So, my training business is doing better than expected, which is good news in a tough economy.
I’ve gotten some feedback from readers about my mention of training services offered through my company. My company has historically only performed training at client sites, and some folks had hoped I would expand into offering “open enrollment” courses at some point. Of course, they’d like it if I did that all over the country, but I’m only one guy (for the moment).
What I *have* done is I’ve set up an open enrollment course not too far from where I live. If you’re anywhere near Edison, NJ and need a beginner’s course in Linux administration (not *using* Linux — *administering* Linux), then you can either contact me directly to see how to reserve your spot for either the August 3-7 or October 5-9 course, or you can wait for the online order link to appear on this page.
Why Open Enrollment?
There are two main reasons people wanted an open enrollment course, and I’m trying to respond to those people who gave me this feedback by offering this course. The two main reasons are:
- It’s cost prohibitive to do on-site training unless you have ~5 or more people.
- Some companies don’t have space or equipment to host on-site training.
If you only have three people to train, on-site training is probably going to cost more than sending your people off to a training center. However, I would still suggest on-site training for the following reasons:
First, if you only have three people to train, chances are it’s going to be painful to have them out of the office all at once for an entire 5-day training course.
Second, if your company is somewhere between Philadelphia and New York City (commuting distance from Princeton, NJ), local companies get a discount to bring the cost of on-site training down.
As for the problem of not having training space, that can be harder to overcome, no matter how many people need training. If your company needs training outside the NY/NJ/PA area, and doesn’t have space to do it on-site, let me know. I have a growing collection of companies in this situation. At some point, I can group the students into a training course and try to find lab space to hold the course in your town.