Raise your hand if you've ever relied on CliffsNotes to pull you through when you needed a quick review of a book or help understanding it. Never because you didn't read the book, right? *Wink wink*

A couple of weeks ago, time stopped and the earth stood still.

At least, it did if you were in Austin, Texas...

Downtown...

At the Westin...

At KaiNexicon 2019... 

Ok, and in my brain. It only happened in my brain. But what happened IRL WAS exciting, for everyone that was there. Not just me.

You see, I might run the marketing at this company, but if I'm being honest, I can't keep up with all the features that have come out, those that are being developed, and those that are coming out soon. I depend on the Support Site as heavily as any of the rest of you! 

So, when CEO Greg Jacobson and Product Manager Ryan Rippey unveiled the new features that are coming out in our HUGE next release, I was as surprised and excited as everyone else at the conference.

There are too many features for me to tell you about right now - and you'll get the full scoop later this month when the version is released - but I wanted to go ahead and release the video from that KaiNexicon presentation so the rest of you can share in the anticipation.

I will tell you the thing I'm MOST excited about, though - the updates to how comments work. When this release comes out, you'll be able to:

Mark Graban has been involved with KaiNexus for a long time, since 2011. You might know him from our webinar series, KaiNexicon, and more.

His most recent book, Measures of Success: React Less, Lead Better, and Improve More, has been really helpful to us at KaiNexus. We've learned to stop questioning every up and down in our various performance measures. We have a copy or two floating around the Austin office, as he shared on LinkedIn.

One of our stories is featured in the book (you can read a blog post about that) and our CEO, Dr. Greg Jacobson, endorsed it, saying: 

"Mark Graban taught the KaiNexus team how to understand the story a metric is actually telling over time. We've saved time by not overanalyzing every up and down in our metrics — and that’s valuable time we now put to better use. This new way of thinking also decreases stress, which further helps us do better work. I'm excited that Mark is sharing these lessons through 'Measures of Success,' a book that will help accelerate your progress and lead to better results."

If you want to learn the lessons we've learned and applied, Mark has an excellent day-long workshop (he has done it as part of a KaiNexus User Conference before) and he has some upcoming dates that we wanted to tell you about:

• Winnipeg on May 10
• Framingham, MA (Boston area) on May 22
• Washington DC on June 12

We hope this helps you in your improvement journey! You can also contact Mark about bringing this workshop to your organization.

As a preview, check out the webinar that he did on this subject of "Process Behavior Charts:

Do you ever work on something that makes you giddy with excitement? At last year's User Conference, we started the tradition of giving out awards to honor the hard work of our customers. I was into it when we came up with the idea... I was super excited when I saw the lightbulb trophies that our VP of Customer Experience found... but standing next to the stage waiting to whip a surprise Nexie hidden in my dress pocket, I felt (as we say in the South) fit to burst.

And you guys, it's going to happen again this year. Well, not the dress pocket thing - I feel like I can only pull that off once. But definitely the Nexie Award Ceremony.

The people at our conferences are usually the ones recognizing and rewarding others for their hard work around continuous improvement. The Nexie ceremony is our way of changing the game for an evening by honoring them for their hard work and commitment to excellence throughout the year. The awards are meant to be a play on the Oscar or Grammy, and are given out based on a variety of criteria and categories.

Here are the categories we'll be awarding at this year's conference. If you haven't registered yet, do so here - you definitely won't want to miss this.

We're always super excited when KaiNexus appears in a publication. Recently, our CEO Greg Jacobson got the opportunity to be interviewed by Jan Bowers of CAP Today. Also featured in the article is Tania Lyon, who leads the improvement culture transformation at St. Clair Hospital.

CCAP Today is a monthly publication targeted towards the people responsible for clinical laboratory purchases. It features articles about advances in technology and procedures, management and operation trends, changes to regulations, finance, and news about the College of American Pathologists. CAP Today operates a print magazine as well as a digital version.

I don’t think there’s ever a time for improvement more obvious than when you’ve taken on a big project at work for the first time with zero experience in that area. Quite frankly, that was me, trying to organize last year’s KaiNexus User Conference in Austin, TX. I had a couple of awesome contacts who gave me the basics, a team that was willing to pitch in with the legwork and brainstorm ideas, and my dear old friend Google. The rest was accomplished through sheer willpower.

The 2016 KaiNexus User Conference is right around the corner, and it’s time for you to register. We have a packed lineup of our best customers getting ready to show you the most unique, interesting, and clever things we’ve ever seen people do in KaiNexus. Whether you’re a long-time customer, you just started working with us, or you’re making the final decision on whether to sign up, you can’t miss this event.

Physical huddle boards have been used for years as a means of helping people visualize the progress of improvement work. Teams gather around the board to discuss opportunities for improvement and to help each other solve problems.

In theory, physical huddle boards are great! They help make work visible, promote collaboration, and put an emphasis on improvement...but they’re also limited. It’s difficult for people not in that particular location to stay up to date with improvement work and don’t let you capture the results of completed work over time.

So how can you keep the benefits of a huddle board without having your efforts hampered by its limitations? That’s easy - move your huddle boards into KaiNexus!

If you’re already convinced and want to create Boards in KaiNexus, check out the support documents we have listed here to learn how.

Dear Customers,

As you probably know, our continuous improvement blog has really been picking up steam over the last couple of years. With a wide range of readers in every industry, at every stage of the improvement journey, and with mixed feelings and experience with improvement technology, we try to keep the KaiNexus speak to a minimum. 

We've heard from a bunch of you, though, that you'd be interested in a blog that focuses in on KaiNexus. Things like best practices, use cases, customer stories, new features. 

We hear you. 

We want to write more about KaiNexus too.

So, introducing, The KaiNexus Customer Blog!

In true Lean fashion, we'll be rolling this out slowly, evaluating and adjusting over time. We'll work on finding the right cadence for posting, talk to you guys about what you like and what you want more of, and dedicate more resources to blogging as time goes on.

To make this work, I need to hear from YOU! What do you want us to write about? What do you want to learn about? Who do you want to hear from? This is your blog, people. 

Speak up! Leave a comment and tell me what I should put on our list of future post ideas, or email your favorite KaiNexus team member with your ideas. Can't wait to hear from you!

Thanks for all of the support that makes launching this new blog possible. I can't wait to see where it takes us.

- Maggie Millard, Director of Marketing