The CarriersEdge Podcast | Episode #94
Jane: Hi, and welcome to The CarriersEdge Podcast. It's episode ninety four. I am Jane Jazrawy, co-founder of CarriersEdge, and with me as always.
Mark: Mark Murrell, other co-founder of CarriersEdge, and I feel like we are in a Old West dual here at high noon.
Jane: Oh, because of the way we're standing, facing each other. We've decided that it's better to be standing while we're doing this podcast than sitting because our old bones have more energy when we're standing up? And now is we're just standing here facing each other?
Mark: Yeah. Well, also, it will keep us tight in terms of timing because we'll get to a point where we don't wanna be standing anymore.
Jane: Exactly. That's where the old age helps.
Mark: Although before we had these horribly uncomfortable stools that served the same purpose of ending that podcast when you lost feeling in your butt after sitting there.
Jane: Yes. That too. I think standing up is better. So what are we gonna talk about today?
Mark: Well
Jane: What is on?
Mark: We have both been busy for the last few weeks.
Jane: We have.
Mark: And I guess we really have to start with where I was last week at MCE, the American Trucking Association's Management Conference and Exhibition.
Jane: And can I just say congratulations on your first ever appearance in Transport Topics?
Mark: Yes.
Jane: You actually got a picture. An action shot, I believe.
Mark: Action shot in this week's Transport Topics magazine. Is it a magazine? Newspaper?
Jane: It's a
Mark: Tabloid, whatever that thing is. It's a weird size, so it's an odd.
Jane: I think it's it's technically a magazine.
Mark: Yes.
Jane: The magazines were all that size when we first came into the industry, what? Twenty years old?
Mark: The driver magazines were yes.
Jane: No. No. Truck News was a big too.
Mark: Yeah. It was a driver magazine.
Jane: No. Wasn't.
Mark: And Highway Star was a driver magazine.
Jane: Truck News wasn't a driver magazine?
Mark: It was because Motor Fleet Executive, Motor Truck Fleet executive was the management magazine, Today's Trucking was the management magazine and then they had their giant tabloid style newspaper for drivers. Highway Star and Truck News and Overdrive.
Jane: I thought Truck News was the management one.
Mark: Well, it all merged. They were the first ones to roll up, ending that magazine. The Fleet Executive magazine and just sort of put it into Truck News, and then it became the place.
Jane: Fleet Executive was the management for Truck News? Yes. Okay.
Mark: History lesson for all you youngins out there.
Jane: I was kind of unaware of it all at the time because that was like 2005.
Mark: I think they ended. I think they rolled that one up, I'm gonna say, right, 2010, somewhere around there, 2012.
Jane: Okay.
Mark: Yeah. It's been a while.
Jane: It has been.
Mark: Yeah. Highway Star has been gone for quite a while too.
Jane: Yeah. Highway Star, I remember that one. And I remember that was a driver magazine.
Mark: Mhmm.
Jane: And they used to have they used to have a lot of stuff. They used to have driver stuff. Like, it was a driver Highway Star of the Year.
Mark: Yep.
Jane: And that was at Truck World?
Mark: They did give that out at Truck World. Yes.
Jane: Yeah. So, yeah, there is a lot of stuff in the history books that that we remember because we were newbies. Oh, it is so sad. We're not newbies anymore.
Mark: Yes. We are old. And that's what it takes. Get into Transport Topics, bringing it back to the subject.
Jane: Yes, 20 years of just hanging around.
Mark: That's not really the point. Being in that magazine, but it was it was something that happened because I did an education session at MCE. Or MC and E. I don't think anybody has decided how we're supposed to say it. So it's both
Jane: Management.
Mark: Conference and exhibition.
Jane: Yes. So it's MC and E.
Mark: Whatever you do, don't call it a convention.
Jane: Okay. Alright. So you what was the presentation that you were doing?
Mark: I did a presentation on, big surprise Best Fleets to Drive For. I took the two hour webinar that I had done back in April and squished that down into 30 minutes. Some things got cut as you might imagine.
Jane: Spoiler.
Mark: Yes. And then filled the other 40 minutes talking to two of our Best Fleets. Phil Wilt from American Central Transport and Jim Guthrie from Prime. And it was a fantastic a conversation.
So it was a conversation about it was about the program and those sessions are always kind of weird because when you have fleets, and you have it in that sort of environment, you can talk about some of the things that the fleets are doing, but it really, you have to talk about the program and how they use the program and it ends up in a weird way being a little bit of a case study and how to use Best Fleets to make the company better.
Jane: Mhmm.
