What if training wasn’t just a chore but something genuinely engaging? Maybe interactive, gamified content that actually gets people excited? It’s not just a nice idea; it’s backed by numbers. A 2019 study saw a whopping 89 percent of employees report feeling more productive at work when gamification is incorporated into their tasks, and 88 percent even say it makes them happier.

Even more important, one-third of respondents said they were keen on more game-like training features. But the real kicker? While 83 percent of those who experience gamified training said they’re more motivated and energized, 61 percent of respondents experiencing traditional, non-gamified version end up feeling bored. It’s clear: Making training interactive is not just a win; it’s a game-changer.

With this in mind, OpenSesame is thrilled to announce the addition of a new publisher to our OpenSesame Plus subscription: E-SEC, a pioneer in compliance and business skills training.

Essential training with an interactive twist

E-SEC stands out in the elearning landscape with over a decade of experience in crafting innovative 3D elearning and training products. Their courses are offered in multiple languages, including English, French, German, and Italian. These materials aren’t just informative, they’re also designed to be engaging and concise, with an average course length of just 15 minutes.

Here’s why we’re so excited about adding E-SEC to our marketplace. First, their use of 3D animations and simulations takes elearning to a new dimension. This immersive approach not only enhances engagement but also aids in better retention of complex concepts. E-SEC’s gamification with branching choices introduces a level of interactivity that’s rare in elearning—this method aligns with the evidence that gamified learning can boost motivation and enhance retention.

E-SEC also understands the importance of assessment and supplemental resources. Post-assessment tools check learner comprehension, while supplemental resources provide more avenues to explore topics in depth.

Among their top courses are timely and relevant subjects like:

• Cyber Security
• Working from Home: Digital Security
• Whistleblowing

These courses embody E-SEC’s belief that elearning experiences should be more than educational, they need to be engaging and relevant to today’s corporate landscape, too.

At OpenSesame, we share that belief whole-heartedly, and are so pleased to welcome E-SEC into the Plus subscription. Browse our catalog and preview the innovative and engaging courses from E-SEC—compliance and business skill training just got a whole lot more interesting.

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Recently we profiled one of our publishers, Ryan Tillman of Breaking Barriers United, and highlighted his work via webinar and an introductory article about his accomplishments.

In this article, we’re expanding the conversation and diving deeper into Ryan’s mission, goals, and the meaning of empowerment in the Black community.

What does Black empowerment mean to you?

To me, Black empowerment means taking control of your life, despite being black – despite the color of your skin. 

This may sound contradictory to the idea of black empowerment. But here’s what I mean: 

I was raised to be proud of who I am – to be proud of being an African American male. I learned about my history growing up – about my culture and my roots. And I learned there was a lot of oppression towards Black people. When I learned that, it was hard – realizing that man, I can’t believe my ancestors had to go through that simply based on the color of their skin. But at the same time, it was inspirational, because I learned that no matter the color of your skin, you can rise and overcome. 

I love the fact that I’m Black because it makes me unique; it allows me to bring perspectives from another culture. I also think the empowerment part of it means we can go out there and be strong. We can be like Frederick Douglass or Harriet Tubman and other Black ancestors that went ahead of me to pave the way.

How does the work you do with Breaking Barriers United and with OpenSesame help to empower the Black community?

I think it helps empower the Black community because it gives them hope that they can do something that’s not within their realm. And what I mean by that is if you look at law enforcement right now, there’s not a lot of diversity within the profession. It’s more than what it used to be, but it’s not as diverse as it could be. 

It’s also about the Black community’s perception of how they view law enforcement. They see us as the enemy. They see us as the oppressors – as an extension of slavery, some might say, which isn’t true. The work that I do with OpenSesame and with the Black community allows people to change the way they see law enforcement – when they see a Black police officer and hear from my experiences, their perception shifts.

At the same time, I think that we can improve as a profession. By creating elearning courses through OpenSesame as a Black police officer, not only am I helping change the way people view law enforcement, I’m also able to educate people about it at the same time.

What’s an example of how you’ve changed the Black community’s perspective through your work as an officer?

I had an interesting conversation a few weeks ago with a guy who’s a convicted felon. We start talking, and he starts sharing about his life. He’d been in and out of the criminal justice system for years – been arrested, sent to prison. So we’re talking and like I said, he’s just spewing his heart out to me, telling me everything about himself. This is before he knew what I did. 

So we got to that part in the conversation where he asks what I do. I tell him I’m a cop and his eyes get huge. He’s like, “Man, I can’t believe I told all this information to a cop!” And then we continue the conversation. At the end, he says, “You know what, Ryan, one of the things that I respect about you is that you didn’t bat an eye when I was telling you everything. As a matter of fact, you didn’t cast any judgment. There was no shift in the conversation where I felt judgment coming from you.” And I just said, “Well, that’s because we’re all humans. Every one of us has made mistakes. Who am I to judge?”

I just go out there and try to be myself. I’m Ryan Tillman – Corporal Tillman, not Popo Tillman. In doing this I’ve been able to develop relationships with people and change their perspectives.

And this happens all the time. People approach me and tell me how I’ve changed their viewpoint – a side I hadn’t seen before. This is my ultimate goal.

How have you changed hearts and minds through the workshops you give in BBU? 

I’m always transparent. I talk about where I came from, why I became a police officer. And I always address the elephant in the room upfront. I start by asking, “Who doesn’t like police officers?” Not surprisingly, most or all hands go up. Then, throughout my presentation, I educate them about law enforcement: what it is, why we exist, what we do in our roles. 

And then we role-play. The students go through scenarios where they have to make decisions as a police officer in the field. It’s an eye-opening moment for all of them – they’re like, “Wow, this was very hard!” And that’s done in a static environment, where it’s not real. I ask them to imagine the decisions that real police officers make daily where it’s not static, where it’s not fun and games – where it’s life or death. 

By having these conversations and working through these scenarios non-judgmentally, we’re instrumental in challenging perceptions. 

Anything else you’d like others to know? 

You can accomplish whatever you want to accomplish. You may have to take risks, but there will be rewards. Get out of your comfort zones; explore the treacherous waters in order to get to the other side of that ocean. Because when you get there, there will be an abundance of whatever you want – success, or whatever it is – as long as you’re willing to take the plunge and swim through.

To learn more about Ryan and his work, check out our previous article, webinar, and OpenSesame’s Breaking Barriers United courses.

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Portland, OR – 11 March 2021 – OpenSesame, the elearning innovator, announced the addition of The Galvanizing Group to its popular OpenSesame Plus subscription. The partnership expands OpenSesame’s curated library of courses designed to sharpen critical business relationship building skills.

“Strong, trust-based relationships are key to personal and professional success,” said Patrick Galvin, Chief Galvanizer of The Galvanizing Group. “Relationship building is integral to the advancement of successful and productive teams in every industry worldwide. Together with OpenSesame, we will transform organizations by transforming the way people build and maintain relationships.”

Applying the timeless principles of Patrick Galvin’s best-selling book, The Connector’s Way, The Galvanizing Group helps high-performance companies and teams grow bottom line results through better internal and external relationships. In OpenSesame, it sees a global partner committed to developing online learning programs that deliver a systematic and measurable approach to business relationship building.

“Relationship building—specifically, connecting—is a skilled activity that can be learned, improved, and measured,” said Spencer Thornton, Senior Vice President of Curation at OpenSesame. “In an increasingly virtual world, making meaningful connections is more important than ever.  We are delighted to make The Galvanizing Group’s interactive and user-friendly elearning courses available to our OpenSesame Plus subscription customers.” 

“Everything in business is connected to other people,” concluded Galvin. “We’re thrilled to be working with OpenSesame and its team of smart and talented individuals who are committed to building strong relationships and serving the needs of its customers and publishers.”

###

About OpenSesame

OpenSesame helps develop the world’s most productive and admired workforces. With the most comprehensive catalog of elearning courses from the world’s top publishers, we are here to help you every step of the way, from finding courses, mapping them to your core competencies, syncing them with your LMS to increasing utilization and improving your L&D programs. Not only will you have the flexibility of multiple purchasing options from OpenSesame, you’ll find it simple to use and administer your elearning courses. To learn more, visit www.opensesame.com.

About The Galvanizing Group

The Galvanizing Group, www.thegalvanizinggroup.com, is a Portland, Oregon-based learning and development company that helps high-performance companies and teams grow bottom line results through better internal and external relationships. Our innovative coaching, training, and online learning programs deliver a systematic and measurable approach to business relationship building that is used by growing businesses and Fortune 100 companies selling products and services B2B and B2C.

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Portland, OR – 24 March 2021 – OpenSesame, the elearning innovator, announced the addition of Trüpp to its popular OpenSesame Plus subscription to further expand its library of business skills, management and compliance training. 

Trüpp’s online courses are at the forefront of modern instructional design; incorporating contemporary imagery, video, and interactive design elements, that provide a user experience similar to the way a person generally navigates and consumes web content. The curriculum takes a refreshing and action-oriented approach, with effective tools and takeaways that can be applied in any workplace.

“As we continue to grow our catalog, modern interfaces that cover key topics are essential for next-generation learners,” said Spencer Thornton, Senior Vice President of Curation at OpenSesame. “By using an approachable tone and relevant examples grounded in real-world experiences, Trüpp creates elearning content that resonates with and inspires learners. We’re excited to make their engaging and interactive courses available to our customers as part of the OpenSesame Plus catalog.” 

