Lullabot is proud to announce our new Drupal training classes. We're kicking things off with two back-to-back two-day workshops in Washington, DC this month.
The first is Drupal 101, an intensive intro-to-Drupal covering everything that new Drupal administrators, developers, and decision makers might want to know. We will walk through the process of setting up a Drupal site and discuss its parts, features, modules, concepts, and how they all work. We’ll discuss best practices for creating an efficient, well tuned site and talk about the best ways of working with Drupal to keep your site future-proof, speedy, and robust. This workshop takes place on May 22nd and 23rd at the Georgetown Suites in Washington, DC. Registration and more information can be found here.
Theming Drupal: How To Make Your Site Look Like It's Not A Drupal Site is the other workshop. This one happens on the 24th and 25th and is aimed at designers and developers who want to gain control over the look and feel of their Drupal sites. Drupal’s architecture allows extensive control over how pages are presented, yet this is still a bit of a “dark art” to many Drupal professionals. Bring in your designs and we’ll shed some light. Registration and information for this workshop is here.
There is also a discounted rate for those wishing to register for both.
If you are interested, but unable to attend, we recommend that you sign up for the mailing list on the Lullabot web site and subscribe to the training rss feed.
Comments
For that price...
I don't mean to be rude, but I find the price of this event to be offensive.
For 900 U$ per person, I'd expect a few days of one-on-one personalized instruction and training.
from the lulabot site
nice attempt at ass covering, almost sounds reasonable, but still leaves me very very suspicious.
Thanks for your response!
Thanks for your response! Personalized instruction and training is exactly what we are offering. We're limiting the class size to 20 people so that our 3 instructors can have the opportunity to work with each attendee, answering their questions and concerns, and working on their individual sites.
One of the things I have noticed in my short time with the Drupal community is how few Drupal developers there are available for work. (Lots of people are just plain booked up!) At Lullabot, we are very concerned with the overall health and viability of the entire Drupal community, and want outside people and businesses to be able to hire developers once they have decided to use Drupal - even if it's not us.
Thanks again for offering your take on the price. We hope that other people, who may be interested in attending, will be able to see the real value we are offering. Our instructors have been with the Drupal community for some time and have extensive knowledge of the inner workings of the platform. They know the common pitfalls and best practices and are excited to apply that information to our participants projects. Giving back to the community is something we take seriously and we hope that our past record speaks for itself.
Like you, I just signed up on Drupal.org today; looking forward to getting to know you and everybody else!
Please don't hesitate to contact me if I can be of further assistance.
Cheers!
~Liza Kindred, Client Relations from Lullabot
Your expectations would be wrong...
If that is what you are expecting for a 4 day class for $900 I'd like to know what vendor you think provides individual training for that price. The market rate (depending on the software of course) is generally between $2000 and $3000 a head for a small lab based class of 10 to 20 people. If you want individual training you are looking at much higher costs for an instructor. To prove my point just start browsing some of the major companies that offer training. For example here is a Random class for instructor lead training at Oracle university for $3,000.
There are a lot of software companies that charge close to $900 just for a certification or CBT type of training where you get no instructor at all.
Furthermore you need to consider the target audience for this, I suppose someone who is just playing around with Drupal that has some cash to spare might go but the way I read it this is specifically targeted at people who are consulting using Drupal. Taken from that perspective this is a minor investment for what you can gain in income from it. Drupal consulting is hot and people are making good money from it as more corporations, NGOs, political campaigns, etc start using it.
So if you are going to authoritatively state that $900 is insultingly overpriced it would be good to see what you are basing that upon - let's see some data to back it from reputable vendors and training organizations.
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BuyBlue.org
Think quality, not quantity!
My work sent me on a 2 day Linux scripting course last year, and that cost nearly $2,000 Australian (about $1,500 USD). It was a lot of money for sure, but was it worth it? Definatley! The class instructor was excellent and was very capable at translating how what we were learning applied to our daily activites.
A class such as being offered here is probably not so much targeted toward the individual Drupal hobbiest, but rather those making a living from providing Drupal based services (or wanting to). Being able to get access to Drupal developers of such calibre as Jeff Robbins and Matt Westgate would be well worth the $900 asking price in this case.
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Dominic Ryan
www.it-hq.org
Seconded ...