Mark: Rather than what I would normally do in my typical speeches is, here's what we found this year, here's the trend, here's what people are trying. All that kind of stuff. That was the first twenty minutes and then sort of really quickly glossed over that and then went into what the the fleets are doing with the data, how they go through the process, why they participate. So it ends up being a little bit of a plug for the program, but it's a lot more about how to collaborate as a group, how to use data points to learn about what's working, what's not working, how to figure out what to do about that, and how to continuously improve, how to take other people's ideas, bring them in and continuously improve from there.
Jane: Sounds like it was a cool conversation.
Mark: It was good. It's always challenging with these things because you never know what you're gonna get. And you go to an event like this, there's not a lot of other things on the schedule at the time, which is good because in theory you should get a lot of attendance. But people know these are all sponsored sessions so do they really wanna go?
And if they're not hearing from some really important person, do they wanna make the effort to show up there at eight o'clock in the morning? And for the vast majority of attendees, the answer is no, they don't. Now it it was definitely it was a much smaller event this year than what we've seen in past years for that.
Jane: Which is not surprising.
Mark: Not surprising. But based on that, we had probably a hundred or little over a hundred people in the room, which is actually a fantastic turnout for that.
Jane: Yeah. For those sessions, because I've been to them when it looks like there's maybe thirty-five people in the room.
Mark: Yeah. But the media were there, so that's good. They got to write some good stories. I think we got about three stories out of it, three or four stories. Nice.
In the press out of it, we got listed as a sponsor, which is also really cool.
Jane: Well, we were a sponsor.
Mark: We were technically a sponsor, but I think so funny when our logo is up there on the same chart with Volvo and Daimler, and like those guys are sponsors. We're not really.
Jane: So do you think that we should do the movie for next time? Because we're gonna do it again.
Mark: That's a good question. As part of that, we get to play a movie or we're able to play I think a sixty second movie at the beginning of it. And I would say, no. I still don't want to because we're standing on stage. You hit the space bar and start playing the movie.
And you stand there on stage and everybody watches the movie, it's the most awkward thing. And the movie is like always these over the top sales pitches and that's, well I got to see all the other movies beforehand before the event because I saw the folder where they're getting posted, and they're all exactly the same. They all have the gritty hard working music. They've all got b-roll of trucks on the highway, and they all start with "You're what keeps the economy moving" and then it moves into how Vendor X helps you keep the economy moving and then the triumphant music at the end and the sun comes out at the end and then the logo of the every one of them.
Exactly the same. The only variation is it might be more of a southern rock music, or might be more of a modern country It might be, well, it's never a classic rock, and it's certainly never a techno or anything like that. But it's always the exact same kind of music.
Jane: Oh, that's so weird.
Mark: And it's all clearly music that came from a stock library or music that they got out of a garage band that was, you know a thirty second clip.
Jane: Yeah.
Mark: It is uplifting triumphant music and I think those are like the tags on those things. So if we were gonna do it, we would wanna do something completely different and we might, we might have a novel idea you know your creative team and maybe sitting around with nothing to do or we and we say, sure do a movie, but probably not.
That feels way too much like a sales pitch and I'm never comfortable in a situation where there's anything resembling a sales pitch.
Jane: Well, it would be nice to do a video for Best Fleets
Mark: Mhmm.
Jane: To have that sort of intro video that is what it's about and you know, what we're doing, what are about?
Mark: We could absolutely do that and now that you've got me thinking about it. We will have
Jane: just everybody. This is a completely new idea that Mark has never heard before.
Mark: Yes. Well, we'll have b-roll from our conference, which say anything because we're gonna talk about that later. Don't spin off and do a new topic yet. We will have b-roll from that. We will have pictures that we can use.
So we could definitely do a, definitely do a video that was more about that. That actually would make a bit more sense. I don't wanna just do a plug for a CarriersEdge, like, so so salesy.
Jane: We do like CarriersEdge, but
Mark: Yeah. But it's a safety training. It's not exciting to talk about very much in that environment.
Jane: But we have to talk about how it's uplifting.
Mark: Yeah. We have to make it uplifting.
Jane: And the sun is gonna come out at the end.
Mark: You keep the economy moving. We keep your drivers moving. They don't have to come into class.
Jane: Although it's funny how I end up talking about, you know, you can do something other than online.
Mark: Yes.
Jane: And, like, because everybody's always talking about, you know, oh, yeah. We gotta do online. We gotta do online. But no. There's online is is one of the options.
It's not the only option.
Mark: Yes.
Jane: You can't just pick one.
Mark: Yes. It may be the whole wheat toast, but it's not the balanced breakfast.
Jane: Right. We need a balanced breakfast of learning. And it's not just online. It's not monthly online assignments. It's you know, what do your drivers need to know and how are you gonna teach them?
Mark: Well, and on that subject, we did have a number of conversations with people outside of our education session, we had a number of conversations with people at the booth and in the halls about how things are working. And it's always good to go to an event like that to talk to customers and partners and you get a much different picture of what's happening in the industry when you're at an event, then you get
Jane: In your basement? Where we are now, by the way?