“OpenSesame’s dedication to providing high-quality content and an engaging learner experience aligns perfectly with Trüpp’s commitment to making premier elearning courses for HR compliance, manager development, and other workplace topics,” said Jean Roque, President/CEO of Trüpp. “Unlike elearning aggregators that prioritize quantity over quality, we appreciate how OpenSesame sets itself apart by providing a carefully curated course library that reflects the modern-day workplace. Trüpp’s partnership with OpenSesame enables our elearning courses to easily reach a broader audience, and the feedback from OpenSesame and its customers informs our course development priorities.” 

Click here to view all Trüpp courses available exclusively from OpenSesame.

About OpenSesame

OpenSesame helps develop the world’s most productive and admired workforces. With the most comprehensive catalog of elearning courses from the world’s top publishers, we are here to help you every step of the way, from finding courses, mapping them to your core competencies, syncing them with your LMS to increasing utilization and improving your L&D programs. Not only will you have the flexibility of multiple purchasing options from OpenSesame, you’ll find it simple to use and administer your elearning courses. To learn more, visit www.opensesame.com

About Trüpp

Trüpp is an HR service provider focused on helping your business thrive! We offer a fresh, modern approach to online learning, presenting meaningful content that is both engaging and practical. Built upon the combined knowledge of an entire team of specialists with decades of experience in HR-related fields, Trüpp delivers reliable, compliant, and in-depth training that supports the success of your organization and its employees. Trüpp provides an eLearning curriculum focused on a range of employment and workplace topics, including manager training, respectful workplace training, compliance, and human resources training. To learn more, visit www.trupphr.com. 

Media contact:

Jessica Layfield

Customer Marketing and PR Manager

jessica.layfield@opensesame.com 

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Portland, OR – 23 March 2021 – OpenSesame, the elearning innovator, announced the addition of Mind Tools for Business to its popular OpenSesame Plus subscription to expand its selection of leadership, management and personal effectiveness online training courses.

“At Mind Tools for Business, we are proud of the essential role that our digital learning resources and tools play in so many of our clients’ learning ecosystem,” said Nahdia Khan, Head of Learning Community and Customer Voice at Mind Tools for Business. “We recognize that learning leaders worldwide are challenged to select the ‘best’ resources from a wide range of specialist providers, each excelling in their particular fields.”

Building on the belief that learning is a motivating enterprise, Mind Tools for Business offers interactive, relevant and thought-provoking content to stimulate employees, support change, and enable problem-solving. Mind Tools for Business views the inclusion of its content and tools in the OpenSesame Plus library as a testament to the quality and utility of its ready-to-use catalogue of learning content, tools and resources. 

“With its refreshingly rigorous standards of quality and effectiveness, only the best learning resources make it into OpenSesame Plus,” added Khan, “which means that learning leaders can be confident that the resources they source through this avenue will hit the mark for their people.”

“With the world of work constantly changing and evolving, companies need leaders who can confidently motivate and manage their teams in any situation or environment,” said Spencer Thornton, Senior Vice President of Curation at OpenSesame. “We are pleased to partner with Mind Tools for Business to make a selection of their vibrant and engaging leadership, management and personal effectiveness resources available to enterprise organisations everywhere through our OpenSesame Plus library.”

Click here to view all MindTools for Business courses available from OpenSesame.

About OpenSesame

OpenSesame helps develop the world’s most productive and admired workforces. With the most comprehensive catalog of elearning courses from the world’s top publishers, we are here to help you every step of the way, from finding courses, mapping them to your core competencies, syncing them with your LMS to increasing utilization and improving your L&D programs. Not only will you have the flexibility of multiple purchasing options from OpenSesame, you’ll find it simple to use and administer your elearning courses. To learn more, visit www.opensesame.com.

About Mind Tools for Business

Mind Tools for Business by Emerald Works is a global business with a passion for making a difference and changing lives through learning. Working in partnership with our clients, we provide opportunities for people to grow and impact society in a way that helps build a prosperous future for all. 

Mind Tools for Business by Emerald Works believes when people are inspired to learn they are empowered to thrive and develop – achieving more for themselves, for their communities and for their economies. This motivates us, unites us and inspires us in pursuit of our mission to empower people to flourish at work through practical workplace performance tools and resources.

Visit www.emeraldworks.com/mind-tools-for-business to learn more about our performance tools and resources.

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Portland, OR – 16 March 2021 – OpenSesame, the elearning innovator, announced the addition of Everything is on the Record to its popular OpenSesame Plus subscription to deliver timely training about communicating in a digital world that sees all, hears all and tells all.

Everything Is On The Record leverages the decades of experience its training coaches have had in boardrooms, locker rooms and newsrooms to teach professional athletes and sports teams how to use the press and social media to their advantage. Working with the elearning experts at OpenSesame, they turned Everything Is On The Record’s coaching sessions into engaging on-demand online courses that help leaders, managers, and employees become more effective communicators both online and in person.

“We have known for a while that our media training, executive consultation and insight into effectively and safely using social media platforms could be extremely beneficial to an audience well beyond the highly demanding people and organizations we’ve worked with over the years in professional sports,” said Ric Bucher, well-known sports personality and partner in Everything Is On The Record. “OpenSesame provided the ideal platform to reach that audience. Their guidance and technical expertise in shaping our content to be digestible, informative and entertaining was indispensable. We are excited about becoming an ever-growing part of their global catalogue.”   

Everything Is On The Record’s courses engage learners with presenter-style videos that draw cautionary tales from real-world social media events, as well as quizzes, prompts and self-reflection activities. Subjects include understanding the crossover between a corporate and personal brand, simple steps to help you post more effectively and safely, scrubbing your social media, controlling media interviews, presenting yourself in meetings, and handling inappropriate social media posts by employees.

“Even though these platforms have been part of our daily routines for years now, very few people have actually had any formal instruction about how to harness the power of social media while avoiding the pitfalls of accidentally going viral,” said Spencer Thornton, Senior Vice President of Curation at OpenSesame. “We are delighted to bring Everything Is On The Record’s unique perspective on media relations, social media and branding to our customers as elearning courses in our catalog.”

Click here to view all Everything Is On The Record courses available exclusively from OpenSesame.

About OpenSesame

OpenSesame helps develop the world’s most productive and admired workforces. With the most comprehensive catalog of elearning courses from the world’s top publishers, we are here to help you every step of the way, from finding courses, mapping them to your core competencies, syncing them with your LMS to increasing utilization and improving your L&D programs. Not only will you have the flexibility of multiple purchasing options from OpenSesame, you’ll find it simple to use and administer your elearning courses. To learn more, visit www.opensesame.com

About Everything Is On The Record

Everything Is On The Record is a media training consultancy. Their team of experts educates CEOs, coaches, athletes and media personalities how not only to survive but thrive in a world where EVERYTHING is on the record. To learn more visit www.everythingisontherecord.com.

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Portland, OR – 16 March 2021 – OpenSesame, the global elearning innovator, today celebrates its inclusion in Oregon Business’s 2021 list of the “100 Best Companies to Work For in Oregon.” In its debut year, OpenSesame ranked No. 27 in the large company (100 or more employees) category.

The 100 Best Companies to Work For program ranks employers based on confidential responses from employees residing in Oregon to survey questions across several categories, including work environment, decision-making and trust, benefits and compensation, career development and learning. 

“In this past pandemic year, the 100 Best Companies survey takes on more meaning and importance than ever before,” the Oregon Business Journal stated in its announcement recognizing the winners. “These employers are evidence that there are businesses that care about keeping their workforces happy whatever the circumstances, and that despite one of the biggest changes to workplace norms ever experienced in a generation, companies can make it work and even come out better from the experience.”

Oregon Business highlighted OpenSesame’s professional development program as a standout based on employee feedback. In addition to its robust onboarding and company-wide training program, all full-time employees receive a full week of paid time off for continuing education, along with an reimbursement allowance equivalent to one week’s salary for conferences, courses, books and other expenses. 

“This recognition means a lot to us, especially because it’s based on feedback from our employees,” said Don Spear, CEO of OpenSesame. “Despite all the challenges of the past year, our employees continued to deliver exceptional support to our customers and learners, and we are extremely thankful to every member of our team for all they do to make OpenSesame a great place to work, even when we’re all working remotely.”

About OpenSesame

OpenSesame helps develop the world’s most productive and admired workforces. With the most comprehensive catalog of elearning courses from the world’s top publishers, we are here to help you every step of the way, from finding courses, mapping them to your core competencies, syncing them with your LMS to increasing utilization and improving your L&D programs. Not only will you have the flexibility of multiple purchasing options from OpenSesame, you’ll find it simple to use and administer your elearning courses. To learn more, visit www.opensesame.com.

Media contacts

Jessica Layfield

Customer Marketing and PR Manager

jessica.layfield@opensesame.com

(971) 512-7742

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Portland, OR – 23 February 2021 – OpenSesame, the elearning innovator, announced the addition of SunShower Learning to its popular OpenSesame Plus subscription to further expand the curated offering of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) training.

SunShower Learning is the expression of founder Joel Lesko’s passion for film, online learning and diversity, equity and inclusion. Lesko is a documentary filmmaker, author and speaker on unconscious bias and creating a more respectful workplace who has worked with leading organizations including Liberty Mutual Insurance, AT&T, UCLA and others to support their DEI initiatives.

