All Work and No Play

In the beginning, there were a lot of long hours, last trains and the occasional office sleep over! We worked hard, but played…not so much. I definitely deserve much of the blame for that. Seeing the world through sleep-deprived eyes tends to give one tunnel vision. And if you spend too much time focusing on external matters, the internal ones can be easily overlooked.

Don’t mistake these for excuses. My short-coming on the all-work-no-play front was due to inexperience.

More Work and Some Play

I knew the fun quota had to be raised. We had a team of amazing people at the company, and I felt guilty for not providing more opportunities to blow off some steam. We started with the basics: dinner, drinks and karaoke. Compared to late night dashes for the last train, this was a big step in the right direction. However, as time went on the purpose of these events strayed from the intended goal. Getting away from work was critical, but there had to be other ways to do it. I didn’t have the time to dedicate toward this, but I had ideas. I just needed someone who could take on the important, yet time-consuming role.

Rise of the Fun Czarina

A talented Human Resources person is worth their weight in gold, as catering to the diverse needs of the team is critical to overall happiness. However, most people at small businesses have to wear many hats. This was, and continues to be, the case for us. So, it was time to find the right person for the job. We put together a small challenge for the potential candidates, and the winner was hired as the Fun Czarina. (Czar is for males I was told.) You can follow her blog here.

More Meaningful Fun 

We calculated the amount spent on wining and dining, and allotted the Fun Czarina that same amount to plan monthly and bi-monthly events. The focus shifted from just spending time together to incorporating culture and learning experiences into the activities. The budget is spent much better now, and overall, I think that we’re giving our team new opportunities to experience life in Japan! Let’s be honest, it’s why most of us moved here in the first place! Japanese food is amazing, but there’s more to life here than just that.

For example, here is a comparison of events from 2011 vs. 2012

2011 - restaurant, restaurant, restaurant, restaurant

2012 - bowling/ping-pong-karoke, day trip to make soba and pick peaches, hot-spring trip

In addition, there are small monthly events that the Fun Czarina puts together in and outside of the office that focus on team members and Japanese culture.

Balancing Work and Play

I’m hardwired to work. If I put myself in charge of planning fun events for the staff, it would consume me. I know from experience. That’s when I realized it was better to have someone dedicated to planning for fun and let me focus on work. Instead of finding internal balance, it’s more like a see-saw: on one side work and on the other the other fun. Through this solution we have found a much better Work-Play balance.

And now I’m free to continue to pushing!

Be sure to tune into the Motoko’s Blog series to see what the Fun Czarina has in store for us!

Peter here.

For many JapanesePod101.com learners, it’s been a long time.

For many others, please allow my to introduce myself.

My name is Peter Galante, founder of JapanesePod101.com: the engine that allowed Innovative Language Learning to grow from one website into a full-fledged language learning company.

For several years, I’ve been locked in the language-learning lab working on a colossal content project. We’ve made some serious strides since our inception, and several product prototypes have begun to reach market. Our creation will power innovative language learning products for many years to come.

We’re seriously excited about sharing these with you, because frankly, we owe you. Actually, we owe you everything. Your support has powered our growth from a podcast to a language learning company.

Thanks to all of the support from all of our incredible learners, we’re counting down to two major milestones:

• 200 million lessons delivered
• 27 language learning websites

So, I thought it was a good time to get my head out of my lab, and…

First, say “Thank You!”

Second, share our story of how we got here.

Rewind to the Start of the Revolution – December 2005

In the beginning, there was one person. Writing, recording, recruiting, improvising, persuading, coding… whatever it took to release a language lesson a day, I would do. Growth was exciting and motivating. The community grew. The team grew. Passion for our product and its reception fueled the expansion from one language to two, and we didn’t stop there.

Fast Forward to the Present Progress – May 2012

A team of 20 incredibly gifted full-timers, network of hundreds more around the world, and an alumni of extremely talented people have taken the company from a Japanese language company to a language learning company. From 1 site in 2005 to 23 (going on 27 in July) in 2012, plus several hundred iPhone and Android applications, e-books, and iBooks. In short, if there is a digital language learning market, we’re probably in it.

You can view the time line here.

