Expedia, Microsoft, Starbucks, and REI are just a few of the companies that have sent their best and brightest to be trained at a cozy 3,200 square foot suite on the east side of Queen Anne Hill -- the home of Oxygen Learning.
The corporate training and design practice has found a niche by throwing away the PowerPoint presentation and bringing in hands on, intuitive learning.
It’s a mission led by Oxygen Learning’s owner and operator, CEO Juliana Stancampiano — a resident of Upper Queen Anne for four years.
"What's different about us from a lot of other training companies is really that we're focused on the design aspect versus the content,” Stancampiano said. “There's lots of leadership experts out there or sales experts out there, but we use whatever content is first of all right for the organization. And most of these large organizations own a lot of their own content.”
Essentially, if a company is putting its people through training, and it’s found that the training methods are not effectively communicating a process into actual practice, it becomes Oxygen Learning’s job to make it so and to make it stick.
Oxygen Learning has incorporated its learning philosophies and techniques into spectrum content areas, such as financial modeling, sales and performance management.
"Our classroom environment is very different,” Stancampiano said. “We pull the information out from people. We don't do PowerPoints. There's no one standing up at the front of the classroom lecturing over and over again. It's all about retention and making it stick for somebody.”
To illustrate how that “stickability” is reached, Stancampiano described how Microsoft employees were sent to Oxygen Learning to relearn sales skills and practices that had originally been taught to them through a course using a 220-slide PowerPoint presentation.
Oxygen Learning dissected Microsoft’s original training program and reevaluated the necessities. In order to get a better grasp of the training content, Oxygen Learning facilitators had the Microsoft employees, in one instance, learn to juggle.
“To learn how to juggle is actually a process,” Stancampiano said. “So first of all you have to get used to the ball dropping. And then we would teach people one ball juggling, and then two ball juggling, and then three ball juggling. And if they started making mistakes at three ball juggling, we'd have them go back to two the ball juggling. And if you think about it as a process, if something's going wrong, you need to back up to the step before to see what you did wrong in that step and then go forward to the next step."
In order to get the lessons to stick with an individual long after the training is done, Oxygen Learning uses a variety visual, audio, and kinetic stimuli to reinforce the learning process. And more importantly, Oxygen Learning facilitators do not “give away” the answers, and will take the time to let the learners learn for themselves.
Courses can range from a half a day session to a nine-day on boarding course, depending on what needs to be learned.
Stancampiano had originally worked with Oxygen Learning in Munich, Germany in 2007, when it became her goal to open a U.S.-based office. That dream was fulfilled in July 2008, with Oxygen Learning opening on Queen Anne Avenue, and remaining there for three-and-a-half years, before moving to Westlake Avenue North in February.
"I ended up buying the company in 2009, so we're just a Seattle based office now, but we've delivered in 43 countries over the last four years,” Stancampiano said. “Everything that we design and train is the same regardless of where it's being done around the world. It might be in a local language, which would probably be the biggest difference, but otherwise it's all very similar."
When she’s not busy being a CEO, Stancampiano is busy being a mother to two young children — a three year old and a four month old.
"They're young, and so a lot of moms will appreciate this, but they get up early and they go to bed early,” Stancampiano said. “And so if you get home at 7 p.m., they're going to bed. So I try very intentionally to leave at 5 p.m. to be at the house on time. And I can be at home in eight minutes."
Stancampiano said she and her husband chose to base Oxygen Learning in Queen Anne because of the neighborhood’s family-friendly qualities and so that they could stay closer to their children.
“We've enjoyed [the Queen Anne neighborhood] a lot, especially having kids,” Stancampiano said. “When we moved to Seattle it was like, ‘I want that,’ because we were just so used to being able to walk to places. We're on Second West and our walkability is really good. We're constantly walking up to the Ave."
Oxygen Learning isn’t just for the big corporations. Stancampiano said she’s opened her doors to smaller businesses, non-profits, and individuals in the past.
"We'll help people if they need it, like small companies and things like that that can't afford us,” Stancampiano said. "There's a lot that we can do to just improve education overall and so I've been open to helping people out, people that are on the hill, if they need that help in their own businesses." For more information, visit OxygenLearning.com.