Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2008-05-01 08:40:11 - Graham Ellis
Welcome to May. A mad busy April gives way to a quiet week next week - perhaps caused in a part by the fact that I've simply not had the time to go out marketing courses, and in part by the fact that it's another Bank Holiday week, and in part by the fact that whenever there's a major turbulence in the news or the economy, company's first reaction is to freeze expenditure on training until it blows over ... or until they realise that life is going on anyway. We saw it with regard to 9/11, we saw it when Iraq was invaded, and we have sensed a cut in training bookings in the current financial climate.
I predict that this quietness won't last; companies need to invest in their staff and, once they're sure where they're going the quieter times are an excellent opportunity to catch up on training and backroom work so that they can hit the ground running as things accelerate forward again. We're certainly taking that opportunity.
In a month, it will be two years since we took over Well House Manor and now is a good time for us to take stock and move onwards and upwards.
And on the training course side, with the ongoing popularity and growth of PHP we've added our PHP Techniques workshop to our regular PHP programming and OO Programming with PHP courses. PHP Techniques are critical to the success of a web based application, and they're what our new course covers. A user friendly, flexible, easily maintained site that hides the complexity from the customer and is secure is critical to a web campaign's success - but is often overlooked. This course will be a really good investment for anyone who knows the principles of PHP programming but wants tips, techniques and help as to how to make best use of them. But it is going to be a hard one for people to "sell" to their bosses ...
It's been brought home to me in the last few days just how effective an online application can be ... looking as an example at our Save the Train pledge page. Over 350 people - with over 90% of them from Wiltshire and the local area - have signed up on the page I wrote on Easter Monday, and I hear the "whisper" that the interest that it has generated has been noted in the high places that matter with regards to decisions on whether we'll see a more appropriate train service next year across Wiltshire, or a continuation of the current travesty.
* If you've not signed up to support the train yet, please click here
* If you've not booked for PHP Techniques on 15th / 16th May - please click here for a description - and if you book by email (graham@wellho.net) for that first course, we'll give you a £100.00 introductory discount.