I certainly can't speak for the community-at-large but personally I am think $1,600 to pick the brains of Jeff Robbins, Matt Westgate, and Ted Serbinski for four days in a small, intimate environment is a bargain. Generally you get "Instuctors" (read - someone who attended a previous course taught by other "Instructors") - not the actual developers, lead maintainers, and key experts. I have signed up for BOTH classes and am confident that my company will make back its investment several times over (in improved efficiency) on Drupal projects scheduled for June alone.
Those prices are more than fair
AP charges $1200 per trainee for 2 day trainings with less hands on mentorship
http://adaptivepath.com/events/2006/may2/
Zend charges $800 for 2 day online training sessions
http://www.zend.com/store/zend_php_training/php_professional_training
Cignex charges $2,200 for 4 day trainings
http://www.cignex.com/site/services/training/zope_training/registration_...
Webcast based training?
Would you guys ever consider webcast based training? The 10,000 miles from Australia to the USA is a bit far to go for a few days, but I'd love to attend such a training event.
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Dominic Ryan
www.it-hq.org
I dont mean to be rude Jeff.
I dont mean to be rude Jeff. But I dont understand why Lullabot should get their commercial interessts published as an announcement at drupal.org frontpage. The forum is one thing..
morphir.com
Me
Actually, I promoted the post to the front page. On hindsight, I agree that it is kinda commercial (yet still very cool) so I removed it again.
NO, NO, NO - Put it Back !!!
I could not disagree more!!!
In my humble opinion (okay - maybe not so humble) removing the notice from the front page is a prime case of "cutting off your nose to spite your face". The whole point here is to spread the word about Drupal and to create a larger complement of competent and talented Drupal developers/maintainers, thereby expanding the Drupal "market share" in the Internet website development community as a whole. We don't do that by burying available training and outreach activities in the forum. If anything - the announcement on the home page has UNDER-emphasized! WHO CARES if it is commercial!?!? You put Drupal book release announcements on the front page and we have to purchase those books! Is anyone seriously suggesting that book announcements should be banned from the front page just because the publishers are not distributing books free of charge to anyone that wants one? Let's not get so wrapped up in the open-source/non-commercial mindset that we constrain our ability to grow and succeed.
I would understand the concern if you were posting announcements of some companies' commercial training but refusing others, but that does not appear to be the case here. I monitor the announcements on the front page closely and the forums sporatically - I might have missed the announcement had it NOT been on the front page. However, BECAUSE it was there I DID see it and immediately signed up for both classes. I am relatively new to Drupal and expect to benefit tremendously from the event.
PLEASE - reconsider and promote it back to the front page. It would truly be a shame if others such as myself did not avail themselves of this opportunity simply because they didn't know that they were supposed to monitor forums for training announcements.
I have to agree with this poster
I have to agree with this poster here Dries. Lullabot is a commercial enterprise but I don't see any other organization stepping up to offer training that benefits the community. It would be one thing if there were several people doing this on a regular basis and promoting this to the front page showed some kind of bias - but it doesn't, there isn't anyone else that does it.
Lullabot is offering something very important for the community, they are trying to train the next batch of consultants that are going to step up and work with all these companies, NGOs, political campaigns, etc that are increasingly opting to use Drupal as their CMS Framework.
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BuyBlue.org
I agree
Lullabot are contributing with commercial training wich is great for both lullabot and their customers. They are making profit on what is a collabrative work. That is also ok(sometimes), but posting it at the frontpage of drupal.org is simply just wrong. Ok, if we want this, then the question should be, is the frontpage a marketplace for everyone?
By the way, isnt there a forum about paid jobs? :) Maybe there should be a forum about training/drupal camps ?
morphir.com
n/t
No that is not correct, the training benefits Lullabot financially but it also benefits the community even more. Where else are you going to get lab based training on topics like "how to make a site not look like Drupal" or a good overview of how to implement Drupal? There are probably hundreds of forum topics from new and experienced people alike complaining about these topics and seeking that knowledge. The handbooks have come along significantly but they aren't there yet and of course nothing is a substitute for hands on training. And what is this ridiculous notion that people should not make money based on their knowledge of open source software - that is just patently ridiculous.
