People are sometimes surprised to discover that Artisan Learning has been around for more than 20 years. Our founders, Diane Elkins and Desirée Pinder started what is now Artisan Learning in 2004. They met as freelance instructional designers/e-learning developers on a project at Winn-Dixie grocery stores. When that gig ended, they decided to do contract work together. Their first official project as Alcorn, Ward, & Partners (as we were called back in the day) was grocery pricing software.
We’ve survived trends, technologies, and our own learning curve, and we’re still grateful to be doing work we love.
–Diane Elkins, Artisan Learning Co-founder
Diane still remembers coming up with imaginative ways to teach the concept of pricing parity. You may not realize you know the rules of parity, but you absolutely notice when the rules are broken. You expect the larger jar to be less per ounce than the smaller jar. You expect the generic brand to be less per ounce than the national brand. And you hope that your grocery store sells it all for less than the grocery store down the street.
That’s a lot of peanut butter that needs just the right relative pricing! Then, the cost of one of them goes up, and everything has to change. Diane and Desirée created training for the software that helped buyers set those prices.
The rest, as they say, is history. For more than two decades, the curious, brave, and imaginative team of Artisans have been helping people know what to do through custom learning design—whether that’s strategic pricing of peanut butter, how to measure the effectiveness of international relief efforts, how to prevent retail theft, or how to care for a premature baby.
In reflecting back, Desirée says, “I’m so grateful for this journey and everyone who’s joined us along the way.” Diane adds, “We still get excited about helping people know what to do–and we’re grateful no one kept track of our early mistakes!”
Read highlights of Artisan’s history here and see some of our current work in our portfolio (there’s no peanut butter!).