The Journey is the Best Part

Along our journey, there have been some remarkable stories that were never shared. There were successes and failures that we never took the time to talk about. Not sharing the story of how we’ve bootstrapped our way to this point without outside funding or investment is one of the biggest regrets I have.

It’s a story of passionate and clever people who have been pushing themselves to the limit to provide high quality language learning material.

Share Our Journey  

Things are moving full-speed ahead. The goal of this series of blog posts is to introduce you to our team. Share our successes and failures as we strive to create a better product.

So, Part One: Say Thank You.

I would like to thank all the people who have supported us.

I would like to also thank all of the people that have helped build this.

We’ve met some incredible people in our journey, and we’re excited about the many others we’re destined to meet!

Peter here.

Well, you’ve gone and done it again.

It seems like just yesterday we reached 100 million lessons delivered, and now we’re currently on pace to reach 200 Million.

200 Millionth Lesson: Estimated Delivery in July 2012

Here’s a closer look at the numbers:

Audio Lessons

• Current Download Total: 170 million
• Monthly Average Downloads: 3-4 million

source: Libsyn.com

Video Lessons

• Current view total on YouTube: 17 million
• Monthly Average: 1 Million views

Source: YouTube.com

This is a remarkable feat!

Looking at these Impressive Numbers in a Different Way

So what does 200 million lessons mean, anyway?

Well…if the running time of each lesson averages 10 minutes (10 mins is conservative), that comes to 3,805 round-the-clock years of language lessons delivered. (Round-the-clock Year: all day long, every day of the year)

Note: this is just the running time of our audio and video lessons, and doesn’t include time spent on applications, website usage, Audiobooks, iBooks, and all of our other products.

So how remarkable are these numbers?

How many teachers would it take to deliver the same amount of lessons?

• 631.1 teachers working for 30 years could cover deliver the same amount of lessons
• 18,933 teachers working 1 year, or
• 3,786.6 teachers working 5 years (about the same amount of time we’ve been in business).

Of course, this is in NO way a knock at teachers. We have the utmost respect for educators. We’re educators too! We feel our service complements the service teachers and tutors provide. It’s a testament to the power of combining technology with the passion of a small number.

How Far We’ve Come

InnovativeLanguage.com started with 1 person (me) and now employs about 25 full-time people and a small army of part-time workers and contractors spanning over 25 languages. Over the lifetime of the company (around 5 years), products have been created, designed, recorded, edited and published by just a few hundred passionate people. We’re a small team looking to deliver big things.

Over the next few months, leading up to the 200 million milestone, I’ll be sharing more news and stories from behind the scenes at InnovativeLanguage.com to celebrate just what we do here. Thank you again, to every single listener out there that has downloaded, subscribed and joined in on our passionate language learning community!

Peter Galante is the founder of InnovativeLanguage.com and he’s currently learning Chinese.

Today, we bring you a blog post from Motoko, JapanesePod101.com lesson creator, host and InnovativeLanguage.com Office Party Planner! Motoko will be sharing more posts on our blog, so check back often and leave a comment!

On the 17th of April here at Innovative Language Learning, we had an afternoon tea party.

Although Kim (a member of our Business Development Team) moved to Hong Kong, last week she came back to Japan for a brief visit, so it was her ‘welcome back’ party. Meanwhile, Pim (host of ThaiPod101.com) is going back to her home country to have her baby, so it was her ‘farewell’ party.

We all ate pastries, chatted, and enjoyed ourselves.

There was a choice of pastries: strawberry, green tea, custard… It was really hard to choose!

By the way, everyone, do you know what a shikishi is?

It’s a plain piece of card that measures roughly 20cm by 20cm. Actually, because it’s quite thick – about 3mm – it might be better to call it a board. It usually has a piece of Japanese paper pasted to one side of it. In Japan, when there’s a celebratory occasion, or someone is leaving, everyone writes a message on this piece of card. At ILL, too, when someone has something to celebrate or a staff member is leaving the company, we present them with a shikishi.

First of all, we write the name of the person in the middle. This time, it’s Pim. Then, so that the person we’re giving it to doesn’t see it while we’re writing on it, we put it inside the Secret File.

