Education for my company
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- phirschybar
Hey all! I work for a growing web design / interactive firm. We are really good at what we do but as we grow, we are facing the challenge of educating our new employees (mainly sales, marketing, project management people). These people are coming to the programmers and the more experienced staff for help of technical issues with which they are not familar. Any recommendations on BOOKS which cover the gamut? Inlcuding SSL, CMS, CSS, PHP, MySQL, HTML... something that covers it all without going into too much depth on one area? Something to help them field tricky client questions without being stumped? THANKS!!
- grafholic0
this might not help...but at our work, we started building wiki page. we now cover documentations on how we built tools, how to use the tools, as well as 101 on basic programming and database queries.
i work for dot-com and it's very common that our sales/account managers/support staff need some basic knowledge of web components.
we thought about books...but sometimes they cover stuff people don't necessarily need to read or do not cover in depth of stuff they need to learn. so wiki pages are pretty good resources -- not only for knowledge sharing but also as documentation factor.
- phirschybar0
thanks graf. I actually havent used wiki at all but have been recommended a few times. Any way I could take a peek at your classroom for employees? If you dont want to broadcast the link, you can hit me at .. any other suggestions out there... we need help.
- ********0
What do you mean? If you're a good company like you say you are you would screen those individuals before you hire them. They should already know that material. That's my opinion, but then again I look at things as being cut and dry. Versatility is the key.
- ********0
pardon my ignorance, but what are "wiki" pages?
- phirschybar0
jaz, I hear ya! But the market here is slim on tech knowledge and the people we hire are willing and eager to learn (which I think is a very good trait in an employee)
- ********0
I've developed WIKIs before. Content control systems for online real-time changes. Here: http://www.mse.cs.cmu.edu
- mitsu0
sounds like you need two things. documentation on your projects, both high level, for marketing, sales, etc. and low level for programmers, dba's, etc.
you also need a good set of shelf reference books, like o'reilly or wrox for quick technical answers.
- ********0
I'd get some Source Control software as well, like something like Rational ClearCase. Enables you to keep track of and keep master contrl on files.
- phirschybar0
jaz, its really more about the project managers who get a client asking if they will have access to a dump file for their database, or if we can provide SSL.. something along those lines.. general info and our project managers need to have enough tech knowledge to answer the questions or at least know where to search for them quickly. We dont expect them to know EVERYTHING but we certainly dont need to them to go digging into source code management software
- ********0
ahhhhhh, my fault, misunderstood you, so training for your PMs...
ok, basically I'd send them to a cheap class or two, basics on web development etc. or how server-side languages compare to one another, etc.
- phirschybar0
yeah, I like the server side approach. They need to understand server vs. client side. I am pushing them having a solid foundation on HTML too. No knowledge of HTML = dead in the water. The clients and potentials are calling and feel like they know more than the PMs... But we dont have any classes nearby that would cover the basics.. (nor that we could afford at this point)
- ********0
yeah, exactly dude, they can't very well be speaking to clients and such and have absolutely no concept of technology. Even if they seem a bit off, they should understand those concepts. That'll eventually bite you in the you know what. good luck :)
- grafholic0
phirschybar - sorry you can't look at our wiki pages because they're hosted on our intranet and you'll need username and password to get to it.
of course, if i give you my username and password, you'll start cracking into our code ;)
- mitsu0
oh, i see now.
interesting.... hire first, train later...
- ********0
as I cannot as well, but I can tell you that the WIKI I made looked like a bad version of Microsoft Frontpage, but damnit it worked and was very functional and useful. No need to FTP jack! Theoretically, if you have these your PMs would only need to learn that word editor, however, there are various ways you could tackle this. Macromedia Contribute, etc.
- ********0
oh, i see now.
interesting.... hire first, train later...
mitsu
(Jan 5 05, 09:56)lol
- phirschybar0
Actually.. Jaz and others, with the wiki stuff, I thought you were referring to wiki pages being used to set up a "Knowledge Base".. not for Content Management puposes. We offer CMS services which allow our clients to make site updates and such. so that is not really an issue. But what I want is for the PMs and sales people to be better educated.. To have a broad knowledge of technologies used so they can say "Yes" or "No" to clients confidently without asking programmers. And even more importantly, to know what is more complex to develop so as to give the client a heads up that they may be paying heavily for an application.
- mitsu0
so what do these employees have degrees in? real estate?
sounds to me like they need to go to school and get an MIS degree or something... not teach yourself php database programming in 24 hours.
- ********0
Train them yourself. That's an option. Get one your programmers to bring things down to layman's terms.