Like other Blatant products, SmartLab is distributed in the UK and the rest of Europe by Omniplex. Its managing director, Matthew Lloyd, comments, "While the traditional LMS is designed for dealing with regulatory, compliance-based, mandatory training, SmartLab has been designed to engage with and motivate audiences who have a choice about whether or not to learn."

"Absorb SmartLab has been designed for just such an elective audience. With competitions, scrolling latest-news panels, videos on the login page, and much more, all in a highly configurable environment, it supports brand projection at a much deeper level than the typical 'colour scheme and a logo' branding of many legacy LMSs."

Everything in SmartLab is configured through the Absorb LMS - including full HTML authoring of news stories and additional content. Using SmartLab, learners earn points by completing product-knowledge modules. The points are accumulated to qualify learners for sweepstakes, contests, and other promotional incentives.

"Up to now, most LMSs have looked like standard enterprise software applications", comments Omniplex's Stephen Miller. "When learners log in, they see their list of learning activities, take a course module or two, and then reward themselves with a trip to where they actually want to spend their time online: Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and so on."

"On the other hand, SmartLab provides a revolutionary approach to learning and development by creating an experience that resembles the sites people enjoy. The chances are that SmartLab learners won't even be aware that they're accessing information in an enterprise learning platform."

"Although your learners may be oblivious to the fact that they're spending time within an LMS, your administrators will be able to track the improvements in the skills, performance, and knowledge of your workforce."