StartUpCue

Judd Knight, creator of Trainiac was our 1st place winner. We’ve asked him a few things about his company and how he got started.

1. How long have you been working on Trainiac?

We have soft launched our Trainiac offering here in the USA in 2009, based in Saint Louis. Our business operations are 8 years old where we have been serving clients in Europe and Africa.

2. What inspired Trainiac?

The idea, to use visual content and experiences to help people learn, is of course thousands of years old, but we were struck by two feelings. One, that business content was so uninspiring, and two, that it was becoming so convoluted. So we had a paradox, being both underwhelmed by boredom and overwhelmed by complexity. Going back to basics was critical. For leaders to get the best out of their business, they have to get the best out of their people. Getting the best out of your people means engaging them so that they learn, so that their learning turns into a behavior change, and that change leads to a business result. It still all comes down to people, and people love pictures!

3. What stage is your idea in now?

We are a small company that has worked with Fortune 500 corporations to mid sized operations. We are growing and our offering of picture based training and communication products and services is expanding. We are also working on an idea that will empower trainers to create their own material, which is exciting.

4. Where do you see things going in the next year?

Of course one can’t ignore the impact of the economic meltdown and its effect on large and small business alike. I think we are past the shock and denial phase and are now accepting the current state. Our industry, corporate training and communication, had its share of budget clampdowns, inactivity and folks putting everything on hold. But business goes on, and the winners will be the companies that emerge from this economic hit with a well trained, skilled and engaged workforce. So we are seeing a refocus on this with a few changes

1. Training needs to be more effective and organic. It needs to happen in the job, in short, regular bursts
2. Training is a companywide initiative, with non trainers doing more and more of the training.
3. Companies have to equip those non trainers to perform that function
4. People love pictures, but above all else we are engaged by other people, so training will get better results when it’s a group oriented activity.
5. Technology will play its part, but not to purely deliver training online, but to bring groups of learners together to be engaged.

Any last words?

We are investing in Saint Louis and this region, so we would love to hear from organizations who are looking to improve the quality of their training results without compromising their budgets. We will also be staffing up and so people who love instructional design, visual design or HR executives who love training and workforce development and have a network in this region should call or visit trainiac.com.