I'm looking for a bit of help and advice marketing some Ruby courses Jim Weirich and Joe O'Brien are giving in Edinburgh in November: two day Ruby and a three day Rails course, 9-13 November. Part of the problem is that those most likely to want these courses are those that I can't reach and don't know who JIm Weirich is, because they are not yet in the Ruby community.
What I think we need to do is to try and reach other communities (Java, .Net, PHP, etc) and persaude some of them that learning some Ruby and/or Rails would be enriching in some way.
Does anyone here contacts in those other communities in the North West? Or different ideas?
Alternatively, if anyone would like, or knows someone who would like, Ruby and/or Rails training here is a discount to code to use NWRUGDISCOUNT at http://edgecase.com/training).
> Does anyone here contacts in those other communities in the North > West? Or different ideas?
You talked to anybody else involved in NWDC yet? I've not seen any traffic on the (closed*) list around it. If you want some help getting word out through that bunch, I can see what I can do.
In fact, have you even posted to GeekUp yet? Not seen anything. Apologies if I missed it.
You need to spell out exactly what the course is and - this is so critical I can't stress it enough - the specific benefits the course provides to the people you're targeting. Names mean nothing - we're all only a book deal away from being a celebrity in the Ruby community, so don't throw them around at people who don't care. :-) Also, saying "you'll know Ruby/Rails at the end of it" isn't enough - they can get a book and do that. You need to explain why your course is so much better than any other route, and what they'll be able to do when they walk out of the classroom at the end of it that they don't now, and probably wouldn't know getting through any other route.
And bear in mind people are watching their spending right now - even employers - so you need to be very, very careful with pricing. We're in the most price-sensitive market around training now in living memory, I reckon.
I probably seem a bit of of touch with the English technical scene, being based in Edinburgh.
On 23 Oct 2009, at 20:10, Paul Robinson wrote:
> You talked to anybody else involved in NWDC yet? I've not seen any > traffic on the (closed*) list around it. If you want some help getting > word out through that bunch, I can see what I can do.
That looks just the sort of thing I was looking for. If you know people in those communities I'd really appreciate you passing a message along or putting me in touch.
> In fact, have you even posted to GeekUp yet? Not seen anything. > Apologies if I missed it.
No I haven't (yet). Thanks for pointing it out to me..
> they can get a book and do that. You need to explain why your course > is so much better than any other route, and what they'll be able to do > when they walk out of the classroom at the end of it that they don't > now, and probably wouldn't know getting through any other route.
Yet we still go to School and University. I wonder how to answer that - after all _you_ can get it all from books and experience. I did. The advantage of a course is that it accelerates the process, providing structure and feedback: the ability to ask questions and get receive constructive criticism. That is generally applicable to all face to face teaching. The best way to make it specific to to these courses is to emphasise the teaching and technical, track-record.
> And bear in mind people are watching their spending right now - even > employers - so you need to be very, very careful with pricing. We're > in the most price-sensitive market around training now in living > memory, I reckon.
I know. That's the reason for the discounts.
NWRUGDISCOUNT
> * We're a cabal. :-)
At least we're not a scary army, like the Mac Dev community ;-)
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