“OpenSesame believes that diversity, equity, and inclusion are fundamental human rights issues — not compliance requirements,” said Spencer Thornton, Senior Vice President of Curation at OpenSesame. “As the world leader in curated enterprise learning, we are committed to using the powerful tools of training and education to help our customers drive meaningful change within their organizations. Partnering with SunShower Learning, an award-winning DEI course publisher, allows us to continue setting the standard for online DEI training content.”

“I’m excited about being part of OpenSesame Plus so that our programs are more readily available to organizations who are eager to walk their diversity, equity and inclusion talk,” said Lesko about SunShower Learning’s partnership with OpenSesame. “I appreciate OpenSesame’s commitment to DEI training and with their support, we’ll be able to accelerate our development of courses. Our goal is to create learning experiences that deliver emotional impact and concrete skills that people can practice to disrupt unconscious bias, disarm microaggressions and help create more inclusive, respectful workplaces where people feel like they belong.”

Click here to view all SunShower Learning courses available from OpenSesame.

About OpenSesame

OpenSesame helps develop the world’s most productive and admired workforces. With the most comprehensive catalog of elearning courses from the world’s top publishers, we are here to help you every step of the way, from finding courses, mapping them to your core competencies, syncing them with your LMS to increasing utilization and improving your L&D programs. Not only will you have the flexibility of multiple purchasing options from OpenSesame, you’ll find it simple to use and administer your elearning courses. To learn more, visit www.opensesame.com.

About SunShower Learning

SunShower Learning produces emotionally impactful Diversity, Equity & Inclusion training that not only raise awareness about unconscious bias, microaggressions and stereotypes, but also give you tools that your people can learn and practice. Real skills. The goal? To help you create a more respectful workplace made up of individuals who respect each other individually and collectively. A workplace where people feel like they belong. At SunShower, they focus on DEI and how better communication across differences fuels collaboration and innovation. Diverse companies perform better. Inclusive companies perform even better! You can look at the research! SunShower’s programs have won many awards and received high praise for excellence. Most of all, they routinely get feedback from trainers and managers in the workplace who value the HBO-level quality, the “no cringe” scenarios and the skills that change behaviors, not just attitudes. To learn more, visit https://www.sunshowerlearning.com.

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Portland, OR – 18 February 2021 – OpenSesame, the elearning innovator, announced the addition of Management Pocketbooks to its popular OpenSesame Plus subscription to add accessible, micro-courses on a wide range of topics for managers, leaders and employees.

Management Pocketbooks has published dozens of books on a wide range of topics including communication, people management, finance, teambuilding, sustainability, sales, professional development, coaching, managing change and many more subjects. Working with OpenSesame, they’ve brought their books to life in engaging video-based courses that meet the accessibility requirement of Section 508 / WCAG 2.1 AA standards, and which offer supplemental downloadable resources for continue individual or group study, blended-learning and in-person or virtual instructor-led training.

“Employees have more demands on their time today than ever before, so employers are looking for content that allows learners to quickly consume information and immediately apply it to their roles,” said Spencer Thornton, Senior Vice President of Curation at OpenSesame. “Management Pocketbooks’ focus on creating training that is simple, accessible and of real practical value made them a perfect fit for the OpenSesame catalog.

“The concept of bitesize learning was barely known when Management Pocketbooks published its first accelerated learning resources,” said Adrian Hunt, Director of e-Publishing, Management Pocketbooks. “Now, in partnership with OpenSesame, we’ll be bringing our acclaimed body of work to an even wider audience. Bitesize just became even more mouth-watering!”

There are 17 Management Pocketbooks courses currently available exclusively in the OpenSesame catalog, with more than 50 additional courses in production and scheduled to be released later this year. Click here to view all Management Pocketbooks courses available from OpenSesame.

About OpenSesame
OpenSesame helps develop the world’s most productive and admired workforces. With the most comprehensive catalog of elearning courses from the world’s top publishers, we are here to help you every step of the way, from finding courses, mapping them to your core competencies, syncing them with your LMS to increasing utilization and improving your L&D programs. Not only will you have the flexibility of multiple purchasing options from OpenSesame, you’ll find it simple to use and administer your elearning courses. To learn more, visit www.opensesame.com

About Management Pocketbooks
Speed of learning and transfer of knowledge lie at the heart of the Management Pocketbook courses. They are developed by skilled communicators, management and L&D professionals who know how to make their messages simple, accessible and of real practical value. Management Pocketbooks delivers bite-sized learning — courses average around 12 minutes seat-time apiece — on a wide variety of topics of importance to managers, leaders and employees in every industry. Their highly-visual approach combines presenter-style videos with informative graphics. In addition, downloadable resources help the learner as well as facilitators continue their education offline, individually, in groups, or as part of virtual or in-person instructor-lead training. To learn more, visit www.pocketbook.co.uk.

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Portland, OR – 28 September 2020 – OpenSesame, the elearning innovator, announced the addition of UK-based publisher Skillshub to its popular OpenSesame Plus subscription, expanding its curated library of engaging business, sales and leadership courses.

Skillshub leverages the most up-to-date research on modern-day learning methods to create training that actually sticks. Offering a mixture of motion graphics, presenter-led and animation formats, Skillshub’s library of over 500 elearning courses are written by L&D professionals — not programmers — with the goal of improving performance. Their short sessions focus on one specific skill or behaviour at a time to maximize learner retention and deliver impactful, engaging learning experiences ideal for the ever-increasing workloads employees face.

“Skillshub offers an extensive collection of sales effectiveness content for both new and seasoned sales professionals.” said Spencer Thornton, Senior Vice President of Curation at OpenSesame. “We know this is a critical and growing need for many of our customers.”

“OpenSesame includes only the highest-quality courses in its elearning catalog, so getting their stamp of approval in offering Skillshub courses to their customers is an award in itself,” said Jenny Verman, Head of Digital Learning at Skillshub. “We look forward to growing our partnership and producing content relevant to both current workplace training needs and with the way the world changes in years to come.”

About OpenSesame
OpenSesame helps develop the world’s most productive and admired workforces. With the most comprehensive catalog of elearning courses from the world’s top publishers, we are here to help you every step of the way, from finding courses, mapping them to your core competencies, syncing them with your LMS to increasing utilization and improving your L&D programs. Not only will you have the flexibility of multiple purchasing options from OpenSesame, you’ll find it simple to use and administer your elearning courses. To learn more, visit www.opensesame.com.

About Skillshub
Skillshub is part of the 5 time award winning, MTD Training Group, who have trained staff for over 9000 organisations worldwide. Our off-the-shelf eLearning is written and developed by our In-house specialist training team and we’re experts in what we do. All of our eLearning courses are designed to be brain friendly and are focused on taking action back in the workplace. We’re an L&D Organisation, not a digital organisation and that makes a big difference to produce top quality content that is engaging and embedded by the learner with taking up minimal time of their working day. For more information visit: www.skillshub.com

Media contact:
Jessica Layfield
Customer Marketing and PR Manager
(971) 512-7742
jessica.layfield@opensesame.com

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Portland, Ore. — 1 July 2020 — OpenSesame, the elearning innovator, announced a strategic partnership with TED to premiere TED@Work, a new product suite for workplace learning, and to bring a selection of its content to the OpenSesame catalog. TED@Work aims to transform workplace learning by inspiring new ways of working in business-critical areas at all levels of organizations worldwide. 

TED, the nonprofit organization devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading, challenges conventions, shares solutions, and offers new perspectives in the form of TED Talks delivered by leading thinkers and doers.  With a signature blend of innovation, insight, and storytelling, TED@Work enhances Learning & Development programs by coupling curated TED Talks with a new, lightweight course experience providing actionable learning steps and additional resources. Learners will reflect on concepts, put ideas into action immediately, and understand new ways of working inspired by the idea. TED@Work also includes new turnkey resources to fuel discussion-based learning using TED Talks. Organizations can leverage the power of the TED brand to spark thoughtful discussions among teams. 

OpenSesame and TED will also be offering the TED Masterclass course for the LMS, an 11-lesson public speaking course designed to help learners identify, develop, and share their best ideas, inspired by Head of TED Chris Anderson’s best-selling book: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking. Short and powerful TED-Ed animations curated for business will also be made available through the OpenSesame Plus catalog and TED@Work.

“TED brings together individuals from every discipline and culture seeking a deeper understanding of the world,” said Don Spear, CEO at OpenSesame. “We are excited to bring the power of ideas through TED@Work to organizations so they can transform their workforces with unique training only available from TED.”

Colin Helms, TED’s Head of Media, said: “For years, Learning & Development professionals around the world have reached out to us inquiring how they could leverage the power of TED to enrich their learning programs. After two years of development, we are extremely proud to bring TED@Work to organizations. TED relies on strategic partners to help us expand our footprint, and we are excited to be premiering TED@Work with the elearning experts at OpenSesame.”

For more information, visit www.opensesame.com and tedatwork.ted.com. 

About OpenSesame

OpenSesame helps develop the world’s most productive and admired workforces. With the most comprehensive catalog of elearning courses from the world’s top publishers, we are here to help you every step of the way, from finding courses, mapping them to your core competencies, syncing them with your LMS to increasing utilization and improving your L&D programs. Not only will you have the flexibility of multiple purchasing options from OpenSesame, you’ll find it simple to use and administer your elearning courses. To learn more, visit www.opensesame.com.

