Over the last few years, my work has moved away from day-to-day software development, and more in the direction of technical training: Helping companies (and individuals) by teaching people how to solve problems in new ways. Nowadays, I spend most of my time teaching courses in Python (at a variety of levels), regular expressions, data science, Git, and PostgreSQL.
And I have to say: I love it. I love helping people to do things they couldn’t do before. I love meeting smart and interesting people who want to do their jobs better. I love helping companies to become more efficient, and to solve problems they couldn’t solve before. And I love the travel; next week, I leave for my 16th trip to China, and I’ll likely teach 5-6 classes in Europe before the year is over.
The thing is, I’m not alone: There are other people out there who do training, and who have the same feeling of excitement and satisfaction.
At the same time, trainers are somewhat lonely: To whom do we turn to improve our skills? Not our technical skills, but our skills as trainers? And our business skills as consultants who are looking to improve our knowledge of the training market?
Over the last year, I’ve started to help more and more people who are interested in becoming trainers. I’ve started a coaching practice. I’ve given Webinars and talks at conferences. I’ve started to work on a book on the subject.
But as of last week, I’ve also started a new, free community for technical trainers on Facebook. If you engage in training, or have always wanted to do so, then I invite you to join our new, free community on Facebook, at http://facebook.com/groups/techtraining .
I should note that this group is not for people running training businesses. Rather, it’s for the trainers themselves — the people who spend several days each month in a classroom, trying to get their ideas across in the best possible ways.
In this group, we’ll share ideas about (among other things):
- How to find clients
- How to prepare courses
- What a good syllabus and/or proposals look like
- How to decide whether a course is worth doing
- How to price courses
- Working on your own vs. via training companies
- How to upsell new courses to your clients
- How can education research help us to teach better
If you are a trainer, or want to be one, then I urge you to join our new community, at at http://facebook.com/groups/techtraining . We’ve already had some great exchanges of ideas that will help us all to learn, grow, and improve. Join us, and contribute your voice to our discussion!