Everyone in the office then takes it in turns to write a message along the lines of ‘Congratulations!’ or ‘See you!’ before passing the card to the next person. Of course the company president also writes a personal message.

When everyone’s finished writing their messages, we decorate the card and make it cute and colorful.

Finally, we give it to Pim! She seemed really pleased with it. We’re going to miss you Pim!

Bonus : The True Face of ILL

Can a few employees make a difference?

For Green Practices in the office, the answer is a resounding YES.

April 22nd marked Earth Day. It provided an opportunity to look at our company’s Green Practices. When evaluating the company, I had the chance to look at several initiatives started by team members during our 5 years in business. It was very cool to see how they added up over the years, and how we continue to make contributions.

Top 5 Ways You’re Saving the World by Learning with InnovativeLanguage.com

1. Paperless Lessons: Forget about wasteful textbooks! Learn Japanese on your mobile phone, iPad, PC, or iPod. Think of all the paper you save when you switch to online Flashcards!

2. Paperless Communication: All communication, transactions and customer interactions are done electronically, the way it should be.

The first two are related to the nature of our product. We’re really happy about this, and choose to believe that green electricity is used to power student’s devices when using our programs. And while we know that we’re not there yet, we are hopeful that we’ll get that some day.

3. Green Office Practices (plus some pictures from around the office):

• Separation of trash: It takes a bit of practice and discipline, but makes a big difference in the big picture (the Japanese government gets credit for this one)
• Lights off during bright times of the day: Using what nature provides us, the essence of going green! (Team Member)

• Using Paper on both sides: We use every inch of paper before putting it in the recycling bin (Team Member)

• Office Thermometer: To help us regular office temperature and reduce power (Team Member)

 4. Green Office Admin:

• Electronic pay slips (Team Member)

5. Green Commuting Incentives:

• We pay for transportation, so if you bike to work, you keep the stipend (Team Member)

Of course, our environmentally friendly initiatives don’t stop there. Earth Day is a great reminder to reevaluate our practices and be more responsible citizens of the world.

Peter Galante is the founder of InnovativeLanguage.com and he’s currently learning Chinese. 

You did it!

Did what exactly? Well…

You’ve downloaded. You’ve tuned in. You’ve learned.

And iTunes has noticed!

Today, InnovativeLanguage.com is featured on the front page of the US iTunes Podcast section. The InnovativeLanguage.com iTunes page brings together 21 language 101.com sites, 19 Survival Phrases series, over 300 mobile apps, and much more.

But it’s not only a collection of language lessons, it’s a community of passionate language learners like you that download, tune in, and learn regularly. And we wouldn’t be on the front page without you.

Whether you tune in on iTunes or with a Free Lifetime Account on one of our websites, thank you for learning with us!

JapanesePod101.com, our Japanese language learning site is also featured in the New and Noteworthy Section! Check it out!

It’s kind of crazy to think that it all started with one podcast in one language back in 2005.

So once again, THANK YOU. You made this possible. Also, we’d like to thank Apple. We truly appreciate your products, services and support.

Innovative Language is back in the news! This time, it’s our French that is put to the test.

A Wall Street Journal article, Brushing Up on Your Japanese on a Small Screen, reviews a number of mobile apps for language learning and includes our own FrenchPod101’s “Advanced French for iPad” App.

Here’s an excerpt:

“An app that included basic French grammar was Advanced French for iPad, described as an “audio e-book.” The course consists of 25 audio blogs, each less than two minutes long. They included blogs from a French narrator, who goes by just by [sic] the name Christophe, on his country’s health-care system, rappers, telethons and foods.

There are over 690 Innovative Language Learning apps like “Advanced French for iPad,” and they span over 40 languages and cover every level from Beginner to Advanced. Each app is designed to bring practical, fun, and real-world style language lessons as well as their relevant vocabulary and grammar, to smartphones and tablets.

We’re happy to have been included in this review and will continue improving our mobile apps to teach language in the fastest, easiest, and most fun way.

Click Here To Read The Article!

Click Here to Get the App!

Last week, the InnovativeLanguage.com iTunes Provider Page went live! (Click here to view.)

The good folks at Apple allowed us the opportunity to showcase all of our language learning podcasts on one page! Presented with this incredible opportunity, the graphics team put together a pretty impressive page, if I do say so myself.