Mark: Or when you're on a Zoom call.
Jane: Yes.
Mark: And even people that you know really well, when you get on Zoom, there's a formality to it that's very different than in the hallways or at a coffee station or at a bar or whatever.
Jane: It's the two dimensional you know, it's the two dimensional version of someone. And, yeah, I can totally see that because when you see a person in three dimensions, there's a lot more to it. And it's not even a it's not even about what they say or do, but it's more about body language and seeing their entire body.
Mark: That's part of it. Absolutely. That's part of it. What I find is equally important is the mental or subconscious perspective that we're out of the office. When we're on a Zoom or sitting in the office.
But when we're at an event, we might be walking through the lobby of a hotel, we might be in the elevator together. You're definitely not in the office. You're out at something different and that changes people's perspective on what they're gonna talk about, what they're going to acknowledge or admit or share and what they're going to say about anyhow they're going to share it.
Jane: Stuff you say.
Mark: Right. When somebody is standing at one of these bar tables trying to eat lunch that really was not designed to be eaten while you're standing up. I think these events do those kind of walking lunch things to torture the attendees, to force them to have this bonding experience of trying to figure out how to eat this food together. They give you these things that are messy and that definitely need a knife and a fork and all you get is a paper plate.
And you gotta try and figure out how to eat that without making it disgusting mess. And people often don't bother. They just go elsewhere. But those people who do stick around, you have a good bonding experience with them.
Jane: This is true because you can always talk about how messy the food is.
Mark: Everybody's got sauce on their shirt around their face afterwards. We're all in it together. But it was a good event. Definitely smaller like I said.
At the end of it, when they were trumpeting sort of out of well it went and they're all happy with it, they'd said something about having more exhibitors than they've had since 2016, and I really do not see how that's the case because I did a count of exhibit booths and it was definitely smaller than last year and there's a lot of empty space.
Jane: Well, they said 2016, they didn't say.
Mark: No. They said the most we've had since 2016. And I looked at it because I went and counted up the exhibits and I went back and looked at the floor plan from last year and counted up the exhibits, and there had to be like a third less this year. So I don't know.
Jane: Yeah. I think the way that things are going with the economy and and things are smaller now, like, people can't spend the money that they did. So there seems to be this really happy talk going on with especially associations about how great things are.
Mark: Yeah.
Jane: And ehhh...
Mark: Yeah, it's kinda like how associations all were going on, but how things were so great through 2020 and 21 when we know that that can't possibly be the case. That these associations rely on these in-person events to do their fundraising.
Jane: Mhmm.
Mark: When those things weren't happening, there's no way that they didn't see a revenue drop.
Jane: Oh, no. They absolutely did.
Mark: They had to be fudging their numbers somehow.
Jane: But at the same time, or are they gonna come out and tell you how horrible things are? And, you know, support us even though nobody's supporting us. Yeah. Nobody's coming to our event.
Mark: No. Nobody will say that out loud, but you you can tell from the way they approach different things. It's always sort of clear where the where the challenges are and when it's going well, when it's not going well. So it was a smaller event And with the exception of one general session, all of them were fairly lightly attended, which is a shame because they were all excellent. Really good sessions.
The guy who heads up the International Road Union was there. Always a great speaker talking about trucking issues all around the world. And making the good observation, and he seems to take great enjoyment about people in North America griping about a two hour delay crossing the border. When he deals with Central Asia and Eastern Asia where it might be a 2-week delay.
Jane: Oh, like, real two weeks? I thought you said, like two days
Mark: Two days is not uncommon, sometimes it's two weeks.
Jane: Wow.
Mark: Yeah. So
Jane: I wonder I think it's because a lot of the vendors, the other vendors, take the opportunity to kind of swoop the carriers away?
Mark: Well, I think there are not as many carriers. And the challenging thing about this event is that there are so many different classes of registration. So there's like the full registration where you can go to everything. And we get that for all of our people so they can go to the meals and the education sessions and make sure they get the full experience. Every exhibitor gets, I think, five passes for every ten foot booth, you can have, like, five passes that are exhibit only people.
All they can do is go into the exhibit. And they can't go to the education sessions. They can't go to, like, the banquets or anything like that. And then there's kind of partial registrations and where you can sort upgrade some of it and you go to some things but not others. So it's really unclear how many people are actually eligible to go to all of these different events.
And I think realistically anybody who is an exhibit only person could have come to the education sessions. There was no security at the door checking badges.
Jane: Oh, no. Really?
Mark: No. Or if there was, I sure didn't see them.
Jane: Interesting.