Connect with OpenSesame on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and YouTube.

About TED

TED is a nonprofit organization devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading, often in the form of short talks delivered by leading thinkers and doers. Many of these talks are given at TED conferences, intimate TED Salons and thousands of independently organized TEDx events around the world. Along with TED@Work, a program that reimagines TED Talks for workplace learning, TED’s other initiatives include: TEDx, which licenses thousands of individuals and groups to host local, self-organized TED-style events around the world; the TED Fellows program, which selects innovators from around the globe to amplify the impact of their remarkable projects and activities; The Audacious Project, which surfaces and funds critical ideas that have the potential to impact millions of lives; TED Translate, which crowdsources the subtitling of TED Talks so that big ideas can spread across languages and borders; and the educational initiative TED-Ed. TED also has a growing library of original podcasts, including The TED Interview with Chris Anderson, TED Talks Daily, WorkLife with Adam Grant, Pindrop and TEDxSHORTS.

Follow TED on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and on LinkedIn.

Media contacts:

Jessica Layfield

(503) 808-1268

jessica.layfield@opensesame.com 

Erin Allweiss

No. 29 for TED

tedpress@thenumber29.com.

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“At OpenSesame, we strive to fully support our customers, and any company, in protecting their employees as well as ensuring productivity of their workforce,” said Don Spear, CEO. “With the impact of COVID-19 growing exponentially every day, travel bans widening and instructor-led training no longer an option, elearning presents the best option for organizations to train and safeguard their workforces.”

Through 15 May 2020, any organization can gain access to these free courses on coronavirus preparedness and remote working best practices to deploy to its workforce.

For more information and free access to the courses, visit go.opensesame.com/free-offer.

About OpenSesame

OpenSesame helps develop the world’s most productive and admired workforces. With the most comprehensive catalog of elearning courses from the world’s top publishers, we are here to help you every step of the way, from finding courses, mapping them to your core competencies, syncing them with your LMS to increasing utilization and improving your L&D programs. Not only will you have the flexibility of multiple purchasing options from OpenSesame, you’ll find it simple to use and administer your elearning courses. To learn more, visit www.opensesame.com.

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Portland, OR – 10 March 2020 – OpenSesame, the global elearning innovator, announced a partnership with Northpass to deliver its curated 20,000+ elearning courses on Northpass’ learner-first platform. From fast-growing companies to the Fortune 500, modern companies looking to integrate and scale learning across distributed workforces trust Northpass to educate their workforce.

“We’re excited to partner with OpenSesame, the leading content provider for professional elearning to power Northpass’ built-in Course Marketplace,” said Rob Krystyniak, VP of Product and Engineering at Northpass. “The synergy between OpenSesame’s extensive course content and Northpass’ intuitive and engaging learning experience will help accelerate the learning and training process for our customers.”

OpenSesame’s partnership with Northpass makes impactful and high quality learning easily accessible for organizations who already understand the digital world best. Through the integration now available to Northpass customers, internet-first companies like Uber, Lyft, Airbnb and Rover can enhance their organizational training and overall learner experience. 

“OpenSesame helps companies upskill and train distributed workforces by enabling access to elearning anywhere, anytime and on any device,” said Tom Turnbull, Vice President of Partnerships at OpenSesame. “We are excited about partnering with Northpass to empower companies across the gig economy to grow and scale their businesses.”

About Northpass 

Northpass is a new breed of learning technology designed specifically for today’s digital economy. Founded in 2013, Northpass delivers learning that works for internet-first companies like Uber, Shopify, and BambooHR. Today’s top digital brands leverage the Northpass learning platform to accelerate growth, improve service quality, and increase brand loyalty.

About OpenSesame

OpenSesame helps develop the world’s most productive and admired workforces. With the most comprehensive catalog of elearning courses from the world’s top publishers, we are here to help you every step of the way, from finding courses, mapping them to your core competencies, syncing them with your LMS to increasing utilization and improving your L&D programs. Not only will you have the flexibility of multiple purchasing options from OpenSesame, you’ll find it simple to use and administer your elearning courses. To learn more, visit www.opensesame.com.

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Portland, OR – 31 January 2020 – OpenSesame, the elearning innovator, announced The Jeff Havens Company has been added to its popular OpenSesame Plus subscription to expand its curated library of business skills, safety, and compliance courses. 

Global 2000 companies leverage the OpenSesame Plus subscription with over 6,000 curated courses—now including The Jeff Havens Company’s highly engaging business training—to help address critical skills gaps, position talent for successful long-term careers, and future-proof their organization.

Over the past 15 years, The Jeff Havens Company has applied its uniquely humorous training approach to a wide range of the modern business world’s most pressing issues including customer service, leadership, and safety. With the belief that nobody ever learns anything if they’re too bored to listen, The Jeff Havens Company aims to improve businesses worldwide—while having fun doing it. 

“As the driving force behind The Jeff Havens Company content, Jeff delivers high-energy, highly engaging, and hilarious content,” said Spencer Thornton,  Senior Vice President of Curation at OpenSesame. “His extraordinary business insight and memorable delivery ensure high learner engagement and training to remember.” 

“OpenSesame is one of the most responsive companies we’ve ever partnered with,” says Jeff Havens, Founder and CEO, The Jeff Havens Company. “OpenSesame provides us with real-time feedback on course adoption to inform how we continue to grow. It’s fantastic to partner with a company that takes an active role in partner success and will be equally dedicated to our customers’ success as lifelong learners.”

About OpenSesame

OpenSesame helps develop the world’s most productive and admired workforces. With the most comprehensive catalog of elearning courses from the world’s top publishers, we are here to help you every step of the way, from finding courses, mapping them to your core competencies, syncing them with your LMS to increasing utilization and improving your L&D programs. Not only will you have the flexibility of multiple purchasing options from OpenSesame, you’ll find it simple to use and administer your elearning courses. To learn more, visit www.opensesame.com.

About The Jeff Havens Company

With a mission to provide serious solutions in a seriously funny way, The Jeff Havens Company is unique in the world of corporate training and L&D. Their video-based courses tackle everything from industrial safety to corporate ethics to customer service, and their content will provide your employees with the skills they need to become better employees, salespeople, and leaders. And it will all happen while your people are actually enjoying the process of becoming better. Countless studies have shown that people remember information better and longer if that information is delivered in a humorous way, and so The Jeff Havens Company has made it their mission to incorporate as much entertainment as possible into our training products without interfering with the learning process. To put it another way, you’ll receive all the education of a more traditional training course with all the entertainment value of a comedy show. That’s something most training companies can’t do, and it’s the reason that The Jeff Havens Company content has found favor with thousands of companies across virtually every industry. For additional information, visit JeffHavens.com, follow us on Twitter @iamjeffhavens or connect with us on LinkedIn.

Media contact:

Diane Haines

Vice President of Marketing

(503) 808-1268

diane.haines@opensesame.com

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Portland, OR – 20 December 2019 – OpenSesame, the elearning innovator, today announced a partnership with Traliant, a provider of award-winning sexual harassment elearning courses, to expand its offering of interactive compliance training within the OpenSesame Plus subscription. 

Enterprise organizations leverage the OpenSesame Plus subscription—now including Traliant’s behavior-based training—to help create an ethical, compliance-based workplace culture. 

Traliant combines the best elements of video storytelling and elearning tools in its award-winning discrimination and harassment prevention training for office environments, hotels, restaurants, healthcare, retail, construction, and industrial/manufacturing organizations. Additionally, all Traliant courses are available in multiple languages to help global organizations meet their complex training requirements. 

“From small organizations to Global 2000 enterprises, meeting compliance requirements has grown increasingly more complex with ever-changing regulations,” said Spencer Thornton, Senior Vice President of Curation at OpenSesame. “Adding Traliant content to the OpenSesame Plus subscription helps organizations meet the compliance needs of their multi-lingual and diverse workforces.”

“We partnered with OpenSesame because they share our commitment to world-class customer service and engaging learning content,” said Mike Pallatta, Traliant CEO and Co-Founder. “We look forward to expanding the delivery of our compliance and HR courses to more organizations, whether their workforce is local or international.”

About OpenSesame
OpenSesame helps develop the world’s most productive and admired workforces. With the most comprehensive catalog of elearning courses from the world’s top publishers, we are here to help you every step of the way, from finding courses, mapping them to your core competencies, syncing them with your LMS to increasing utilization and improving your L&D programs. Not only will you have the flexibility of multiple purchasing options from OpenSesame, you’ll find it simple to use and administer your elearning courses. To learn more, visit www.opensesame.com

About Traliant
Traliant was founded by industry veterans from some of the world’s most successful compliance training companies to meet the challenge of transforming compliance training from boring to brilliant. Backed by Martinson Ventures, Traliant delivers award-winning, bite-sized compliance training on an eLearning platform that enables fast and easy customization. Courses are available on numerous workplace topics including Diversity Training and Sensitivity Training. For more information, visit www.traliant.com.

Media contacts:

OpenSesame
Diane Haines
Senior Vice President of Marketing
(503) 808-1268
diane.haines@opensesame.com

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PORTLAND, OR – 3 December 2019 – OpenSesame, the elearning innovator, has announced an expanded partnership with Degreed, the cloud-based skills tracking and development platform to deliver curated elearning courses (20,000+) to Degreed customers. Enterprise companies can now access OpenSesame elearning courses within Degreed’s built-in index of open learning resources, which includes millions of videos, articles, blog posts, books, podcasts and subject matter experts.

