The right people

When we first started Tandem Learning, we used to have Wednesday night "rockstar" meetings. (I hear that this is a very start-up thing to do.) We would sit around as a group, talk about our strategy, make plans about what kind of company we wanted to be. We talked about our mission, vision, and values. We brainstormed the types of problems we wanted to help organizations solve. We matched our expertise and potential solutions with those problems. We dreamed about who we would become as a company.

One of the highlights of those meetings was a list of what we wanted. Here's that list (paraphrased, because I can't find the flip chart paper we put it on):

• Do good, meaningful work
• Work on cool stuff
• Only work with smart people we like

Seems pretty simple, right? But in reality, not so much. The first one has been easy...we all focus on the quality of our work. The second one? Well, sometimes what pays isn't what's cool, and sometimes what's cool violates the first bullet...and we definitely aren't sacrificing that.

The complication is really the third bullet. We've all known what its like to work with amazing people...the problem is finding them, and when you do find them, convincing them that they want to work with you. We've been really picky here at Tandem, and we've been lucky. We've worked with some exceptionally smart and likable people, and we've met a lot along the way. Now that we're in a position to grow our team, we've had some serendipitous moments of mutual interests and good timing that are helping us honor that third bullet. And we couldn't be more excited.

We're going to be making more hiring announcements in the next few months, but we are thrilled that Tim Martin is joining the Tandem Learning team. We met Tim in 2008 when he was working for the eLearning Guild and we were planning our first conference as a vendor at DevLearn. Sometimes fate or circumstance presents opportunities, and we're ecstatic that Tim is coming on board.