A new online start-up is aiming to disrupt the e-learning sector with a new creative-led marketplace.
Jam Pan, the brainchild of Ramsbottom-based David Wood, is hoping to bridge the gap between the UK’s digital creative industries and the learning and development sector.
It allows users to post their learning requirements which the marketplace – including app developers, video producers, animators, games designers and e-learning providers – can then bid for.
Jam Pan is free to use for marketplace suppliers and takes a 10% fee against projects posted by clients.
“E-learning has become too predictable and isn’t delivering the business improvement outcomes envisaged,” said Wood.
Jam Pan founder David Wood
“It’s become predictable for stakeholders, L&D managers, instructional designers and learners: everyone expects to get what they’ve always had. Innovation is stifled.
“The digital creative sector produces some amazing stuff, the e-learning sector seldom does – it really is stuck in the PowerPoint past.”
“There are potentially limitless options and ways to meet performance needs, yet if we always start by defining the need as an ‘e-learning’ need, we narrow the kinds of solutions we can use. If you want a digital solution, why always pass it to an e-learning company?,” he added.
Wood is a former digital creative lead on e-learning projects for Virgin Media and Greater Manchester Police.
He says Jam Pan helps e-learning catch up with the progress made by the digital creative sector.
He said: “Jam Pan’s projects look very different to the predictable, solutions that have defined the sector. Immersive games, animations, hard-hitting video and entertainment are at the core of where e-learning is heading.
“The UK’s vibrant digital creative sector has largely been excluded from e-learning development. It was like e-learning was operating in its own closed world. Learners often start e-learning courses and don’t complete them.”
Steve Kuncewicz, an intellectual property, media and social media lawyer at Bermans, was an early adopter of Jam Pan during its recent beta period.
He said: “There’s a famous quote to the effect that the most dangerous phrase is: we’ve always done it this way. Jam-Pan is disruptive in the most benevolent sense of the word.”
