Following up on LAEC’s after CLI day at Lotusphere
Tags :Conferences
I originally made
a posting early January about
the decline and fall of Lotus Authorized Education Centers (LAEC) across
the US for sure. Not sure about internationally. But at Lotusphere,
I attended Certified Lotus Instructor (CLI) day on Friday after most people
had left. I made my trek back to the Yacht & Beach early in the
morning to join in on breakfast and presentations. There was not
that many people there. After talking to a few of them on a break
and during breakfast I found that quite a few were independent just due
to the fact that they were then free to move around and even create custom
courses.
The idea of the one course fits all approach
doesn't seem to work anymore. Customers want custom courses maybe
even spanning multiple levels of classes or even products. I did
run into a company (ElementK)
that lets you go on-line and grab lessons from different courses and build
your own Table of Contents. That is a great business model. I
had some discussions with them on pricing and the minimum required books
purchased, but you can even toss your own graphic onto the cover.
But back to the topic. A couple of
the LAEC's had a thriving business with continued incoming students. Why
they did became immediately apparent. They are cross-branding certification
and training initiatives to offer a broader range to a broader audience.
Great move on their part as one gentleman there was able to teach
Lotus, Websphere, Portal and even DB2. Which walks him right into
Workplace offerings. Another woman goes to every enablement session
and will travel anywhere. She is opening new doors that other LAEC's
thought would survive forever on Lotus.
I was already in process of getting my
'official' Websphere certifications and instructor evaluations, but this
just prompted me to speed up the process. So I now know my earlier
posting was correct, but there is a world of opportunity available for
those that really make the necessary moves toward it.
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On Tuesday, February 1st, 2005 by Chris Miller
