For The Love Of Port

I don't deliver technical training usually. Nor "teach" in the sense of a formal, structured classroom teaching.

I have a great deal of respect for those that can, and can do it with such ease. More so after Friday, during which i delivered a seven hour training course on a Video surveillance and management system which my company installs and sells. Our client required someone with some deep technical experience, IT background and product experience to deliver technic a training to several advanced member of their surveillance team and IT team. We have a technical trainer for basic system administration and day to day maintenance, but is was well beyond his capabilities. I was charged with ensuring the clients had a positive training experience. (we want o ensure that after we implement this firs phase of the surveillance overhaul we were training them on, that we gave them the confidence in our capabilities to deliver the next four phases, worth over a million bucks.)

I prepared for days, sweating the details of the training I had to deliver, how much depth to cover certain topics with, what lines to cross, what delivery methods were best, all that jazz. I practiced my delivery on a few key areas and concepts, stayed up late for a few nights in a row preparing PowerPoint slides, handouts, notes for the presentation and developed labs and exercises to take the students through. On the day, i was up really early (after a late night stressing about the next day) and spent two hours preparing the lab at the client site, testing the lab exercises and demos, ensuring nothing would go wrong.

The session went relatively well, but many times throughout the day I had a stark realization of just how difficult a teacher or technic a trainer's job really is. I am no sure i could do this for a living full time. My congratulations to you if you are a teacher or a trainer who does this day in and day out. Like with many things in life, i am sure I gets asked with experience and time, but I was stressing pretty good for that day.

Oddly, I am neither. However, I do spend a LOT of time doing exactly what you describe on a smaller scale. I call it "Guruing."

I'm the guy who hears, "Please read this manual and then tell me what it says," at least once a week.

I get calls at odd hours asking me to explain something. I even had to buy a Windows 7 computer (I now use a Mac) just so I can follow along as they explain where they are having trouble.

I do get to experiment (play) with cool new equipment and software on a regular basis.

If you got through it, and feel that you got the information across, then congratulations! You might not like to do it every day, but when you need to, you can do it.

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Personally, I cannot retain anything that people tell me; I HAVE to read it.

People don't get this. They nod and then they tell me something important (even life-and-death-critical), which I immediately forget.

I then have to hope I can remember to remind them that I didn't get any of that and they HAVE to give it to me in detailed writing.

So, getting an MCT next? They make big dollars. I have hair trigger patience when it comes to teaching someone who is not technical.

I was a professor at a university in the Boston area for awhile and I must say that I did enjoy the teaching process. Although I must say that I did find it a little disconcerting that there was always a number of students in each class that were just going through the motions. Nevertheless, I have thought about possibly transitioning back into the academic realm.

Moses Botbol wrote:So, getting an MCT next? They make big dollars. I have hair trigger patience when it comes to teaching someone who is not technical.

LOL, not a chance... although if I were to take up training, it likely wouldn't be Microshaft-related... too diluted and I just have too many bad things to say about them. I don't think they would appreciate their instructors telling people the truth!

Todd Pettinger wrote:

Moses Botbol wrote:So, getting an MCT next? They make big dollars. I have hair trigger patience when it comes to teaching someone who is not technical.

LOL, not a chance... although if I were to take up training, it likely wouldn't be Microshaft-related... too diluted and I just have too many bad things to say about them. I don't think they would appreciate their instructors telling people the truth!

It's not about the truth, it's about a paycheck

VMware trainers, along with Jupiter are also in high demand. VMware makes it difficult to get certified.

Yeah I took the VMware training and exam... Pretty tough for a modern day tech exam... I passed then, but my skills have one soft since (don't use it much in the new job) and I dou very much I would pass if i had to take it again today.

I think the one credential I respect the most is the CCNP/CCIE from Cisco. Huge demand, very few CCIEs in the world... Massive amount of stuff to master. But talk about a way to fill in the zeros on your paycheque.

Todd Pettinger wrote:I think the one credential I respect the most is the CCNP/CCIE from Cisco. Huge demand, very few CCIEs in the world... Massive amount of stuff to master. But talk about a way to fill in the zeros on your paycheque.

Indeed.

I use to work for someone who took a Microsoft exam once every two weeks. He had every Cert you can think of. He had one Exchange cert only a dozen or so people had. Microsoft wanted him to lead their technology office in India... Long story short, this guy gets like $400 an hour

Once I graduated college, I swore off studying as much as possible.