Learning experience platforms such as Degreed help companies unlock and deliver a broad range of learning content without the burden of managing multiple systems or providers. Degreed brings together educational resources, including OpenSesame’s curated course library, so they can be curated together, recommended and tracked in a more holistic learning experience for employees as part of their everyday routines and workflows. 

“We pride ourselves in enabling learners to take control of their learning using a highly personalized platform,” said Rob Wellington, Director of Business Development for Degreed. “OpenSesame has become an industry standard for aggregating and curating elearning content which complements Degreed’s value proposition to deliver a broad range of learning through our platform.”

“OpenSesame and Degreed have frequently partnered together over the past few years to solve the training challenges of our mutual customers,” said Tom Turnbull, Vice President of Partnerships at OpenSesame. “We are excited to expand our partnership by formally integrating our curated library into the Degreed platform.” 

About Degreed 

Degreed is a better, smarter way to discover, learn and measure the skills you need for the future. Degreed connects all the resources people use to learn and grow, including corporate learning systems and millions of courses, videos, books, articles, podcasts, and subject experts from thousands of sources. Then we add data science and machine learning to provide people and businesses with the tools, analytics and feedback they need next. Founded in 2012, Degreed is headquartered in San Francisco, with additional offices in Salt Lake City, New York and Amsterdam.

Rob Wellington

Degreed

rwellington@degreed.com

About OpenSesame

OpenSesame helps develop the world’s most productive and admired workforces. With the most comprehensive catalog of elearning courses from the world’s top publishers, we are here to help you every step of the way, from finding courses, mapping them to your core competencies, syncing them with your LMS to increasing utilization and improving your L&D programs. Not only will you have the flexibility of multiple purchasing options from OpenSesame, you’ll find it simple to use and administer your elearning courses. To learn more, visit www.opensesame.com.

Diane Haines

OpenSesame

(503) 808-1268

diane.haines@opensesame.com

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OEB brings together 2,500+ participants from multinational companies to SMEs, from higher education and research institutions to schools. Together, the attendees explore the opportunities and challenges that are changing the world of learning and how to choose and use various technologies. Registrants attend over 120 breakout sessions to discover proven practices, approaches and strategies from leading institutions and organisations. 

“With the opening of our office in London earlier this year, we can help European organisations meet their compliance, safety, and leadership development goals and objectives with our machine learning and expert curation,” said Tom Turnbull, Vice President of Partnerships at OpenSesame. “We look forward to attending more regional events in Europe such as OEB to connect with our European customers, publishers and partners.”   

To register and for more information on OEB Berlin, please visit: https://oeb.global/

About OpenSesame

OpenSesame helps develop the world’s most productive and admired workforces. With the most comprehensive catalog of elearning courses from the world’s top publishers, we are here to help you every step of the way, from finding courses, mapping them to your core competencies, syncing them with your LMS to increasing utilization and improving your L&D programs. Not only will you have the flexibility of multiple purchasing options from OpenSesame, you’ll find it simple to use and administer your elearning courses. To learn more, visit www.opensesame.com.

Diane Haines

OpenSesame

+1 (503) 808-1268

diane.haines@opensesame.com

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PORTLAND, OR – 30 September 2019 – OpenSesame, the elearning innovator, has announced a partnership with Appinium, a leading provider of content distribution and tracking solutions on the Salesforce App Cloud, to deliver its curated 20,000+ elearning courses on the Salesforce platform. As enterprise organizations look to close skill gaps, training needs to occur within everyday workflows to maximize employee uptake, engagement and impact.

Global 2000 companies trust OpenSesame to design training programs to make their workforces more productive. It is challenging to show a direct link between training and productivity. However, by providing contextual, targeted training in a Salesforce deployment strategy and environment, learning can be woven into the learners’ natural workflow and no longer isolated in a learning management system (LMS).

Appinium combines modern video and learning management in the Salesforce Lightning Platform to drive unparalleled audience engagement, analytics, and outcomes. Their 100% native apps are designed to empower their clients with unique content access control and consumption analytics so they can directly show the relationship of training engagement on profitability and performance. 

“Our world is in the middle of the 4th industrial revolution. With the rise of automation and artificial intelligence, it’s more important than ever to adapt our skills to stay competitive,” said Steve Jacobson, co-founder and Managing Director of Appinium. “By partnering with an industry leader like OpenSesame, it allows us to use our 100% native Salesforce video and learning distribution platform to advance employee skills and improve both individual and company financial performance.”

“OpenSesame’s curated catalog of the world’s best elearning courses helps companies design and deploy impactful training programs through their learning management systems,” said Tom Turnbull, Vice President of Partnerships at OpenSesame. “We are excited to partner with Appinium to deliver the same tremendous value on the Salesforce platform.” 

OpenSesame elearning natively in Salesforce Community Cloud leveraging Appinium Lightning Components

About OpenSesame

OpenSesame helps develop the world’s most productive and admired workforces. With the most comprehensive catalog of elearning courses from the world’s top publishers, we are here to help you every step of the way, from finding courses, mapping them to your core competencies, syncing them with your LMS to increasing utilization and improving your L&D programs. Not only will you have the flexibility of multiple purchasing options from OpenSesame, you’ll find it simple to use and administer your e-learning courses. To learn more, visit www.opensesame.com.

About Appinium

Appinium is the brainchild of Learning Management System (LMS) and Salesforce ecosystem veterans, developed with the specific objective of making video and multimedia content come to life across the Salesforce platform. We have brought to market two unique, but complementary, solutions: ViewTrac and LearnTrac. Our video/multimedia application and LMS are the only 100% native Salesforce apps to enable the full spectrum of learning and video engagement analytics throughout all elements of the Salesforce environment. Appinium is disrupting how and when content can be consumed and tracked all on top of the Salesforce Platform with singular goal of providing the exact right content, to the exact right person, at the exact right time to drive behavior change using cutting edge analytics and insights. To learn more, visit www.appinium.com. 

For more information:

Diane Haines

OpenSesame

(503) 808-1268

diane.haines@opensesame.com

Steven Jacobson

Appinium 

(310) 415-2969

sjacobson@appinium.com

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Portland, OR (17 September 2019) – OpenSesame, the elearning innovator, announced the winners of the first annual OpenSesame Learning Excellence Awards during their user conference last week in Portland, Oregon. 

The Learning Excellence Awards program recognizes OpenSesame customers that leverage learning technology, creativity, innovation and blended learning in developing successful training programs. Finalists and winners for each category were as follows:

2019 OpenSesame Learning Excellence Awards winners:

• • Most Creative Launch of a Training Program or Initiative – Incomm
  • Most Innovative Training Program – EnerSys Inc.
  • Most Successful Training Program or Initiative – GenesisCare
  • Successful Use of Blended Learning – Aimbridge Hospitality
  • Most Innovative Learning Culture- Choctaw Nation

2019 OpenSesame Learning Excellence Awards finalists:

• • Most Creative Launch of a Training Program or Initiative – Pacific Seafood
  • Most Innovative Training Program – Chocotaw Nation
  • Most Successful Training Program or Initiative – Toshiba
  • Successful Use of Blended Learning – Delaware North

“We were overwhelmed with the quality of applications this first year of the OpenSesame Learning Excellence Awards,” said Don Spear, CEO of OpenSesame. “Our customers are achieving amazing success by innovating the learner experience and their training programs. It’s an honor for us to help them in transforming their workforces.”

About OpenSesame 

OpenSesame helps companies develop the world’s most productive and admired workforces. With the most comprehensive catalog of elearning courses from the world’s top publishers, we are here to help you every step of the way, from finding courses, mapping them to your core competencies, syncing them with your LMS to increasing utilization and improving your L&D programs. Not only will you have the flexibility of multiple purchasing options from OpenSesame, you’ll find it simple to use and administer your elearning courses.

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Portland, OR (12 September 2019) – OpenSesame, the elearning innovator, hosted more than 200 customers, course publishers and LMS companies at its annual user conference 11-12 September in Portland, Oregon. 

This year’s conference featured a keynote by Donald Taylor, Chairman of the Learning and Performance Institute, as well as sessions covering topics such as global learning organizations, smart curation, artificial intelligence and machine learning, best practices for LMS/LXP integration, maximizing elearning utilization and finding training budget in your organization. 

A new Publisher Expo at the event showcased some of OpenSesame’s most popular course publishers. Attendees visited the OpenSesame headquarters office in downtown Portland and networked at Providence Park during a National Women’s Soccer League match between the Portland Thorns and the North Carolina Courage.  

 “We uniquely bring our customers, learning management systems providers and elearning course publishers together to simplify the entire enterprise elearning ecosystem,” said Don Spear, CEO of OpenSesame. “Gathering them together at our user conference showcased how this ecosystem can transform training into true business impact for our customers.”

About OpenSesame 

OpenSesame helps companies develop the world’s most productive and admired workforces. With the most comprehensive catalog of elearning courses from the world’s top publishers, we are here to help you every step of the way, from finding courses, mapping them to your core competencies, syncing them with your LMS to increasing utilization and improving your L&D programs. Not only will you have the flexibility of multiple purchasing options from OpenSesame, you’ll find it simple to use and administer your elearning courses.

