Re: replace training blurb with upcoming pug meetings?

Simon Riggs wrote:
> On Wed, 2008-06-04 at 09:09 +0200, Magnus Hagander wrote:
>
>> Joshua D. Drake wrote:
>>
>>> On Tue, 2008-06-03 at 17:10 -0400, Chander Ganesan wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> I think a single link to training in a spot of its very own would
>>>> provide a bit more visibility than being cluttered with some text
>>>> and a link. Perhaps we can have some list of the number of events
>>>> as well? Want training (22 events coming up!)?
>>>>
>>> One option would be to remove events, news, training, and planet
>>> listings and instead have larger and nicer representation for direct
>>> links:
>>>
>>> Find a User group!
>>> Get Training!
>>> Latest News!
>>> Our community Blogs!
>>>
>>> Each of those would be direct links respectively. This would
>>> significantly reduce the noise on the page.
>>>
>> Or we just remove the frontpage completely? ;-)
>>
>> IMHO this would significantly reduce the value of the information
>> there. If anything should be removed, it's IMHO the shortcuts and
>> "support us" sections. Second to that is training. All the others are
>> IMHO much more important than the usergroup listings (which doesn't say
>> that the usergroup listings aren't important, of course).
>>
>
> Hmmm. I think its hard to say which are the more popular links.
>
> Many people would never click on training, but if there was a training
> course they wanted they would go. But how would they ever know? Same
> with user groups. Many people wouldn't be interested, but open a user
> group in their local area and suddenly they care? But how would they
> ever know?
>
> So I suggest two things:
>
> * move the suggested topics to detail pages. Give prominence to what
> turns out to be most popular. Look at hits, don't speculate or argue.
>
+1
> * have a way of bubbling up information from details to front page. Do
> this fairly randomly, so the front page is fresh and exciting each time
> you visit.
>
+1
> I think people are interested in new and interesting things, however we
> categorise them. Running the same course title monthly for a year is not
> news, but then neither is the 5th meeting this year of the Pugtown PUG.
> Nor is writing multiple blog entries on the same day.
>
+0

I think while that might be true of blogs and pugs, its not true of
training. People want to know where and when they can get a class. New
courses are interesting, but I'll bet the vast majority of people who
look for training aren't looking for a performance tuning, or some kind
of HA course - they are interested in Administration or basic SQL, since
thats often what they need to do their job. Let's not discount the
value of the "news" portion of the page, which brings attention to "new
and exciting" for vendors.

Running the same admin course monthly might not be of interest to a PG
admin with 5 years of experience, but its definitely of interest to a
new PG person, and is definitely (IMHO) a core component to building the
community. I'd argue that you're more likely to lose the new guy that
can't get training than the experienced guy who lives for exciting new
PG product offerings.
> We just need a way for proactive and/or innovative people to get
> attention for their activities, without being swamped by bulk marketing
> activities by the overzealous. Cool blogs, new courses, new PUGs etc are
> what people want to know about.
>
To paraphrase a response I got from this list about a similar topic
"Isn't that what the News link is for?" On a side note, I've brought up
the "bulk marketing activities by the overzealous" several times in the
past...which I think might be part of the reason things look the way
they are now.

I fought the battle of trying to limit what commercial vendors can do on
the training side (limiting the number of listings, locations, etc) in a
wide range of ways last year...no dice, since unless there's a clear
indicator that someone is doing something that is wrong, unethical, or
misleading...there isn't much the community can do. I'm as upset as you
are about what I percieve to be "overzealous" marketing, and we have
been forced to change a bit of our business model to be competitive
(such as offering courses in other cities). I think we do it in a
fairly ethical way though ...for example... We're running (at a loss,
I'll add) a PostgreSQL Admin course in Santa Clara later this month.
There are 3 people enrolled in it, yet I'm renting a facility and flying
out an instructor to teach the class (we advertise a minimum of 5 to run
a course there). If you know anyone that might be interested... ;-)

--
Chander Ganesan
Open Technology Group, Inc.
One Copley Parkway, Suite 210
Morrisville, NC 27560
919-463-0999/877-258-8987
http://www.otg-nc.com