E-learning is an industry that has been consistently touted as one of the ‘next big things’. And while the reality has not always lived up to the hype (as it rarely does) innovative companies have been quietly getting on with the job of making the e-learning concept work in practice.
Learning Pool is a pretty good example of just such a company. Originally set up in 2002 by IDeA, the Improvement and Development Agency for local government, Learning Pool has been run privately by two Northern Ireland-based entrepreneurs since 2006. In a little over two years, it has grown to employ over 35 staff and provide services to over 86% of councils across the UK.
The idea for Learning Pool was actually inspired by the success of music sharing website Napster. In the same way that Napster allowed users to share content across a central platform, Learning Pool was conceived to deliver a similar service to the UK public sector.
Collectively, councils and other public sector bodies are responsible for delivering training courses to tens of thousands of staff and members of the public. Despite the fact that many of the topics are equally applicable from one council to the next, each council (or even individual departments within a public sector body) have traditionally created their own training courses – resulting in duplication and unnecessary expense.
Learning Pool’s primary offering is a subscription-based service that allows individual public sector bodies to dip into a central pool of e-learning courses – many developed by other participating councils – which they can then re-brand and rework for their own needs.
Learning Pool not only provides the platform and onsite creation tools to make the process simple, but also develop their own courses and course content to fill identified gaps. Indeed Learning Pool have successfully leveraged their position as a platform to help identify new opportunities within the market – leading to hugely successful products aimed at school governors and local councillors.
The next steps will likely include taking their expertise to new markets in N. America and ex-British colonies in Asia and Africa with similar local government structures.
Learning Pool succeeds not because of an aggressive sales strategy or technical expertise (they often make use of open source software in their projects) but by creating a platform and community that are changing the way their industry does business.
It’s a business model that has helped business from Etsy to eBay and Twitter to the iPhone dominate their marketplace.
Site: www.learningpool.com
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