Gabe Goldberg wrote:
I'm writing articles for Bob Thomas' two publications, z/Journal and
Mainframe Executive, about mainframe education. For z/Journal I'll cover
the tactical "state of education union" and for Mainframe Executive I'll
discuss strategic/high-level issues.
A year or so ago I wrote about education/training from IBM (Academic
Initiative) and SHARE (zNextGen project), both of which are positive
developments; the article is at
<http://www.zjournal.com/index.cfm?section=article&aid=823>.
So --
What's new since the z/Journal article ran and what did the article miss?
What's the good and bad news about today's mainframe education?
Who's providing it? Who's best at it?
What's missing?
What works? Classroom instruction? Online training? Self-study courses?
Books? User groups?
Do employers pay for it? Is it a necessity or a golden perk? Is it safe
in the budget or a first thing to get whacked?
How often do employees pay?
Does it keep pace with mainframe evolution?
What's happening in local mainframe user groups?
What are noteworthy publishing resources for mainframe training/education?
Etc. -- don't be limited by these questions.
Please reply directly as well as to the list, so I see responses
separate from the daily digest.
Thanks...
Gabe,
Well, you know we do mainframe training, but I'm not
replying to blow my own horn. I'm replying because
your note struck a chord that matched an article in
today's (Monday's) Wall Street Journal (p. B5)
The headline is "Allaying Workers' Fears During Uncertain Times"
The sub-headline is a succint summary: "Many Executives Seek
Ways to Maintain Morale and Productivity, Handle Their Own
Stress Amid Financial Slowdown".
And it struck me, not for the first time, how training
can be a relatively inexpensive way to say to an emloyee,
"we believe in you, we value you; we want you to stay
happy and productive; to show you we mean it, we're
going to schedule you into some training that we'll be
paying for. It's in our interest too, of course, but
we wanted to let you know."
Training can be less expensive to the company than
giving a raise or a bonus, and at the same time, in
some ways, more meaningful to the employee. And if
it helps morale and productivity, that's a great bonus.
[Of course, nothing wrong with raises and bonuses,
it's just a function of how much budget there is in
different categories.]
I believe that. I'm in training because I love it
and I enjoy it. On our website you might want to
read the Very Short Presentations (VSPs) written
for semi-technical managers (see
http://www.trainersfriend.com/General_content/VSP_site.htm )
Also, I've provided some skeleton html pages designed
for someone in IT to use as starters for putting some
web pages up on a company intranet that promotes and
explains the role of the mainframe in the organization.
( http://www.trainersfriend.com/General_content/Internal_marketing.htm )
So, I don't know if you can use any of this. Just some
thoughts.
Kind regards,
-Steve Comstock
The Trainer's Friend, Inc.
303-393-8716
http://www.trainersfriend.com
z/OS Application development made easier
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