Mark: I didn't see any of that. I mean, they probably could have or, you know, walked in as a partial registrant, but it's unclear how many people actually have full passes to go to the whole thing. So that may skew it a little bit. So even if they have I think they said 2,600 or something like that, people, which is down a fair bit from what we used to see where it would be well over 3,000. We saw like upwards to 3,500 people sometimes. And, you know, that's when there's a lot of vendors that are bringing a lot of people. And so, you have less people there in general, but it's also I think people that are getting the lighter registration, so they're not going to everything and that makes for some of these sessions being a lot emptier.
Jane: Do we spend a fair bit of time analyzing conferences and events?
Mark: Well, you can learn an awful lot about what's happening in the industry by the attendance at events how elaborate the exhibits are, how elaborate the general sessions are, you know, how prominent the entertainment is. You can see a lot about their budgets.
Jane: How expensive food is?
Mark: Yeah. Yeah. What are they doing on that? You know, the reception here, they have the reception before the banquet, and they were given drinks in plastic cups. Oh.
Which is like ew here. Out in hippie central where we live, everything's recycled there's like hardly any plastic. There, I don't know it was all plastic cups.
Jane: Were you outside?
Mark: No. It was inside. It wasn't around a pool or anything. It was, I I don't think I've ever seen that. It was the little tiny ones too.
Jane: So, oh, that might have been it, is the getting small glasses instead of big glasses. So the reception, that's where you get all the drinks. Yeah. So you had, like, beer and wine in
Mark: Beer was in cans. But I don't think I don't know if they were doing mixed drinks. I think they were doing those in the plastic cups too, but they use fairly small, like, child sized plastic cups. Yeah. It was very weird. Nothing says class like wine in a plastic cup.
Jane: Yeah. That is really weird.
Mark: So things are obviously
Jane: That's really unusual.
Mark: Don't need to tell anybody listening to this podcast, but things have been tough in the industry.
Jane: Mhmm.
Mark: And it definitely comes through in events. And who's there, who's not there, and the people that are there, what they're doing instead. So it's really educational for us to kind of get a lay of the land see what's happening with the industry because we're often a bit disconnected from it, so I love to get that feedback. But, hey, I get a lot out of that event every time I go, every time we go to that thing, even this year where it was inconvenient with having to take connecting flights to get there. I was not even at the airport on the way back and I was like, yep, we'll be back next year and here's my list of things that I wanna do.
It's always worth it. It's always a good time to go to that.
Jane: Yeah. Oh, no. I don't think that there's ever been an event that we have gone to that we've kind of regretted. There have been events that have been not as like, they go up and down based on the economy and on what they're doing and that kind of thing. But I don't think that we are pretty choosy about our events, so
Mark: Generally, if there's an event that we go to that we don't think is giving us good value or doesn't really work, we badger the organizers to change it.
Jane: Yeah. We do. Well, you do. You are you are the master of the comment card.
Mark: Yes.
Jane: You are, you know, you're gonna give if people ask you for feedback, you're giving it.
Mark: Oh, yeah.
Jane: It's happening.
Mark: Hey, I would want that feedback if I was doing it.
Jane: I know it's just that you're very you're very good at it and I usually give you my feedback and then you channel it. Or I channel it through you. But it's always really good to see when people take that feedback.
Mark: Oh, yeah.
Jane: And and actually make the changes. And I that kind of segues nicely into what we're probably gonna talk about.
Mark: Yes. Another event.
Jane: Because one of your first one of the first victims of your feedback was the Fleet Safety Council.
Mark: Oh, yes. Okay.
Jane: I think that was the first time that you gave a lot of detailed feedback.
Mark: Yep.
Jane: And to their credit, they listened to you and I think it made the made the event better.
Mark: Yes. That event is really a good event now as much as I am not a fan of the venue space. That's not secret. I've told them that every year that they've been there, that they need to get the hell out of that place. But the event itself is fantastic now.
And yes, so this is coming up because this is where we're headed later this week. Back to Ontario for the Fleet Safety Council annual conference that we've now sponsored for years, I think.
Jane: We might be told how many years we've done it.
Mark: We first sponsored in 2006 and but for I think 2021 which was still virtual and there was really nothing to it. That was the only one that we didn't but other than that we've been there steadily ever year.
Jane: So it's like seven years.
Mark: From 2006?
Jane: Oh, wait. No.
Mark: It's a little more than that.
Jane: Sixteen?
Mark: Seventeen years.
Jane: Oh, seventeen years. Okay. Yeah.
Mark: Oh my god, we've done something for 17 years here. Oy.
Jane: Buy anyway, for anyone who is listening outside Ontario, The Fleet Safety Council is a group within Ontario that has a number of different chapters and they have meetings every month and talk about safety issues, etcetera. And they have a conference every year that we went to, I don't know why we went to it in the beginning, I guess, because it was one of the events in Ontario.
