The vision of online learning from Tom Bos - CEO of SkillsTown

Want to know who's behind the face of SkillsTown's CEO? Meet: Tom Bos! In this podcast, Peter van Hout, program manager and podcast host at SkillsTown, talks with him. They go into depth that will help you get to know Tom, his path to SkillsTown and his vision for online learning.

Listen to the full podcast via the video below or read the summary in this article (reading time: about 8 minutes).

Play Video

For the people who don't know you very well yet, can you tell us a little more about yourself? What is your background and what are your interests?

Tom Bos: "I have a background in didactics, which has always concerned me very much. That was because I inherited technology from my father and my brother. We used to always have a bunch of computers in the house where we took things apart and tinkered with them again. That quirk of technology helped me take a different path.

When I graduated on the topic "Transfer or training of digital resources," online learning was not at all common. I was kind of the odd man out there. So when I was working on didactics, I saw a lot of opportunities there. Because why not use the resources I know from the tech world?"

Despite the busyness, you still had time to write a book, The Old-Fashioned Future of Training. In it you state, "You won't go to sleep until learning tools actually produce results." Is this your driving force in terms of what you want to get done within online learning?

"Yeah, I don't sleep much," Tom laughs. "There are overflows of learning resources flowing into the market, but we are not yet 'superhumans' who can do everything, even though you can find everything online and take it all in. So here's a gap and that's where my motivation lies: how do we make sure those online learning tools do lead to results? I have seen people in a physical training situation come to new insights that completely changed their work and life. If we manage to cause that movement online as well, that's fantastic. For those moments to happen more often, that would be very cool."

You are a man of numbers and research. Can you give an appealing example of this?

"A/B testing, of course, is a term often used in marketing: you send two different emails to see which one works best and you build on this. When we were just starting the organization, we did a large-scale study with this on our learning tools. There I came across a lot of things that work and don't work. Like the fact that when you spread out a learning topic over time and provide more repetition, you get drastically better results than when you try to cram it into your head all at once. In the latter case, you train to a certain point, but you want to be able to actually speak French after your French exam, for example, right? That has also led me to use '10 minutes of learning per day' as a key principle within the online learning platform."

You are the founder of Online Academy and after the merger with SkillsTown, you fill the role as CEO here. What moved you to start a company in online learning all those years ago?

"I mentioned earlier the incipient sparks and the gap of didactic online learning tools, I had to deal with that. The experience of online learning became unfairly negative because the way it was done didn't work. Privately and at home, people were used to technology, but not yet in business. That's why I started Online Academy. We wanted to get success rates better than what was normal in the market. Since then, thanks to a lot of feedback, we have been improving, improving and improving our product even more!"

It does require a certain corporate culture within SkillsTown to work this way. How would you describe that culture within SkillsTown?

"Learning has to be in your DNA. And it actually never happens that we say that a product is finished or that our methodology is final. We're kind of a 'Caterpillar Never Enough' in that regard. You thrive within SkillsTown if you have the mindset and ambition to keep improving things. And meanwhile, we have a lot of fun together. We work extremely hard, so then it's also good to have enough fun together and put things into perspective."

Zooming in on your role as CEO, what book or article has had a lasting impact on your leadership and business success?

"The thing that really changed my mind is the book 'Mindset' by Carol Dweck, an American researcher known for the Growth Mindset theory. What I found interesting about this was her research with young children who had to complete a puzzle. One group of children, after successfully completing it, were told, "Well done, how smart you are," while the other group was told, "Well done, how hard you worked. Then they had to choose between doing an easy or difficult puzzle. The group called "smart" significantly more often chose the easy puzzle to avoid risk. Instead, the other group took on the challenge of difficult puzzles because they believed that if they worked hard, they could do it again.

I use this finding in how I encourage and address others. I have incorporated this principle in all of our products, but also in my leadership. I find it very important that I appeal to people on a Growth Mindset. I want to give people opportunities, let them take risks and make mistakes. That brings enormous benefits to your organization."

What are you actually most proud of in what you have accomplished as CEO with SkillsTown?

"Quite a few things!" says Tom with glistening eyes. "I am, of course, very proud that we were voted the best trainer in the Netherlands. And I am proud that we won a Learning Impact Award for a study we did on the effectiveness of learning. This was a great international recognition for the quality of the way we work. But what I also find really cool is that we manage to work people towards a certain degree. That we can ensure that people can still get their MBO diploma as a logistics employee in a warehouse. That gives a lot of satisfaction.

One of the things I enjoy most is when we get feedback from platform users about what they got out of an e-learning module. For example, people who have successfully applied for a job, people who experience less stress or have better leadership skills. I think that's the biggest success, that we manage to cause behavior change."

And then what was the biggest challenge and how did you deal with it?

"Pfoe! We have many challenges! But, one that lurks is my dilemma around effective learning. I think of when we had fixed the '10 minutes of daily learning' model: everyone had to learn for 10 minutes a day. We got a lot of frustrated and dissatisfied people; it was either too slow or too fast. But what we also saw is that the learning return was very good if you stayed in that flow. So we had discovered the methodology that leads to results, but nobody likes it!" laughs Tom. "That was one of the biggest challenges I've had, and still do have."

Can you tell us a little more about your vision for SkillsTown? What do you see as the future direction for the company?

"There is quite a shortage of quality learning resources and education in the world. In the Netherlands we are quite spoiled; we have a lot of opportunities and a good learning environment. I would think it would be cool if we could get those resources out into the world. That we could give people who currently have fewer opportunities and who do want to develop further the opportunity to grow. Our product is now used in 140 countries, but there is still a lot of room to make it bigger.

Furthermore, learning resources are currently often based on a one-to-many principle. I would like to go back a bit more to the master-mate approach; learning tools that are tailored exactly to you, at the time you need it. That is also my dream and ambition with SkillsTown."

What makes SkillsTown unique compared to other companies in the online training industry, and how do you contribute to this unique identity?

"Our focus on results. Of course our learning tools are inspiring and set people in motion. But our focus is to make sure learning tools help people achieve the goals they set for themselves. Whether your goal is better time management, a specific certificate or a degree, we want to help you do that. Unfortunately, that's our differentiator," Tom sighs, "because you really want the whole market to make that move. It sounds so logical, but right now the focus seems to be elsewhere - on abundance. How much are you scrolling through Netflix to find a series you want to watch, that's because there's a lot of it! The focus needs to shift to what is already available. So that when you pick something, it really helps you move forward. The power lies in simplicity. Our learning platform is simple and accessible. You don't want to know what a difference that makes. What the user experiences is convenience and supports learning."

In conclusion, where will we be in 10 years with online learning?

"Research shows that the course of innovation can always be estimated accurately, but not the magnitude. That's also with this kind of prediction. In my book, I describe the moment when we stop learning and it is no longer needed. Plugging in and uploading knowledge is closer than you might think. Quite a lot of progress is being made there. But I think in 10 years we will have a nice map of the neural network and be able to influence that.

What we are going to see the biggest impact of now is Artificial Intelligence. We're going to desperately need that to compensate for all the labor market shortages and is going to help us retrain employees quickly. So we can get people employable and retrain them quickly. I think that's where our biggest gains will be. You'll see that then almost no learning tool will exist without AI!"