 For more information, visit www.OpenSesame.com

Media Contact

Diane Haines

SVP of Marketing 

 diane.haines@opensesame.com

(503) 917-4568

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Portland, OR – 30 August 2019 – OpenSesame, the elearning innovator, announced the addition of Bigger Brains to its popular OpenSesame Plus subscription to broaden its curated library of business skills and software training courses. As enterprise organizations shift from expensive, in-person classroom training to elearning, employee engagement remains a high priority for talent development.

Global 2000 companies leverage the OpenSesame Plus subscription with over 5,000 curated courses—now including Bigger Brains content— to foster a learning culture that inspires employees, propels teams as well as leaders, and maximizes productivity.  

Bigger Brains replicates the benefits of in-person classroom training such as interaction, dialogue, interrogation, and humor with its “Uniquely Engaging” teacher/learner video-based format. Best known for their award-winning Microsoft® Office and Office 365® courses, Bigger Brains offers a diverse library covering software, productivity, and management topics. 

“While costly and time-consuming, classroom training does provide many benefits that are challenging to emulate in digital form,” said Spencer Thornton, Senior Vice President of Curation at OpenSesame. “Adding Bigger Brains content to the OpenSesame Plus subscription helps organizations leverage the benefits of classroom training combined with the convenience of elearning through a unique format that delivers interaction and engagement to boost employee productivity skills.” 

“OpenSesame has much higher quality standards than any other elearning course aggregator,” says Chip Reaves, President of Bigger Brains. “Joining the OpenSesame Plus subscription allows us to expand the reach of our Microsoft and productivity courses to more global enterprises who expect the best, unique, curated content.”

About OpenSesame

OpenSesame helps develop the world’s most productive and admired workforces. With the most comprehensive catalog of elearning courses from the world’s top publishers, we are here to help you every step of the way, from finding courses, mapping them to your core competencies, syncing them with your LMS to increasing utilization and improving your L&D programs. Not only will you have the flexibility of multiple purchasing options from OpenSesame, you’ll find it simple to use and administer your elearning courses. To learn more, visit www.opensesame.com.

About Bigger Brains

Founded in 2012, Bigger Brains produces award-winning elearning content in their “Uniquely Engaging” teacher/learner format. Most courses focus on topics related to Microsoft Office, Office 365, and general business productivity. To learn more, visit getbiggerbrains.com. 

Media contact:

Diane Haines

Vice President of Marketing

(503) 808-1268

diane.haines@opensesame.com

*Microsoft and Office 365 are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation.

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SuccessConnect in Las Vegas will bring together executives and leaders in HR, IT and other lines of business to explore successful digital HR strategies in the experience economy. Hot topics will include the Human Revolution and using SAP SuccessFactors solutions to help bring organizations’ purpose to life, put more meaning into people’s work and create engaged workforces that improve both performance and profit. OpenSesame’s continued cooperation with SAP is helping companies lead with purpose and transform the people experience with SAP SuccessFactors solutions. OpenSesame specifically helps companies design and deploy training programs that transform their people experience through a seamless integration with SAP SuccessFactors solutions. At SuccessConnect Las Vegas 2019, OpenSesame will host a booth (S1) to answer questions and engage with attendees on the importance of elearning to a company’s culture.

“Through an integration with SuccessFactors’ Open Content Network (OCN), OpenSesame enables SuccessFactors customers to instantly provide thousands of courses to their learners,” said Tom Turnbull, Vice President of Partnerships at OpenSesame. “Every year, we look forward to sharing how we can curate the best fit training programs and help maximize employee engagement for SuccessFactors customers at SuccessConnect.”   

The future workplace looks very different than what we see today, from technology advancements to the changing nature of jobs, skills and careers. No matter how much technology helps automate, one thing will never change: people and their experience at work make the difference.

To register and for more information on SuccessConnect 2019, please visit: https://events.sap.com/successconnect/en/las-vegas-2019. 

About OpenSesame

OpenSesame helps develop the world’s most productive and admired workforces. With the most comprehensive catalog of elearning courses from the world’s top publishers, we are here to help you every step of the way, from finding courses, mapping them to your core competencies, syncing them with your LMS to increasing utilization and improving your L&D programs. Not only will you have the flexibility of multiple purchasing options from OpenSesame, you’ll find it simple to use and administer your elearning courses. To learn more, visit www.opensesame.com.

Diane Haines

OpenSesame

(503) 808-1268

diane.haines@opensesame.com

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Portland, OR – 11 July 2019 – OpenSesame, the elearning innovator, announced TalentQuest has been added to its popular OpenSesame Plus subscription to broaden its curated library of supervisory and leadership training courses. As enterprise organizations grow and evolve, their leaders need to be equipped with effective training tools to quickly ramp new supervisors, enhance critical management skills, and build successful, productive teams. 

Global 2000 companies leverage the OpenSesame Plus subscription with over 6,000 curated courses—now including TalentQuest content— to help address critical skills gaps, position talent for successful long-term careers, and future-proof their organization.

TalentQuest combines over 40 years of talent management expertise with behavioral science into short, engaging microlearning courses to help companies more effectively hire, manage, develop, and retain the best talent. By linking development to competencies, Global 2000 companies can drive organizational success by helping develop better leaders, build high performing teams, and retain top talent. 

“At the core of every successful company lies a strong and effective leadership team. As enterprises grow their multigenerational workforces, the need to quickly develop excellent leaders becomes increasingly more important,” said Spencer Thornton, Vice President of Curation at OpenSesame. “Adding TalentQuest to our OpenSesame Plus subscription helps organizations build leadership skills effectively and efficiently, positioning them for long-term success.”

“OpenSesame delivers innovative online learning experiences and leadership development programs,” says Mahim Mishra, President, Global Talent Development at TalentQuest. “Together with OpenSesame, we will make it easier for organizations to build better leaders.”

About OpenSesame

OpenSesame helps develop the world’s most productive and admired workforces. With the most comprehensive catalog of elearning courses from the world’s top publishers, we are here to help you every step of the way, from finding courses, mapping them to your core competencies, syncing them with your LMS to increasing utilization and improving your L&D programs. Not only will you have the flexibility of multiple purchasing options from OpenSesame, you’ll find it simple to use and administer your elearning courses. To learn more, visit www.opensesame.com

About TalentQuest

TalentQuest has a 45-year history of helping our clients unleash the power of their people. Fueled by behavioral science and our proprietary TQ Talent Insights, our innovative Talent Management and Learning Solutions enable organizations to shift from a one-size-fits-all to an individualized approach to talent management and development. For additional information, visit www.talentquest.com, follow us on Twitter (@TalentQuest), or connect with us on LinkedIn.

Media contact:

Diane Haines

Vice President of Marketing

(503) 808-1268

diane.haines@opensesame.com

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Portland, OR – 28 June 2019 – OpenSesame, the elearning innovator, announced the addition of Mind Channel to its popular OpenSesame Plus subscription to expand its offering of multilingual and microlearning courses. As microlearning has gained in popularity due to its easy consumption by learners, enterprise companies also need to offer this training in the multiple languages spoken by its global workforce. 

The OpenSesame Plus subscription, with over 6,000 curated courses—now including Mind Channel content—is the go-to solution for hundreds of Global 2000 companies to help develop and retain global talent, streamline training processes, and future-proof their organization.

With the goal of increasing learner engagement, Mind Channel creates short, fun, and accessible training to grow and develop global employees quickly and efficiently. Their microlearning courses are fully localized in English, Spanish, French and Brazilian Portuguese.

“In today’s fast-paced business environment, learners often don’t have time to sit through traditional long-format training nor do L&D professionals have time to search for high-quality content in multiple languages,” said Spencer Thornton, Vice President of Curation at OpenSesame. “Adding Mind Channel to our OpenSesame Plus subscription ensures global organizations have modern training that meets the needs of their diverse workforce.”

“OpenSesame’s unrivaled reach and reputation in the online learning industry will be a great way for us to expand our audience,” says Claudia Mcfarlane, Director of Mind Channel. “We are excited to partner with OpenSesame to provide short, engaging, and to-the-point microlearning designed for global enterprises.”

About OpenSesame

OpenSesame helps develop the world’s most productive and admired workforces. With the most comprehensive catalog of elearning courses from the world’s top publishers, we are here to help you every step of the way, from finding courses, mapping them to your core competencies, syncing them with your LMS to increasing utilization and improving your L&D programs. Not only will you have the flexibility of multiple purchasing options from OpenSesame, you’ll find it simple to use and administer your elearning courses. To learn more, visit www.opensesame.com

About Mind Channel

Mind Channel provides new and innovative microlearning content for the modern employee, creating short bite-sized modules using high-quality character based animation. The content is fun and informative and subjects covered include personal development, leadership, sales, project management, and beyond. To learn more, visit www.mind-channel.com

Media contact:

Diane Haines

Vice President of Marketing

(503) 808-1268

diane.haines@opensesame.com

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PORTLAND, OR – 11 June 2019 – OpenSesame, the elearning innovator providing the world’s most comprehensive online catalog of curated elearning courses, today announced their membership in the SAP PartnerEdge program to further enhance the learning experience for SAP SuccessFactors customers.

As a part of the SuccessFactors’ Open Content Network, OpenSesame elearning courses already seamlessly integrate with the SuccessFactors LMS. Through the SAP PartnerEdge program, OpenSesame will be able to deliver even deeper benefits via the available enablement tools and APIs from SAP software business applications.   

