – which allows mobile users to learn anytime or anywhere – helped Carlson Marketing Group train employees to serve clients attending the Olympic Games 2000 in Sydney, Australia.

VuePoint is a software and professional services company focused on creating competitive organizations through a business-savvy approach to e-learning. VuePoint Learning System (VLS) incorporates dynamic knowledge management into an e-learning environment and has helped leading organizations such as Deloitte Consulting, 3Com, Carlson Marketing Group, A.T. Kearney and Toyota to achieve speed-to-market advantages, improved productivity, employee retention and streamlined costs.  Incorporated in 1996, VuePoint’s management team is comprised of experienced professionals who come from the ranks of global leaders such as Procter & Gamble, KPMG Peat Marwick and Telerate, Inc. (formerly Dow Jones Markets) as well as experts and scholars from the e-learning industry.www.certpointsystems.com

Carlson Marketing Group, ranked by Advertising Age magazine as the largest marketing services agency in the U.S., is a Relationship Marketing company with international capabilities that span 23 countries.  The company helps global Fortune 1000 clients improve their sales and profits by designing marketing strategies which create and strengthen relationships with the audiences its clients depend on for success: employees, channel partners and consumers.  Carlson Marketing Group is one of the major operating groups of Carlson Companies, Inc., a $31 billion company consistently recognized by Fortune magazine as one of the largest privately held corporations in the U.S. Corporate headquarters are located in Minneapolis, Minn.