Some of the highlights:

• InnovativeLanguage.com themed Provider Page
• links to 21 our language course podcasts on iTunes
• links to 19 Suvival Phrase podcasts on iTunes
• showcase of all new artwork added over the past six months
• complete revamp of Survival Phrases artwork

In addition…

The page also centralizes a lot of our Apple product related activity. From the InnovativeLanguage.com Provider Page you can reach our iBooks, Audio Books, iOS Apps, pages on social networking sites and 101 websites.

While putting together this page, we reminisced about our roots of being a one podcast company. It made us appreciative of all of our users, who made this possible with their support, and team, who made this possible with the passion and performance.

So, this is a pretty good snapshot of what we’ve been up to for the past few years.

View our iTunes Provider Page by clicking here.

Looking forward to adding to a lot more to this page in 2012 and on.

Oh, hello there listener! We haven’t seen you in awhile! Is that a new haircut? Did you get contacts? Or maybe a tan from your winter vacation!  In any case, it’s nice to have you back!

You may have stopped by today because you’re thinking about picking up your language studies in the new year. Well, you’ve come to the right place. Starting January 2nd, 2012, we’ll be publishing some really great lessons that are sure to keep you busy and entertained all year long!

Here’s a quick look at what to expect on our 101.com sites:

• Learn Japanese in 2012! Click here for the JapanesePod101.com Weekly Schedule
• Get Fluent in Korean in 2012!  Click here for the KoreanClass101.com Weekly Schedule
• Master Spanish in 2012! Click here for the SpanishPod101.com Weekly Schedule
• Study Italian in 2012! Click here for the ItalianPod101.com Weekly Schedule
• Learn French in 2012! Click here for the FrenchPod101.com Weekly Schedule
• Brush Up On German in 2012! Click here for the GermanPod101.com Weekly Schedule
• Learn Russian in 2012! Click here for the RussianPod101.com Weekly Schedule
• Learn Chinese in 2012! Click here for the ChineseClass101.com Weekly Schedule
• Study Cantonese in 2012! Click here for the CantoneseClass101.com Weekly Schedule
• Learn Arabic in 2012! Click here for the ArabicPod101.com Weekly Schedule
• Bone Up On Portuguese in 2012! Click here for the PortuguesePod101.com Weekly Schedule
• Master Thai in 2012! Click here for the ThaiPod101.com Weekly Schedule
• Get Fluent in Greek in 2012! Click here for the GreekPod101.com Weekly Schedule
• Pick Up Polish in 2012! Click here for the PolishPod101.com Weekly Schedule
• Excel in Hebrew in 2012! Click here for the HebrewPod101.com Weekly Schedule
• Learn Indonesian in 2012! Click here for the IndonesianPod101.com Weekly Schedule
• Study Swedish in 2012! Click here for the SwedishPod101.com Weekly Schedule
• Learn Dutch in 2012! Click here for the DutchPod101.com Weekly Schedule
• Master Hungarian in 2012! Click here for the HungarianPod101.com Weekly Schedule

For free audio and video lessons to any of these languages, click here to sign up for a Free Lifetime Account! You’ll get 7-days of Premium Access, plus the Word of the Day, access to our newest lessons and the Core 100 Word List!

Good luck!

It all started with JapanesePod101.com, back in December of 2005.
6 years later, Innovative Language Learning is up to 22 language sites, 2 million registered users, and 4 million app downloads. But what does it all mean?

It means we couldn’t have done it without you. It means we’re very lucky to have a community of language lovers. It also means the world sees beauty in languages and cultures, and people wish to communicate with one another. And we’re happy to help.

Here are some key stats:

• December 2006 – 10,000 members
• December 2008 – 100,000 members
• April 2010 – 101 Million lesson downloads
• November 2011 – 2,000,000 members

So how exactly does a Japanese podcasting website grow? And how does it spread out to languages like Korean, Spanish, Arabic, and Dutch? Well, it’s quite a long story to tell. If you’re really interested, we can set some time aside, get some hot cocoa and tell the tale by the fireplace. But as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.

Click here to see the Timeline of Innovative Language Learning.