Monday, September 13, 2010

Improvement: one thing that definitely make you progress


How do you know if you are making progress? How do you know if you have improved in your life, career or business over the last week, month or year. To know if something today is better than yesterday, is if you know the state at which it was yesterday and compare it with today.

You need to track or measure the status of play now at this moment to have any chance of knowing if it has improved tomorrow. Gleb Reys on his blog also went further to say “That which is measured, improves” This might sound like basic common sense but you will be surprised at what we don’t track.

Tracking is effective because it gives you that feel good factor of seeing that you are achieving what you have set out to do and gives you motivation to continue. On the other hand, when you see that you are not achieving the goals you have set out for yourself, you tend to give yourself a call to action to get back on the right track.

There is a useful practice in the Agile community called the scrum, where people working on a project gather together and answer three questions

  • What did I do yesterday?
  • What am I going to do today?
  • Are there any problems I am facing to stop me from achieving that task?

Write a personal scrum with yourself on birthday every year and reflect on the last year and see how I have improved and what you can do better. If you can write this down, the better your chances of succeeding. This is the same concept used in gratitude journals, and yes there’s an app for that. It is called Gratitude Journal available on the iPhone.

The more interesting thing is that this will work over different time spans. In the example above, I have a checkpoint every year and on my birthday this year, this was my personal scrum

What have I achieved this year?

  • I started a new job

What do I plan to achieve next year?

  • I plan to get SAP BI training and become a SAP certified consultant
  • My fiance and I plan to buy a house we can call ours

Are there any problems I am facing?

  • Apart from the challenges of getting trained, passing the certification, saving enough money? Not at all :-).

Wow, that was a lot of personal information shared but anyway it had be done. What is your personal scrum?

Hope this blog post has pushed you to track your progress. Have a nice day ahead!

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Cookie Cutter I.T. Training

I.T. is one of the fastest evolving and competitive industries today. Everyone is looking for new skills and abilities to keep them in front of the pack. But with I.T. professionals having so little time available to them to learn new skills, the only way out for most of them is to go in for web based I.T. training. The problem with this kind of software training is that it is modular and general in nature. The knowledge/lessons are conveyed online, the student must answer some questions to show his grasp of what he has studied and then the next module is offered. There is no, or at the most a little email based interaction between instructor and student. This means that it is often difficult to fully appreciate the finer points of what has been taught. Even more difficult is proper retention and subsequent application of this knowledge in the workplace.

Interactive Online I.T. Training Courses

Fortune Technologies, a leading Silicon Valley consulting company, offers something different. This software training company provides online training that uses screen, voice and the instructor’s graphics tablets to allow for real time student instructor interaction which makes understanding, retention and application of the knowledge gained much easier and more effective. And since instructors are available 24/7, as is access to the company’ servers for practice, anytime, anywhere personalized training is now a reality. And since this training is being offered by a leading provider of I.T. consulting services in the Bay Area, what students learn is what they need to stay ahead in the work place. Visit http://www.itcoursesbayarea.com/ to learn more.

Monday, May 24, 2010

Is Anytime And Anywhere I.T. Training Really Possible?

Anytime / anywhere I.T. training is what most professionals look for as the best way to keep their skills sharp and learn new I.T. technologies. With their busy schedules and the uncertainty of when they will have time to study, fixed times and locations will never work for them. Many companies are now offering software training courses online with the promise that students will be able to learn at their own time and pace, at any place they can go online. While this is technically correct, the reality is that the kind of instruction offered leaves a lot to be desired. Courses are uploaded at fixed times and students can download them at their convenience. They in turn upload their answers to questions asked, ask for any clarifications they want, and wait for the instructors to send their responses. There is never any real time interaction between student and instructor which causes problems in understanding which leads to gaps in the knowledge and difficulty in applying it in the workplace.

A Better Way To Information Technology Training

Fortune Technologies is one of the fastest growing I.T. consulting companies in Bay Area. They work closely with their clients in the application of cutting edge technologies so they appreciate the gap between theoretical knowledge and its application at work. They design their software training programs to fill the gap between theory and its practical application. Equally important, their instructors and access to their servers for practice are available 24/7. And the instructors use voice, screen and graphics tablets to directly interact with the students. This kind of personalized interaction allows for complete understanding, retention and application to be possible. This is real, worthwhile and effective anytime, anywhere I.T. Training at its best. Find out more about the courses available and how to contact the company at http://www.itcoursesbayarea.com/.

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Are You On The I.T. Treadmill?

This is a problem that many I.T. professionals face – running faster and faster but staying in the same place. You know that you are in one of the fastest evolving industries in existence and that your personal skill levels have to keep evolving so that you do not slow down and fall off the treadmill. That means you need to keep acquiring new skills. And that means devoting some of your rare personal time to information technology training. Yes it’s tough, but if you want to succeed, you have to do it. But beware, just learning is not enough. You have to learn skills that will not just keep you on the treadmill, but enable you to step off it and make real forward progress in your career. The problem is that most I.T. training programs are designed to convey knowledge, not how to use it. Acquiring knowledge keeps you from falling off the treadmill, but being able to use the Siebel ERP, SAP training, and other corporate applications in the real world is what enables you to produce the kind of results that allow you to leave the treadmill behind.

