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Getting in touch - Please allow me to see you when you are online

Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2010-07-21 10:06:11 - Graham Ellis

We're coming up to ten years of training in Melksham - and over those ten years, I have trained (literally) thousands of delegate here (Wow - what a lot of business for Melksham!). Add to that at least the same number of delegates trained on customer sites, and all the people I taught in the previous 10 years at Harwell ... and I know a lot of people. So please forgive me if you get back in touch and I don't remember whether it was Tomcat Deployment or Perl that I taught you ... actually, I do quite well with "I've come across that name" and recognizing faces as someone I know, but my correlation's a bit crap at times.

I'm happy(ish) to accept Skype connection requests from past delegates, and people who are looking to get in touch within our business areas - looking for hotel rooms, to book courses, or to ask questions about those things and what we teach. But I don't want to accept requests off topic - where an acceptance means that I'm then open to sales messages on anything from Viagra to having contract software written for me. If you are going to ask for a Skype link - PLEASE amend the "Please allow me to see when you are online" text to something that gives me a reminder or introduction. I was going to plead a gentle movement towards older age as I wrote this message - but looking at the numbers above, I'm going to plead weight of numbers. To which I should add 900 people who'll be known to me (by handle at least) via the First Great Western Coffee Shop, the 750 who are signed up on TransWilts railway matters and smaller numbers through the Chamber of Commerce, and so on. Yes - I am happy(ish) if those groups contact me by Skype too.

But why do I only say "happy(ish)" and not "delighted".

It's all to do with my day job.

I'm a teacher. I stand in front of a group of delegates, I talk to them, I answer their questions, I demonstrate things. And I can't be constantly disturbed by telephonic systems where the person getting in touch expects a response in a few seconds, or even minutes, and feels that I've slighted them if they don't get that response.

So - I'm delighted if people email me in my subject areas - my email address is all over the place, and there's a web page where you can get in touch - [here] - too. Most of the time, I'm online even during courses so a headline pops into my mailbox within a few minutes, and urgent requests can get dealt with. And - yes - I can (and do) phone back during course breaks, or arrange a time when I can take calls.

I'm always delighted to talk with people about their training and hotel needs. It makes for a far better course / stay than a generic / vanilla one. And by helping me make such a call at a time when I'm not called out from the current delegates, you're also ensuring a quality call when I can concentrate. As an added bonus, we end up paying for the call ;-)