• You have the place, the time, and most of the people, but not quite enough people to justify a private in-house class.
• You are a regional Omnis user group and would like to offer an Omnis class in your area.
• You want to organize a Studio Development Center, but you don't have an Omnis trainer on your staff.

These are among the many scenarios that might lead you to consider sponsoring an Omnis training class.

Sponsoring?

"Sponsoring" means that you take responsibility for the administrative aspects of the class. It works the same as an on-site training, but you are also allowing "outsiders" to participate. Your responsibilities then include signing up and collecting fees from attendees, providing a venue, and securing the instructor (me). Don't worry, if I can find other people for your class, I will refer them to you. I'm not likely to give a separate class in the same area any time soon, so people who contact me directly for training in that region are best off attending your class.

What does it cost?

You pay me my normal rate for on-site consulting and training. This includes expenses such as air travel, hotel, ground transportation and meal expenses for the trip, as specified on my on-site training page. Beyond that, you may not have any additional expenses. If you already have a suitable room and equipment, the class will cost you nothing more. If you have to rent a room and/or projection equipment, these are your only other expenses -- and they are usually less (even combined) than the fee for a single attendee.

What's involved?

Meeting room rentals (if you don't already have a space) are usually the biggest headache. Collecting fees from attendees and sending them information on hotels and restaurants in your area (assuming they might be flying into town for the class) is the other item that takes significant time and effort. You will also need to purchase my airplane ticket and hotel room, etc. I can fill you in on the details when you contact me.

What's in it for us?

Besides having a class at a location and time of your choosing, there are a few other benefits. First, it might be substantially less expensive than sending a group of people to an open class. Since you are paying a flat rate for my services instead of a per person fee for the class, classes of over six people should prove to be less expensive for you. Since you are paying expenses for only one person (the instructor), you should save there too.

Companies willing to allow "outsiders" into their "in-house" class can have part of their costs defrayed by the fees they collect. At some companies there could be security issues involved, but I have seen this work successfully many times in the past.

You will also get better results for your money. When a company sends one or two people to a class, a lot of the class information never makes it back to the workplace -- and those one or two individuals are a small island of budding Omnis expertise in a very large pond of other agendas. The more people in an organization who are exposed to Omnis in the proper educational atmosphere, the better the chances of success for your in-house Omnis projects. The more sets of ears there are listening to the presentation, the better the chances are of collectively retaining the information presented.

If you are a Studio Development Center, contracting me to conduct your training classes can free up valuable staff time for the more important work of programming client applications. Don't worry -- I have no interest in "taking over" your clients. The one or two client projects I maintain are plenty for me, since my primary interest is in training and writing Omnis educational materials.

So what should we do with the savings we accrue?

That's entirely up to you. In the past, some companies have just kept it to cover the "administrative expenses" of signing on outside people, user groups have either kept it in their general or education funds or have offered rebates to attendees. One group had a big barbeque for all of us the Saturday following the class!

Why do you offer this option?

Basically I save a lot of long distance telephone calls and administrative entanglements in dealing with hotels about meeting rooms by offering classes this way (since I always have to use hotel meeting rooms for classes on the road). It also reduces the risk I take of not having enough people in an area to make a class financially viable, since there must be at least a core group of people in the organization requesting the class.

I also find it encourages the sponsoring organization to expose more people to Omnis. This, in turn, increases the chances of success for their projects, which can lead to a need for more advanced training or more focussed on-site consultation from me. It has always been a win-win situation in the past and I highly recommend that you take advantage of it, if it fits your needs profile.

How do we get started?

First, check my class schedule to see if I am already offering a class in your area. If I am, you could take over sponsorship of that class if you like, or we could set a different date for your area that could work better for you (for date changes I prefer at least two months warning prior to the original date). If I am not, find a week and an alternate week (having two choices is always a good idea) not already in use and contact me by telephone (603-472-4878) or email to make arrangements.

Remember, you provide the venue, sign up any additional attendees, and pay a flat rate plus expenses to the instructor. At about six attendees (seven if you have to rent a meeting room) you should break even. With a full class of twelve, you can make significant income -- or rebate the extra to the attendees.