Mark: Well, it was originally called the Council of Driver Trainers and for us, we were like, well, yeah, that's where we need to be.
Jane: Really? It was called the Council of Driver Trainers.
Mark: And actually, the first time that we went there, I spoke at it.
Jane: Really?
Mark: That's how I think I found out about it because they asked me to speak there. And I don't even remember what I talked about, but it was a bigger event and it was different. At the time, it was large enough that they had different streams of content happening simultaneously.
Jane: Oh, yeah. I remember that.
Mark: So I did a session, I think I had a half hour to talk about something, probably to talk about why people should use computers train their drivers or something like that. You know?
Jane: Yeah it was 2006.
Mark: And then we've been there ever since.
Jane: Man.
Mark: Yeah.
Jane: Well, that was, and I remember it used to be in all of these different places.
Mark: Yeah. They used to move it around and now it's sort of kind of settled. It's always in one spot and that's not as good for the people at the outlying chapters, but they do tend to get more steady higher presence there. So we look forward to it now every year and I think, it's not a huge event, it's maybe I'm gonna say 250 people or something like that so it's a fairly small intimate gathering, but there's so many customers and partners that are there. We always look forward to catching up with everybody.
Jane: And I haven't really seen anybody for a long time.
Mark: So it'll be good for you.
Jane: Yeah. So I'm really looking forward to it. Yeah. Yeah.
Mark: And man, that day and a half just goes by so fast.
Jane: Yeah. It's going to be a bit of a whirlwind week because we have to tack on some, you know, seeing our kids at the end.
Mark: Oh yeah, that.
Jane: Oh yeah, and them.
Mark: Yes. But we have six people attending this year, that's how much we see the value of this event is we've got four other staffers that are coming.
Jane: Oh, yeah.
Mark: So that'll be fun too. It's good for them to get immersed in that part of the industry a little bit differently and a good chance for us to hang out.
Jane: A lot of our staff end up cycling through the Fleet Safety Council.
Mark: Yeah. One way or another. Oh, yeah. That's gonna be an excellent event and the shout out to a TruckRight who are not only sponsoring a bunch of things, but are also one of the speakers there.
Jane: Mhmm.
Mark: And I don't know if I've seen Dirk do a speech before.
Jane: No. I'm interested it in it as well.
Mark: Yeah. Should we sit in the front and heckle or sit in the back and applaud?
Jane: And heckle. Sit in the back or the front and heckle.
Mark: No. We won heckle. We'll support him.
Jane: Yeah. He's also well, TruckRight is also a Best Fleets sponsor so let's give them a shout out for that?
Mark: Yes. And from that, I think we can pivot to talking about the other big event that I alluded to at the beginning, and I am pretty sure we hadn't announced everything in our last episode, but it is all out and public now that we are doing our education and awards conference. Starting the first one will be happening next April, April 8th and 9th, 2024.
Jane: Our first inaugural Best Fleets education and awards event.
Mark: Yes. I'm starting to get to kind of, I I'm in I'm it's always a pendulum and I'm towards the excited side of it now. I will shift back to the
Jane: Terrified?
Mark: Exactly the word that was in my head. Yes. Anxious and losing sleep side of it you know, I'll go back to that side of the pendulum but right now, when I think about it, I'm in sort of the excited side of it because it's gonna give us a chance to go dig deeper into that content and to cover stuff. Like I mentioned, having a two hour webinar that I condensed into twenty minutes, even that two hour webinar barely scratched the surface.
Like the amount of time it took us to put together content for two hours, I don't think I mean, it probably didn't take us more than four or five hours to put it together. There's just so much information that you can just fill time with all the things that fleets are doing and to finally have that chance to get up on stage and actually talk about that and share that information for fleets, I think it's gonna be a really fun experience.
Jane: Yes. And we will have at least one special guest that we can't talk about yet.
Mark: We will be announcing a special guest speaker
Jane: Mhmm.
Mark: That I think is really going to contribute to it very nicely as well. And I think we're also we've talked about this very briefly.
Jane: It's not the Rolling Stones, by the way.
Mark: No. Even though the Stones are everywhere in the last couple weeks. Yeah. But no, our special guest is gonna really be a good contribution, but we also are gonna have other speakers internally. It's not just gonna be the two of us trading barbs on stage for four hours.
Jane: Much as everybody just always loves that.
Mark: Yeah. But we'll have a a good agenda of people talking about the things that they've observed, providing fleets a lot of good information about what they can be doing. So it's not just about, you know, the winning fleets show up and collect their trophy. It's going to be about here's why they're winners. Here's what you can do to help your own fleet to become a part of it. Here's how you can learn from them. It can be a lot of really good information. So I think it's gonna be fun. I think it's gonna be a great reception. We are doing it at the NASCAR Hall of Fame, which I love that idea. That was one that I thought of early on, and it was sort of ehhhh let's see, we'll see how it's gonna go.