I.T. And Software Training That Produces Results

The first thing you need to do to leave the treadmill behind is to visit the Fortune Technologies website and see who they are and why they are so uniquely qualified to offer training that goes beyond theory and is focused on producing the kind of results you need to get ahead. The next thing you need to do is check out the training modules on offer, including the latest SalesForce.com Admin / Developer and Selenium training programs. Then check out their interactive system of training to see why it makes absorption, retention and application so easy. And finally just step off the treadmill, join a Fortune Technologies I.T training course and leave the treadmill behind.

Sunday, May 16, 2010

When Do You Learn? Where Do You Learn?

These are the two biggest questions in information technology training. I.T. professionals have little time to themselves to take software training courses, even if they are online. And then comes the question of where do they do it once they find the time. Office is not the place. That means learning at home. But what happens when you have to travel and spend days living in a hotel room. You can’t afford to stop – you’ll lose the momentum you have built up and will waste a lot of time catching up. There are many I.T. training courses that claim to offer the flexibility of anytime – anywhere learning, but all this means is that you can download the lessons at your conveniences, and the upload your responses. How much can you really learn from a system like that?

Real Time Interactive Training

Being a leading I.T. consulting company in the Bay Area, Fortune Technologies understands that learning must be focused on producing results for the student. And static, remote, impersonal teaching methods can never provide this. That is why their I.T. training programs are designed to provide voice, screen and graphics tablet based one-no-one interaction between instructor and student. This allows the student to ask questions and get responses that ensure that the understanding of the subject is complete. And equally importantly, instructors are available online 25/7 to allow for not just anytimeanywhere learning, but anytime – anywhere understanding.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

The Advantages of Interactive Learning

I.T. professionals who want to keep their skill sets up to date and stay at the cutting edge of corporate applications do not have the time to attend classroom based software training courses. That leaves them with only the option of web based training which they can, hopefully, fit into their hectic schedules. But most of these online software training programs have their own limitations. Firstly, they are based on a “convey and respond” system of instruction where the knowledge is conveyed to all those who are part of the I.T. training course en mass. The student receives these inputs, goes through them and submits the requisite responses. There is little or no one-on-one interaction between the instructor and the student. And what little there is may be is usually available only at fixed time which may not be to the student’s convenience. Then there is the problem of communications. Even when live interaction is done, it is usually in the form of chat, voice or online document exchange, which has great limitations. How effective will training programs tailored for mass consumption be with only limited student – instructor interaction. Till now people accepted the limitations because there seemed to be no other option.

The Fortune Technologies Advantage

Fortune Technologies, a leading provider of I.T. Training in the Bay Area has created an instructional method that combines the best of online instruction with the personal interaction that classroom courses offer. Fortune Technologies web based instruction:

Is available 24/7. Instructors are available at any time, so students can set schedules for training that suits them.
Is completely interactive and uses screen, voice and the instructors graphics tablet to not just convey but to ensure that what is being taught is understood and retained.
Offers 24/7 access to the company’s servers for anytime-anywhere practice.
Is workplace focused? They are one of the leading consulting companies in Silicon Valley which enables them to understand corporate I.T. applications and to tailor their information technology training to enable students to produce on the job results and keep their careers on the growth track.

To learn more about the Fortune Technologies training advantage, visit the website, email training@fortunetechnol.com or phone (408) 530-9600.

Sunday, May 9, 2010

Training for the Workplace

Do you remember your first job? You came in with a lot of confidence, full of everything you learned about the latest I.T. technologies. You soon realized that there is a huge gap between the world of the classroom and the workplace. All the knowledge you had was great, but being able to apply it in a way that produced results was something else – something you had to scrabble to learn. Today you know the tricks of the trade and can produce results with confidence. But in I.T. things evolve very fast. You need to stay on top of the latest technologies and as your responsibilities increase, you have less and less time to do that. What’s the best way ahead? Where do you find the I.T. training courses that will not just provide you the knowledge you need, in a way convenient for you, but give it to you in a way that you can use it from the get go, without going through the “learning to apply what you have learned” syndrome?

Fortune Technologies Software Training

Fortune Technologies is one of the fastest growing I.T. consulting companies in the Bay Area. This means that they know the corporate applications of information technology – how I.T. is used in the workplace. Their highly experienced consultants use this knowledge to create I.T. and software training programs that translate into on the job results with no down time. And with their 24/7 interactive online training programs and round the clock access to their servers for practice, you have exactly the combination of the best instructors, interactive learning and freedom to learn and practice at your own time that you could ask for. Visit the company website at http://www.fortunetechnol.com/ to learn more about the training in cutting edge I.T. technologies available. The contacts page provides phone and fax number and email address to contact them with any questions of requests for more information.