I'm sorry but you haven't exactly given very clear reasons as to your objection here. Where I'd draw the line for the front page personally is something that is significant for the drupal community, or something that clearly benefits the community and deserves more visibility. There should not be some ridiculous lithmus test as to whether someone might be making money. The front page has been used to promote a Drupal book - I suppose you object to that too? If not then you aren't being consistent.
The second another group of people decides to take it upon themselves to start doing large instructor lead classes then I'll reconsider my opinion, but for now Lullabot is the only group that I've seen doing that in the coming on two years I've been aware of Drupal.
Why? So Lullabot can have a forum all to themselves to post? They are the only ones doing this, that is why the front page (for now) is appropriate and not a forum. Once there are more people doing this then a forum might be appropriate.
I'm just really disappointed this got pulled off the front page based on one person's opinion.
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BuyBlue.org
I dont know what your
I dont know what your connections to Lullabot are, but I seem you are fan:) But that one independent company should have a freepass into the community frontpage is still wrong. Its kinda like a step in the wrong direction for the whole drupal project if you ask me. I dont know what your agenda is. But it doesnt matter if you are one of kind company(as you say lullabot is) or if you paint i blue. Commercial is commercial! *bottom line*
morphir.com
I don't have an agenda
I don't have an agenda I just call it like I see it. I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.
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BuyBlue.org
Removed based on one person's opinion?
Dries - I agree with rbrooks00 and have begun to wonder if the decision to demote the notice WAS based SOLEY on the comment from morphir? If not, how about weighing in on this discussion and letting us know why the notice was pulled? I for one certainly cannot see either the rational or the value in demoting it - not to D.O. and not to the Drupal community as a whole.
If demoting it WAS just based on morphir's comment, should one isolated opinion - regardless of how passionately he may hold that opinion - be sufficient to CONTROL what the REST of the community can see?
No Worries
Wow. Didn't think this would raise as much ruckus as it did. We're excited to be offering training and education in order to spread some Drupal love and help mold more developers, and yes, even get paid for it.
I hope more people don't freak out when other companies who have been longtime contributers to the Drupal project wish to promote their workshops and have Dries' blessing. I know I'll certainly be behind them. It's a win win situation: someone can make a living from Drupal while also bringing more people into the community.
***
www.lullabot.com - making open source easy
It should be visable
I disagree with morphir that this should not be on the front page or restricted to the forums, and agree with rbrooks00 that the critisim of this training event getting front page exposure is inconsistent when there are serveral book reviews released as a commercial venture getting front page exposure that don't seem to attrack the same critisim. It should be about choice, and as someone new to Drupal I value being informed about such a service and then being able to make my own choice as to wether I find it worthy as an indivdual. I don't think this should open the gates for commerial spam, but at the same time my choice as a part of the Drupal community should not be limited to satisfy the idealism of others in the community. Quite frankly if this had been posted in a forum somewhere I would more than likely have totally missed it. Just my 2c
P.S Good luck with the training, wish I could be there...
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Dominic Ryan
www.it-hq.org
Kneejerk whiners...
I think the reason for that situation is mainly that books cost $10-$50 while Lullabot training, however comparatively inexpensive it may be, costs almost $1000. When big numbers like that show up, no matter the context, the whiners' kneejerk reaction is "OMFG!!! TEH KKKORPORATE GREEDMONGERS!!!"
People like that you will never please...and really shouldn't concern yourself with them.
(IMNSHO, I'd also venture to say that those with that kind of reaction are the community's leeches.)
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MJ - SavoryMedia - http://savorymedia.com/
I agree...
..there is no pleasing these people when offering products and/or services for a fee, and normally I wouldn't bother with them, except this time their whinging had this news item removed.
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Dominic Ryan
www.it-hq.org
Lullabot Training Workshops
A creative and transparent advertising scheme beneficial to key contributors and drupal community maybe the solution to this sensitive issue.
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Darly
compromise
1) I agree this is a very good price and an important contribution to the community
2) I saw it on the front page, didn't have time to read it, and went back to find it. It was gone. I searched under Lullabot and found it. If it had not been on the front page, I would never have seen it. I'm glad Dries promoted it to the front page.
3) Perhaps there could be a compromise solution. There could be some thread of important news (I guess most of it would be commercial) that's not promoted to the front page. Users can check it regularly. There may not be enough volume to justify it at this point, but hopefully if Drupal grows the way we hope it does, there will be many more situations like this.
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