Jane: Oh, no. I think it's a great location.
Mark: But it's turned out to be fantastic as a location.
Jane: Not only we doing it at the NASCAR Hall of Fame, but we have the entire NASCAR Hall of Fame
Mark: We booked out the whole thing for the day
Jane: Yeah. So it's ours.
Mark: The people can go and do their, like, winner photos right beside some of these well known sort of retired vehicles of the greats, the people that are in that actual Hall, you can have your group photo right beside them.
Jane: And apparently, there are some activities that you can do.
Mark: Yeah. There's other things that you can do that we may do during the reception. You can have sort of a pit crew challenge and do some of these team-based activities, but we'll see we'll see if we wanna do that, but It's going to be a
Jane: It's gonna be busy.
Mark: Yeah, it's gonna be a busy and fun event. Our three sponsors are making it possible for us to have this event at very low very low cost for attendees and also no exhibits and not flooded with other vendors. So the fleets that are there are not gonna be getting swarmed by sales reps all the time. They can actually focus on the learning, talking to each other, and making the most of the time. Still a ton of work to do.
Jane: Still a ton of work to do.
Mark: But the pieces are coming together.
Jane: Yep. Very exciting.
Mark: Well, I'm at the point where I'm starting to look at like their AV guides and what their lighting opportunities are or how they're their show options work and I'm starting to think about how we wanna light the stage and what we want for the giant screen that they have, how we're gonna have that decorated, so that's gonna be fun. Haven't put a big show on stage in years. That's gonna be the best part for me. I won't be having any time to do any speeches. I'm just gonna be doing like lighting design.
Jane: I'll, I'll take care of that.
Mark: Yeah. There we go. So we're gonna have some fun.
Jane: Yes. Absolutely.
Mark: So lots of events that are part of our schedule these days. And what else are we doing that isn't event? Oh, you're working on air brakes?
Jane: I am. I'm actually I'm kind of working on air brakes. It's it's more about I'm going through the content that I we have and sort of figuring out how we're gonna put it in our system.
Mark: Mhmm.
Jane: So the way that the way that other e-learning systems tend to do online, like how they structure it is a little bit different than how we do it. I have a very fine sense of what order things should go in.
Mark: Well, there's a a several things here and step back a bit.
Jane: Oh, okay.
Mark: So our partner, the very excellent Rolf Vanderzwaag, who is, like, the technical guru on so many different things about trucking, has got an air brake course that he's put together, and he's done it with CVSA. It's a course that's endorsed by CVSA and they're now selling it. And we're going to be having that course in our library.
Jane: Mhmm.
Mark: But as you mentioned, other systems build e-learning different ways. So Rolf built it, I think he used iSpring Presenter to build it. Yeah.
Jane: I think iSpring is the one he likes.
Mark: Yeah. But that works for iSpring and it works for certain deployments, but we need things in a particular way to run through our system and to work through our mobile app and to be consistent with how we do things in our library. So what you've been working on is going through and sort of pulling out that content, seeing how are we gonna do that translation? To turn it into something that will work in our library that has the same content and still works the same way as what was originally designed.
Jane: Yeah, it's the same information. One of the things that is kind of different is that there's words on the page that are different than words and audio, and we don't do that. So I wanna keep those things the same. So it's kinda like, k, what's on the page?
What things are being highlighted. Okay. We can do it this way. We can move this here. We can do this.
So it's it's not like a it's not gonna be a hugely different course is just gonna be reorganized a little bit, which is kind of what I was saying is that I I organize things differently than a lot of people do. I see things that can be moved. And for learning, it tends to work. And I wanna shorten it a little bit. It's really long.
Mark: Well, one of the other things that comes up when you go through that exercise you put it into our templates and in our sort of model, then you start realizing, oh, there's places where there's images missing or we need a different kind of diagram you know, so that affects things as well.
Jane: Or what is this? Yeah. That's what it is, like, what is this picture showing me? I cannot see this. So that is basically I know Rolf has all the has all the images, and he can give them to me.
But I'm going through, I'm basically doing a first pass and and taking a look at what we've got and what things are being covered. So there's twelve modules and I'm on module ten right now.
Mark: Okay. That's a meaty course.
Jane: Oh my gosh. You do not know the half of it. The first four modules were super long. And because they're talking about how the air brake system works.
Mark: Mhmm.
Jane: And all of the different like, how the air the supply air and the service brakes and the spring brakes and all of that stuff. So talking about how all those different systems work within the vehicle, and then they've kind and then he's kind of gone back to more simple things like the parts of the foundation brakes. So the regular like, what are these brake parts, like, brake shoes, brake drums, like, that kind of thing. So it's a lot shorter now. So the first few took me a while, but now it's Now it's kind of
Mark: Okay. So the last batch are much shorter modules.
