Part 4

David: I genuinely understand the process of what they're doing-the learning the whole Linguist system. When I speak during the discussions, it's-discussing the content and discussing why they're doing the content, is seamless. I know that we said that you're marketing it as you're speaking with them, but it's just so natural for me now. I noticed over the past month or so, I understand it and it comes out so naturally, that I feel confident enough to actually address a group of five people who are new to it, and talk to them about the system.

Steve: You know, it's interesting to hear you say that, because it suggests that maybe-Jill, you have some comments on this-that it takes a while for someone, even someone who has been an English teacher, to really understand what The Linguist system is all about. What is different? Ours is not just another English-teaching system.

Jill: Yeah, it does take a while to kind of get into the swing of things with it. Even me, trying to explain things to people without giving them grammar rules, trying to say, "Don't think about this rule," or not giving them any examples, and just saying "Listen to those phrases over and over again." So it is very different from what any of us are used to-any way we are used to learning a language, and also just being on the computer, too. It takes-there's a lot of information in the website, and so it does take quite a while to explore and to learn about it. I know I still learn something new every day, at least one thing, about some function in there that I didn't know was there. So definitely, it does take a little bit of time to become familiar with the whole thing.

David: I want to say one thing: I've noticed that people get it much quicker than they used to, new people that are joining. They tell me what it's all about, before I can explain it to them. Something's going right here. We're doing something right, because they understand why they're doing it. They repeat it to me.

Jill: I was just going to say that I think that's true, because I think in general, we get less customer service emails-or, I notice that it seems like I have less than I used to have a month or two ago. So in general, on average, I think we get less, which means that more people are understanding.

Steve: Hopefully, that means that we have improved our messaging, or we have done things to make it easier to understand. I think we still have a long way to go, and so if you are both involved-if we're all involved, really-in marketing and sales, and seeing how people react to different messaging, and coming up with new ideas of how to market it, that in turn is going to help us to continue to improve the message. So I think we should all look upon ourselves as we're now all involved in marketing, even as we continue-particularly with Mark, in the whole design of the thing-continue to improve the appearance, and the functionality, and the messaging, and so forth. David: With respect to content, I'd like to know what people want more. You know, we have the categories, and when someone-you or Mark or someone-says, "We want more of this, the business stuff," I go for that, I find that, and I fill that area up. When there's nothing specific being asked for, I just try to fill up each one individually. If there is a way that we could know specifically what they want.

Steve: I think we need to have like thousands of people, and perhaps by that time we'll have a more systematic way of getting feedback from people, so for the time being, we're kind of responding to individual requests. I think there is a need for more casual, social-not slangy, but social, such things as shopping, asking for things. Of course, some people say, "I want all these different scenarios," and I, of course, philosophically I'm against that. You can't prepare yourself for the grocery store, because when you go there, who knows what conversation's going to take place? I still believe that people need to upgrade their overall level of language, and you can't be armed to go to the bank, and expect to be able to go banking. You need to upgrade your overall English level, yet at the same time, if we can have some of those types of content, that would be good. So we're going to work on that in the New Year. If we can go into the grocery store, Safeway, Home Hardware, whatever.

Mark: Another couple items that we have mentioned before-content that we would like to see-are one having to do with numbers, because a lot of people have trouble with numbers, and another one along the lines of going to the store, the post office, is talking on the telephone, which is something that is quite difficult for a lot of people.

Steve: Talking on the telephone-I think you should get one of those telephone adapters, I've got one at home-and just phone people. You can phone stores, you can phone all kinds of people. I don't know that that's against the law, I don't think it is. Mark: No, I don't think so. I mean, I think as long one person is aware they're being taped, that's all that's required. We should, yeah.

Steve: I am going to arrange, for example, with a travel agent, with other people, but you can phone and buy a ticket over the telephone, you can do a whole bunch of stuff over the telephone, and I think that would be useful. And it's natural. Jill: Like make a reservation to a restaurant, or phone about-you can do a million things over the phone.

Mark: I mean yeah, we're allowed to phone up and record, and we don't have to tell them, or we can phone and say "This is what we're going to do," and then phone back and have a regular conversation. I mean, we can do it either way, it doesn't really matter.