Meet Mark Evans of Bubo Learning Design in Plano Arts District

Today we’d like to introduce you to Mark Evans.

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I’ve always enjoyed creative work and I’ve always wanted to run my own business. I’m very lucky to have found a path that leads to both – So, I’m now running a creative business.

I got a Journalism degree from Texas A&M in 1994 and after taking a couple of years to see the world, took my first professional job as a technical writer working for my aunt in Indianapolis. I wrote forklift manuals for GTE Supply. I’m not sure if anyone ever read my work, but I promise – it was riveting.

From there, I got a big break and started working at The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis for a company called “Children’s Express.” Children’s Express (CE) was a news bureau ran by kids between the ages of 10 and 18. It was serious journalism where the kids took trips to Northern Ireland, Cuba, Kuwait, and others. These kids were special and it was a unique experience that shaped me in important ways. The number one skill I began to develop was listening. I was always a terrible listener and am probably still not as good as I could be – but I would have been a disaster had I never had that experience.

This was also about the time that news organizations had just started getting online, so I had a chance to help build, design and maintain our first ever website. Our bureau director, Lynn Sygiel, wrote curriculum that went with the CE stories, which ran weekly in the Indianapolis Star. It was a really innovative product, probably a little ahead of its time. It’s amazing how far things have come since then. I remember being amazed that people would buy books through a site called Amazon.

That is what really got me started in online content. From there I went to Conseco as a web-based training developer while I finished graduate school at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business. Upon graduation, I moved to Texas and began working in the Human Performance area of Accenture. Unfortunately, my tenure there was shortened by a layoff which caught me by surprise. But, that’s also when my hunger for entrepreneurship really took hold.

I knew I wanted to run a business, but also knew I was unprepared. I was also very unsure of what type of business I could run successfully. I decided to take a job in restaurants, so I could learn how to run an operation. Boy, howdy! That was the best professional development I’ve ever experienced. It was simple – but incredibly difficult. There is a difference.

Fast forward a few years and I had become a restaurant operator but had grown to understand the demands of the hospitality industry and was ready to get back into more traditional work. It was about this time that I started contracting for Infinitude Creative Group, writing curriculum for our client “Pizza Hut.”
It’s funny because when I first started there, the project was yet to really kick-off, so they only had like 5 to 10 hours of work for me a week. I was thrilled to just be there and so I showed up every day and stayed until 5. I physically stayed on site, plugging away learning stuff, not even being billable. My manager walked out on the floor to confirm that I understood that I could not bill for my time there unless they’d given me something specific to do. I confirmed that and remained seated. I was like a puppy, sitting by the table just in case someone dropped some scraps on the floor. I just knew it was where I was meant to be, and I was willing to wait — while helping in any manner that I could — until I got an opportunity to do more. And soon enough, those opportunities began to fall off that table and into my lap. Within 2 months, I was billing 40 hours a week.

I began honing my craft a bit at Infinitude while simultaneously taking night classes at University of North Teas in their graduate Learning Technologies program. I guess you can say I got in the weeds and really started to analyze the way people learned and how media, or the method, could impact that.

I’ll always be grateful for my experience at Infinitude and at UNT and feel like I got the most out of those experiences – by putting in a very sincere effort.

My major professor, Dr. Greg Jones, passed away unexpectedly while I was still struggling to define my dissertation topic. That was a bit of a blow. He was a good man and very supportive.

I have not had the time (or the right idea) to go back and finish my dissertation and that has become an even greater challenge considering how I hung out my own shingle and started Bubo Learning.

My creativity has not focused on work alone, however. I also have a music hobby/project that is growing, as well, I’m the lead singer of a band called “Safety Meeting,” Yeah, my life is busy. But I am learning to lean into it and that feels good.

Bubo – the name of the owl in Clash of the Titans – has become my spirit animal. Bubo is the genus name of the Great Horned Owl and an owl is our logo.

Running a business is like learning to walk. You take one contract, then another, then another. Within a short while, I was looking for help and we have been steadily finding our footing and expanding. We moved from my living room to the Barrett Building in January of 2018. The night I signed my lease, an owl fell out of the tree in my front yard. My nephew (and lead designer) discovered it and my daughter took a picture. We took that as an omen. And so far, its sign of good things to come seems to be right on the money.

Has it been a smooth road?
Outside looking in, it probably seems like things have gone exactly to plan – but that is not the case. Surviving as a business is a brutal reality. You really must adapt quickly, take risks and work, work until the clouds begin to clear.

It’s like any creative project, really. First, you must have hard and fast boundaries that you can’t cross, such as budgets, deadlines, and rules of business that you write for yourself. Second, you need a direction — achievable goals, stretch goals and add in some slack for mistakes and/or time for innovation.

Then, the reality is, you must learn to bounce back and forth from one boundary to the other, testing those boundaries, while continuing to progress in the direction that you originally pointed yourself.

It’s not efficient. It’s not easy. It is often scary. But if you stick to it, incremental progress occurs. With time, effort and determination – progress is made.

The biggest challenge was learning how to embrace uncertainty and lean into it.

The second challenge was accounting Cash flow. Forecasting. All the skills that aren’t related to eLearning but are just nuts and bolts business. That took time to learn. I’m still learning… I’m sure that will never stop.

We’d love to hear more about your business.
At Bubo Learning Design, we create customized digital content for corporate clients.

eLearning is our bread and butter – but to make our content extra engaging, we like to produce them with cool graphics, videos, and soundtracks. It all helps.

We have just gotten started in an industry that is poised to bring a lot of changes to our world. The way people learn, of all ages, is changing rapidly.

I’m very proud of the fact that we continue to develop our skill sets and collaborate with our clients to bring some cool things to life.

I’ve presented at eLearning Guild conferences on how to manage projects to control costs and have demonstrated using animated puppets to brand learning content.

Most recently, we helped a client with a project where they had limited video footage and a tight timeline – and we were able to create an “Active Shooter,” training that included their video footage, plus some 3D renderings that we created of their floor plans which helped to illustrate how to react to that stressful situation. We like the 3D stuff.

We are also doing projects in the medical field, restaurant operations, and probably the most comprehensive project we’re doing is building an entrepreneurship program with Fiscal Foundations and the author Robin Lawton. We’re very excited to be a part of that!

Good things are ahead, and we are just getting started.

Is our city a good place to do what you do?
Right now, we’re very excited to be in the Plano Arts District in the Nathaniel Barret Building on 18th Street.

We could not be more excited.

The type of exciting changes going on around us makes us feel like we a part of something. Our location allows many of us to walk to work, walk to lunch, walk to Haggard Park when we need to decompress. We hear rumors of the future too, of riverwalks where Collin Creek Mall exists, of live music venues, new exciting restaurant concepts, and a real investment in culture by the City of Plano — and we feel like we fit right in with that movement.

Being a creative design firm, who calls an Arts District our home, feels right. The quality of life here is really high.

Contact Info:

• Address: 903 18th Street, Suite 100
• Website: www.bubold.com
• Phone: 817-691-5564
• Email: mark@bubold.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BuboLD1/

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