Jane: Yeah. I just finished inspections. So
Mark: Okay.
Jane: Which wasn't, like, not Oh, that's interesting because part of an inspection is all of the air brake testing.
Mark: Mhmm.
Jane: But he already explained all the air brake testing in a different module. So I'm just making the connection is, like, oh, okay. When we have our vehicle inspection course, we put all of those tests to, like, air pressure tests and, you know, I can't remember what they're all called, but there's like five different tests that you do or six. And then he was talking about that all with regard to the air brake system.
Mark: Okay.
Jane: And making sure that that's operating properly. But in an inspection, you have to do that as well. So he has just put in a different module. Nobody else needs to know this. That's just me. Sorry. Thinking out loud.
Mark: Course design.
Jane: So, yeah, I'm having course design thoughts.
Mark: Okay. Well, that's cool. It's starting to come together then.
Jane: Mhmm. It's kind of all bulging or like, I don't know, churning around my head. As it does. I feel like I'm doing nothing at the, you know, like, it feels like it's really quiet because it does not a lot happening when I do this. But I basically sleep for a while and then it kinda comes to me.
Mark: Well, and then you'll go and do some gardening or go and work out.
Jane: Yeah.
Mark: For a walk or Yeah. We see you like replanting, repotting some plants and things like that. And then all of a sudden, it just sort of comes out.
Jane: Yeah. Except for I have to be careful of what I do with my hands because I have a I have a weird
Mark: You have an injury.
Jane: I don't know if it's an injury. It's kinda like but it making it so that using my fingers is a little less easy. Mhmm. So I have to be careful of it or
Mark: You have to find ways to process that subconsciously without using your hands.
Jane: Yeah. Yeah. So
Mark: So that'll be just sleeping.
Jane: Sleeping would be good, watching TV. Playing solitaire.
Mark: There you go. Yep. Playing games.
Jane: But that's what I've been up to.
Mark: Okay? I think that's gonna be very cool.
Jane: Mhmm.
Mark: Another challenge that we have with this is that because we put these courses together and offer them in multiple different styles, you're gonna have the full version of the course, which is what he's got here. Originally, the twelve modules and yours will probably end up as eight or something like that. That'll be sort of the full course, but you also want a bunch of different segments that are available standalone for refresher purposes. So we'll have to figure out that and how do these things get organized in a way that you can have standalone subsections that make sense and are valuable on their own as a refresher? Maybe there is one thing that is just on inspecting the brakes.
I don't know what else there might be. There's another one that might be on I don't know, connecting brake systems, connecting the gladhands or something that I don't know. I've only looked over your shoulder at, like, a couple of different bits.
Jane: While you're telling me to leave my computer.
Mark: Yeah, and I obviously do not know how all of these things work. But there will be some logical grouping of the content that allows you to break out those refresher modules as well.
Jane: Yeah. Usually, it's just by modules. So whatever the module things are, like, whatever those breaks are gonna be themselves as well. It's and there's a little bit of bus information that I'm gonna take out because I don't think that really. Do we want it for buses too?
Mark: I don't know if it's required to be in there. It might be something where we have to
Jane: Oh, we should find out.
Mark: Right. It's like the ELDT stuff where we had to have certain things that weren't really applicable, but
Jane: Yeah. Because they request stuff. Yeah. Yeah.
Mark: Yeah. Well, that that should be good.
Jane: I think so. Yeah. I think that'll be it'll be a nice addition to the library. That is for sure.
Mark: You just mentioned bus stuff when you're talking about ELDT, and it reminded me of the other conversations that I had last week in Austin at MCE or MC and E.
Jane: Just choose one. They don't care.
Mark: MCE.
Jane: Yes.
Mark: I feel like I'm skimping when I do that.
Jane: Yeah. Just say MCE.
Mark: So there was a a great conversation that I had with. Mike Lasko from Boyle Transportation, who wanted to tell me that the dashcam integration that they've had working now for a little while is really working very well. And I was very happy to hear that because it was a pain as many people listening here have heard us talk about it over and over. The long grind of getting that running and getting it actually set up and people using it is really working out.
Jane: That's great.
Mark: He said their speeding incidents are down 67% since putting that in. And I'm like, oh my god. That's a huge amount. That's fantastic. So that was really good to hear.
Jane: Yeah. Thanks, Mike.
Mark: We will certainly be putting that on the website.
Jane: Yes. Absolutely.