“SAP SuccessFactors customers are currently leveraging the Open Content Network to quickly launch their training programs with OpenSesame elearning courses,” said Tom Turnbull, Vice President, Partnerships of OpenSesame. “Expanding our partnership with SAP by joining the PartnerEdge program will strengthen our ability to expand the learning ecosystem for our mutual SuccessFactors LMS customers.”

For more information please visit https://www.opensesame.com.

About OpenSesame

OpenSesame helps develop the world’s most productive and admired workforces. With the most comprehensive catalog of elearning courses from the world’s top publishers, we are here to help you every step of the way, from finding courses, mapping them to your core competencies, syncing them with your LMS to increasing utilization and improving your L&D programs. Not only will you have the flexibility of multiple purchasing options from OpenSesame, you’ll find it simple to use and administer your elearning courses. To learn more, visit www.opensesame.com.

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For more information:

Diane Haines

OpenSesame 

(503) 808-1268

diane.haines@opensesame.com

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Portland, Oregon — May 29, 2019 —  OpenSesame, the elearning innovator providing the world’s most comprehensive online catalog of curated employee training courses, today announced it raised a $28 million growth equity round led by FTV Capital. OpenSesame will use the proceeds to continue enhancing its machine learning-driven curation tools, expand its course offerings, and scale its sales and marketing functions to serve businesses worldwide. This funding round includes participation from existing investors including Altos Ventures. As part of the transaction, FTV partner Chris Winship will join the OpenSesame board of directors.

As workforce training rapidly shifts from classroom to online delivery, OpenSesame is disrupting the standard elearning model by curating the most comprehensive catalog of over 20,000 elearning courses from hundreds of the world’s top publishers and helping companies ensure the success of their training programs. OpenSesame helps businesses around the world find courses, map them to core competencies, sync them with a company’s learning management system (LMS) to increase utilization and improve learning & development (L&D) programs.  OpenSesame has flexible buying options to meet every training need, and the technology platform is simple to integrate and use. Leveraging machine learning and expert advisors, OpenSesame helps curate the best variety of courses for evolving enterprise training requirements, driving employee engagement and increasing elearning utilization. OpenSesame serves a wide range of clients, including governments and Global 2000 companies in services, manufacturing, technology, and highly regulated industries such as financial services and health care.

“Our goal is to make elearning accessible, convenient, and meaningful to all EnerSys employees.” said Drew Krajewski, director of global training & development for EnerSys, a Fortune 1000 OpenSesame customer. “Actual customer service of this caliber is a rarity, and OpenSesame does it right. We don’t consider OpenSesame a vendor. They’re our partner.”

“Based on FTV Capital’s long and successful enterprise SaaS investment track record, we are excited to have them lead our Series C funding,” said Don Spear, CEO of OpenSesame. “This investment coupled with their extensive network of strategic advisors will help OpenSesame to continue to rapidly grow and innovate to meet the constantly evolving training needs of our customers as they prepare their employees for the future of work.”

“Enterprises spend over $30 billion annually on external learning content and programs to maintain a highly skilled, competitive workforce, as well as to comply with complex regulatory requirements,” said Chris Winship, FTV Capital partner. “OpenSesame is capitalizing on key trends that are transforming the workplace, including a more mobile workforce, evolving millennial preferences and behaviors, and the rapid adoption of enabling technologies such as cloud and collaboration. We are extremely impressed with the OpenSesame management team, the market leading solution they have built and their outstanding growth trajectory, and we are excited to join forces in this next phase of growth.”

About OpenSesame

OpenSesame helps develop the world’s most productive and admired workforces. With the most comprehensive catalog of elearning courses from the world’s top publishers, we are here to help you every step of the way, from finding courses, mapping them to your core competencies, syncing them with your LMS to increasing utilization and improving your L&D programs. Not only will you have the flexibility of multiple purchasing options from OpenSesame, you’ll find it simple to use and administer your e-learning courses. To learn more, visit www.opensesame.com.

About FTV Capital

FTV Capital is a growth equity investment firm that has raised over $2.7 billion to invest in high-growth companies offering a range of innovative solutions in three sectors: enterprise technology & services, financial services and payments & transaction processing. FTV’s experienced team leverages its domain expertise and proven track record in each of these sectors to help motivated management teams accelerate growth. FTV also provides companies with access to its Global Partner Network®, a group of the world’s leading enterprises and executives who have helped FTV portfolio companies for two decades. Founded in 1998, FTV Capital has invested in 108 portfolio companies. FTV has offices in San Francisco and New York. For more information, visit www.ftvcapital.com.

Media contacts:

Laura Cruz, TenorPR for FTV Capital (917) 406-7517 laura@tenorpr.com

Diane Haines, OpenSesame (503) 808-1268 diane.haines@opensesame.com

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Portland, OR – May 17, 2019 – OpenSesame, the elearning innovator, announced the addition of UL to its popular OpenSesame Plus subscription to expand its global offering of curated safety and compliance training critical to enterprise organizations. Today’s highly technical and often hazardous work environments, combined with swiftly changing technology and increasingly stringent regulations, demand businesses provide thorough, industry-specific training to keep their employees safe and minimize risk.

The OpenSesame Plus subscription, with over 6,000 curated courses—now including UL course content—is the go-to solution for Global 2000 companies to help streamline processes, develop and retain top talent, and future-proof their organization.

Founded in 1894, UL offers over 125 years of deep expertise in health and safety, compliance, sustainability, and workplace excellence, and more than 1,300 industry-specific courses offered in up to 19 languages.

“In today’s increasingly complex work environments and ever-changing compliance requirements, organizations need to minimize risk and prevent injuries on the job,” said Spencer Thornton, Vice President of Curation at OpenSesame. “Adding UL course content to the OpenSesame Plus subscription enables businesses to provide industry-specific health, safety, and compliance training quickly and easily to their global workforce.”

“Empowering trust in the safety, security, and sustainability of products, organizations, and supply chains is at the core of UL’s mission,” remarked Scott Barnard, Managing Director of UL PURE Learning. “We’re excited to expand our strategic partnership with OpenSesame to expand access of on-demand compliance and safety elearning courses for global enterprises.”

About OpenSesame

OpenSesame helps develop the world’s most productive and admired workforces. With the most comprehensive catalog of elearning courses from the world’s top publishers, we are here to help you every step of the way, from finding courses, mapping them to your core competencies, syncing them with your LMS to increasing utilization and improving your L&D programs. Not only will you have the flexibility of multiple purchasing options from OpenSesame, you’ll find it simple to use and administer your elearning courses. To learn more, visit www.opensesame.com

About UL

UL PURE Learning empowers organizations to protect the well-being of workers, reduce risk, improve productivity, enhance compliance, and drive measurable business improvement through its EHS, learning, and compliance platforms. We are a division of UL, the premier global independent safety science company that has championed progress for 120 years. To learn more, visit ulpurelearning.com.

Media contact:

Diane Haines, Vice President of Marketing

(503) 808-1268

diane.haines@opensesame.com

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Portland, OR – 25 April 2019 – OpenSesame, the elearning innovator, announced the addition of Mindscaling to its popular OpenSesame Plus subscription to expand its world-class offering of curated leadership training critical to enterprise organizations. In today’s complex, increasingly global ecosystem where business challenges evolve at record speed, organizations need to prepare leaders and managers for the future.

The OpenSesame Plus subscription, with over 6,000 curated courses—now including Mindscaling—is the go-to solution for hundreds of Global 2000 companies to help streamline processes, develop and retain top talent, and future-proof their organization.

Mindscaling works with best-selling business authors and speakers to capture, translate, and convert their ideas into actionable learning experiences. Mindscaling believes that, by leveraging thought leadership, everyone can scale their mind for greater impact—driving engagement and creating positive change. The courses, most offered as effective microlearning lessons, are carefully crafted with award-winning instructional design, rich media, and dynamic interaction for optimal engagement and knowledge retention.

“As organizations grow and evolve their workforces, they need to develop tomorrow’s leaders to manage and inspire their employees,” said Spencer Thornton, Vice President of Curation at OpenSesame. “Adding Mindscaling courses to our OpenSesame Plus subscription ensures organizations have the impactful training to develop leaders who create real change and produce results.”

“We are delighted to partner with OpenSesame who has raised the bar of the elearning experience. Their customers expect a variety of powerful, and practical, learning experiences and that’s our sweet spot,” remarked Shawn Hunter, CEO of Mindscaling. “Joining the OpenSesame Plus subscription helps us extend our ability to easily reach global enterprises. We’re excited to have a partner who shares our vision for developing leaders at all levels.”

About OpenSesame

OpenSesame helps develop the world’s most productive and admired workforces. With the most comprehensive catalog of elearning courses from the world’s top publishers, we are here to help you every step of the way, from finding courses, mapping them to your core competencies, syncing them with your LMS to increasing utilization and improving your L&D programs. Not only will you have the flexibility of multiple purchasing options from OpenSesame, you’ll find it simple to use and administer your elearning courses. To learn more, visit www.opensesame.com.

About Mindscaling

Mindscaling specializes in creating digital and live in-person learning experiences designed specifically to develop leaders, change mindsets, enhance culture and drive new behaviors for companies large and small. We build leadership development curriculum and solutions at scale to drive impact across your organization. To learn more, visit mindscaling.com.

