Guest blogger Si Hobbs has been a Drupal developer, trainer and business owner. He is currently based in Melbourne, Australia as Drupal consultant with Technocrat.
If you've just started evaluating Drupal for your needs, you may not have heard about the Global Training Days, an initiative of the Drupal Association. You might imagine a big classroom full of technical boffins discussing advanced programming topics and using obscure acronyms from CSS to CMS.
Or, if you're in web industry already, you might imagine a room full of frustrated Joomla! developers trying desperately to feed their families by jumping on the Drupal bandwagon.
I'm exaggerating of course, but here's a question: at the last Global Training Day run by Technocrat in Sydney, out of 8 attendees, how many had development experience with any content management system? The answer is: practically none. One attendee had some user experience with Modx from 5 years ago, another attendee was a part-time PHP programmer. We had a VBA programmer and even a guy who cut his teeth on A/S400s from the middle ages. Also in the crowd was a student doing his masters, a sound technician, and an Agile scrum master.
Technocrat delivers Acquia's "Drupal in a Day" course, which provides a solid first step to learning Drupal. I've delivered this course to organisations who have already identified Drupal as the solution, and where the obvious next step is to give employees a thorough introduction to the tools they may come to use every day. I try to give as much hands-on experience of Drupal administration as possible, so that the framework is laid for the first time they have to find the User Permissions or the Text Formats screen.
But at the Global Training Day, I usually take a much lighter approach. Many people who turn up at a Global Training Day are in fact taking the opportunity to evaluate the product, rather than learn to use it. I always begin the session by understanding the needs of the attendees, who might fall into these categories:
- Site-builder sea-changer; I want to understand Drupal, is it practical?
- Programmer sea-changer; Will my skills transfer?
- It's my job; I have to use Drupal, I'm skeptical of it.
- Volunteer; I'm completely bewildered, I've only used Dreamweaver.
- Building a project; I have a specific problem to solve
- Business owner: What am I paying these monkeys for?
- I know HTML/CSS; How do I make a template?
There is no way to run a one-day course that covers all these subjects, and even then, sticking to the exercises can leave half the class bored and unsatisfied. Taking the time for one-on-one discussions is crucial at Global Training Day. In this way, everyone can walk away with an understanding of how Drupal can meet their own needs.
In the end, Global Training Days are an opportunity to sample the Drupal culture - not a boring schoolroom, but a legacy of vibrant discussion and eclectic interests. If you're evaluating Drupal yourself, sign up! Technocrat will be running training in Sydney and Brisbane, as one of over 30 companies and organisations participating world-wide. We look forward to meeting you!