Mark: It's nice to see. Now they're using it. I think they're using it in a very efficient way, and they're probably sort of figuring out the best way to do it that's gonna work really well. But Now we just need to get it to the point where it can be very simple to get set up for everybody else. That's a lot that the headache is not actually building the system to pull that data in and connect it to what we're doing, the headache ends up being each customer what they have to do to actually turn it on. Now from our end, paste in a couple of account details and it's up and running. But on the the camera vendor's side, often they have to make a request for something. They have to get some IDs. Sometimes it has to be switched on by the by the camera vendor.
Sometimes they try and charge for it, which I think is nuts, but you know, there's a few hurdles that we're working on with our camera partners to get those things smoothed out so that customers can get that enabled very quickly. But it's really nice, nice to see that once it is up and running, that it really pays off.
Jane: That would be a good webinar.
Mark: Yeah. Well, we actually did a webinar think it was in May, we did a webinar with Netradyne talking about best practices with camera based training. And that was with Adam Lang who used to be at Halvor Lines and moved over to Netradyne and he talked about his experience. On the carrier side, and then on the vendor side, how he, you know, recommends using dashcam footage for driver training.
But I think we will get to a point where we have some other customers talking about how they use it and how it's worked out for them. And that's been really nice. He also mentioned that the hazmat training that they're doing the ELDT, hazmat training that they're doing through us is working out very well and it saves them a ton of money. Okay.
Jane: So if anybody is interested in that, then you can talk to Mike Lasko at Boyle Transportation.
Mark: Yeah, I looked and we've got I think we got three or four customers that are doing the hazmat endorsement stuff through us, so that's working really well also. So I love getting out and talking to customers. Find these things out. And even if customers have a gripe about something, I like that as well because then I can at least know about it and do something about it.
Jane: Absolutely. You can't fix a problem that you don't know about.
Mark: Yeah. And last week at ATA, there was really not a lot of gripes. It was all just good things.
Jane: Just call at AT and A?
Mark: ATA.
Jane: I thought you said AT and A.
Mark: Oh god. I hope not.
Jane: I think you're getting I think you're getting, like, really on top of yourself with this.
Mark: ACAME.
Jane: I interrupted to make fun of you.
Mark: That's alright. I lost my train of fun.
Jane: Oh, shoot.
Mark: Well, I'm looking forward to talking to customers this week, and we go to Fleet Safety Council, and I'm sure we'll hear the things that are going well, but I also look forward to hearing the things that can be improved because they're they're really good at providing that feedback.
Jane: Mhmm.
Mark: So that's what I have been up to. You're busy with air brakes. Anything else exciting happening? You've been on the radio quite a bit too.
Jane: Oh, I know. I have been on the radio. I have to find a and one of our customers to talk about some training stuff Mark Willis just asked me if I could show up on November 1st and talk about training. So maybe I'll ask Mike Lasko.
Mark: Well, we just put it out there on the podcast. Any customers that wanna be part of the discussion on education on the Mark Willis show?
Jane: Let me know. Yeah. It's November 1st from three to four eastern, which is nice because it's not six in the in the morning my time. What else is happening? Not a lot.
For me? It's kinda weird that I am not I'm sort of waiting on some things to be finished in content, so we can finish them. We can get them out.
Mark: Okay. So I can dump a bunch of marketing creative on you then?
Jane: Yeah. It is kind of that time.
Mark: What?
Jane: I know. I know. You get so excited.
Mark: I've got a list. I got things that I've been parking me just sort of waiting because I don't wanna be making too many requests.
Jane: Well, everybody's busy. But I just don't have to I just I'd me personally, so I could probably do it.
Mark: Well, we've got a bunch of we got a lot of content still to put on our website. Even though we've just been dumping content on that website endlessly for months. We started putting Rick's travel blogs on there which are turning out very nicely. Now that he's getting to more shows and writing his little travel blog afterwards. It's fantastic.
But we also have a mountain of these five tips stories that go based on different courses. So for lots of our courses. We'll have a distracted driving course, but then we'll also have five tips to help with distracted driving. Five tips to help with fuel efficiency. Like, they're not all five dips.
Some are probably four or six or whatever, but basic buzzfeed style things that great for SEO, but they're also really useful as sort of a short story that gets you thinking about different things and can be really helpful that way. We've got like a dozen of them and we just need some graphics to go with that and I have some ideas. So I will I will badger you afterwards.
Jane: Yeah. I can probably do that. In my sleep.
Mark: Oh, yeah. It'll be inside of an hour, you'll be done.
Jane: Yeah. That is not gonna be an issue.
Mark: Okay.
Jane: Maybe we should get to it.
Mark: Okay. Well, I think this is going to give us a cue to wrap this thing up. And, yes, my old legs are starting to tell me that it's time to stop standing, and we should get back to work.
Jane: Sounds like a plan.
Mark: Alright. Thanks for listening everybody.
Jane: Have a good day.