Media contact:

Diane Haines, Vice President of Marketing

(503) 808-1268

diane.haines@opensesame.com

The post OpenSesame Announces Partnership with Mindscaling to Expand Leadership Training Offering appeared first on OpenSesame.

Portland, OR – April 9, 2019 – OpenSesame, the elearning innovator, announced new publishers added to its popular OpenSesame Plus subscription to further expand the curated course offering. Because enterprise companies have many different needs when it comes to their global talent development strategies, it’s critical that they have access to a broad catalog of elearning courses of the highest quality and engagement level.

Over the past few months, these publishers have joined the OpenSesame Plus subscription:

Engage in Learning: Engage in Learning uses visually compelling graphics and images with built-in multimedia elements to deliver key pieces of information clearly and concisely.

Packt: Packt develops effective elearning solutions for businesses and IT professionals so technical teams have the most up-to-date essential training they need to stay relevant and the organization needs to stay competitive and secure.

Speexx: Speexx develops innovative, award-winning language training programs that help global organizations increase productivity by improving employee business communication skills.

Video Arts: Founded by actor John Cleese, Video Arts uses humorous story lines and familiar actors so you can change the way people behave at work.

WILL Interactive: WILL Interactive develops high-quality, interactive, and engaging courses that utilize real-life scenarios and encourage the learner to drive the story by choosing how to respond to each situation.

“With more than 6,000 courses, OpenSesame constantly upgrades its OpenSesame Plus content library to serve the evolving needs of our customers. As we serve more Global 2000 enterprises, the need for interactive, multimedia, IT, and language training has grown even more critical.” said Spencer Thornton, Vice President of Curation at OpenSesame.

About OpenSesame

OpenSesame helps develop the world’s most productive and admired workforces. With the most comprehensive catalog of elearning courses from the world’s top publishers, we are here to help you every step of the way, from finding courses, mapping them to your core competencies, syncing them with your LMS to increasing utilization and improving your L&D programs. Not only will you have the flexibility of multiple purchasing options from OpenSesame, you’ll find it simple to use and administer your elearning courses. To learn more, visit www.opensesame.com

Media contact:

Diane Haines, Vice President of Marketing

(503) 808-1268

diane.haines@opensesame.com

The post OpenSesame Announces Expansion of OpenSesame Plus Subscription appeared first on OpenSesame.

​Approximately 40 game developers will be given their choice of 5 training topics that are relevant to today’s business needs, and over the course of a weekend work to create a new and unique approach to knowledge communication. Over $4,000 in cash and prizes will be awarded at the end of the Training Jam in different categories: Best Game Prototype, Best Game Concept, and Participants’ Favorite.

Why is delivering knowledge via gaming important? Millennials are now the largest generation in the workforce, with Generation Z just starting their first jobs. These two generations are accustomed  to getting entertaining and educational content from YouTube, Snapchat, social media channels, and other online sources. If the training content that these new generations encounter in the workplace isn’t received well, it won’t hold their attention, won’t engage them, and ultimately won’t be effective. That translates to a big problem for organizations recruiting a generation that consistently cites access to career advancement training as something that is extremely important to them.

The status quo  is “Gameification”, which is  adding entertainment elements to course design,and has had mixed results. OpenSesame wants to forge a new path.

“This isn’t about elearning gamification, where game-like elements are layered onto traditionally designed courses. Instead we want to spur innovation by having independent game designers, experts in entertaining and engaging users, create real games that transfer knowledge. We want to see if we can trainify gaming, not gamify training,” – states Josh Blank, Co-Founder, and SVP & GM at OpenSesame.

A project like this is a natural for OpenSesame. Founded as an innovative answer to a need in the corporate training world for curated, relevant, quality and affordable off-the-shelf courses, OpenSesame has always pushed the boundaries.

“Innovation that has practical applications is in our DNA, so bringing diverse groups together like corporate learning experts and game designers to pioneer a new way of thinking in course design seemed instinctive to us,” said Blank.

To assist with the endeavor, OpenSesame has put together a group of experts to mentor the competitors and help judge the final products. The judges include:

• Bob Gerard, Gaming Industry Veteran

• Casper Mørck, Siemens, Manager Learning Technology – Americas

• Dan Myers, Starz VP Organizational Development

• Jana Humphreys, Vivid Learning Systems, Director – Learning Solutions

• Megan Riede, PubMatic Director, Learning and Development

• Peter Lund, SuperGenius Studio COO

The Training Jam powered by OpenSesame will take place at DeskHub (334 NW 11th Ave) in Portland, Oregon April 22-24, 2016.

Hashtag: #TrainingJam2016

To learn more about the Training Jam, visit www.Training-Jam.com or follow @trainingjam on Twitter.

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With a catalog of 20,000+ titles spanning 15 major categories, OpenSesame Books offers instant access to a comprehensive business and employee development library, available on any device. OpenSesame Books offers business oriented content to professionals in formats ranging from books and case studies to industry reports and journals.

Powered by BlueBottleBiz, the content is published by over 150 providers such as HarperCollins, Palgrave Macmillan, Elsevier, McGraw-Hill, and Wiley which allows OpenSesame Books to continually update its content for business training and development.

Popular titles include The End of Power by Moises Naim, The Complete Guide to Google Advertising by Bruce C Brown, All About Hedge Funds by Ezra Zask, and The Creative Society by Lars Tvede.

“We are continually listening to our customer’s needs. Frequently, we heard our Fortune 1000 customers asking for an ebook product designed to complement their company’s internal training and development programs. OpenSesame Books fills those needs perfectly.” said Don Spear, CEO of OpenSesame.

The addition of books expands and strengthens OpenSesame’s professional training and development tools. Rather than read an entire ebook, businesses have the option to handpick and compile individual chapters from multiple publications to create custom Discovery Paths for their employees.

The combination of OpenSesame’s already large library of elearning courses with OpenSesame Books provides businesses with even more flexibility to create individualized training with high quality content.

Some other exciting features of OpenSesame Books:

• Users can add new titles and reading packages to suit their own internal training needs.
• The OpenSesame Books library is refreshed daily to keep content current and up-to-date.
• The growing catalog includes titles in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, and soon Chinese.
• OpenSesame Books gives clients access to all 20,000+ titles and  automatically adds new content to catalogs with no added cost to their customers.
• The user-friendly search engine can search within individual chapters or entire books.
• The program also provides access to usage statistics and analytics that allow for accurate tracking of the most read books, category engagement, most shared content, popular activities, and more.

Companies are increasingly designing their training programs and recognizing that their employees have varied learning styles. They are replacing the “one size fits all” method of staff development with integrated programs that cater to different learning styles. Combining elearning courses with ebooks adds critical tools for the Learning and Development professional to utilize.

The post OpenSesame Announces The Release of OpenSesame Books™ appeared first on OpenSesame.

Since our launch, we have built a platform that dramatically reduces the time from need to training solution, with courses that are available instantly online, through email, or in any Learning Management System (LMS). We have helped large corporations eliminate elearning waste, paying only for the courses they use, and saving 40-50% in the process. Plus, we have grown our catalog to 20,000+ courses, making us the world’s largest source for elearning courses focused on employee training.

But there is still more work to be done.

We want to continue improving and growing OpenSesame, which is why are pleased to announce we recently raised $8 million in a Series A funding round, lead by Partech Ventures.

The additional funding will allow us to expand our sales, engineering and marketing teams to continue product improvements and execute on new product ideas that we plan to roll out in 2014. We are also excited to add Nicolas El Baze, General Partner at Partech Ventures, to our board. Nicolas brings both operational experience and international connections to the team.

The elearning market is growing at an exponential rate, even as training managers are expected to work with less and less budget. OpenSesame already provides a simple and affordable way to get the most from your elearning budget, without having to worry about a long-term commitment. This recent round of funding ensures we’ll only get better from here.

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Since our launch in 2010, we have expanded rapidly – from the size of our content catalog, to the number of publisher partners to the size of our team. This group of new hires will enable us to continue building the world’s marketplace for buying and selling online training content by increasing the pace of product development and continuing to provide the best customer service in the online training industry.

We believe strongly that the quality of our business is based on the quality of our team, and we’re proud to be building a talented, effective and fun group of people, both in our Portland office and around the world. Meet our three new hires:

Dave Depper

Dave Depper is an Oregon native who graduated cum laude from the University of Oregon in 2002 with a B.S. in Computer and Information Science. Dave has more than 10 years of experience as a software developer, Microsoft Certified Professional, and as a professional touring musician. Dave will focus his engineering talents on the OpenSesame API, making it possible for technology partners to integrate browsing, purchasing and using courses from the OpenSesame catalog of training courses into any learning management system.

Edward Irby

Edward Irby is a user experience designer and developer who works with clients to create websites that help customers understand businesses’ services and products. With prior experience at CPUsage, Portland Community College and with freelance clients as a developer and designer, Edward has a deep understanding of usability balanced by an eye for design. At OpenSesame, Edward will work closely with both the community development team and the engineering team to improve site usability and create a highly functional website that is easy for the OpenSesame community to use.

Alexandra Hernandez

Alexandra Hernandez is a business development manager who specializes in content acquisition and community building in the entertainment and startup sectors. Alex recently relocated to Portland from Los Angeles, where she achieved a master’s degree at the University of Southern California and developed experience working at NBC. At OpenSesame, Alex will lead the customer service team, focusing on providing an incredible customer experience that delights OpenSesame customers.

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