SketchUp Sessions at JLC Live, RI - Discussion Topics

[miketadros]

Hi all, Mike here from go-2-school.com. Just wanted to try something different for this year's JLC Live, RI conference. Figured that rather than waiting to get feedback until after my presentations, I'd try to gather a bit more insight before-hand. So - question for those attending JLC Live, RI: Which SketchUp topics are you hoping to learn more about at this years conference? If you've enrolled in either of the SketchUp seminars please let me know which seminar you're attending (Friday's Beginner session, or Saturday's Intermediate Session, or both), and let me know which topic you'd like to have addressed.

I've got my own ideas, but am totally open to suggestions.

Looking forward to this year's event and to meeting a bunch of new faces.

-mike
mike@go-2-school.com

[jstoddard]

Mike - awesome idea doing this at JLCLive - is this the first year for you at Providence? It's a great show.

[miketadros]

Thanks Joe,

This is actually the second year now that I'll be a speaker at the New England Show. Sherry did a great job recruiting us to to present SketchUp at JLC events around the country last year. I did the New England seminars, Kerri, another of our SketchUp trainers was a speaker at the show in Long Beach, and Nic taught at the event in Seattle. So I'm back in Providence again this year and am looking forward to the demo I'm about to give here in a few minutes.

For anyone who may read this, who wasn't able to make it- the fireworks I'm saving for the end of my seminar include the new ProfileBuilder Ruby Script that Dale Martens created. The plugin is available at the Smustard Website and based on some of the conversations I've read on these forums - i think it's really gonna wow some people tomorrow. Especially anyone who's used SketchUp to try to model trim/moulding type details.

you can check out the plugin here, btw: http://www.smustard.com/script/ProfileBuilder

-Mike

[bobkni]

Mike- I attended both of your classes at JLCLive and would like to thank you for everything that you covered in a short amount of time. I think everyone learned a great deal of information and the capabilities that Sketchup has and what it can do for our business.

Thanks Again
bob

[David Meiland]

So now that there isn't going to be a Seattle show this year... are trainings like this happening anywhere?

[bobkni]

Dave
Look at go-2-school.com for training classes, forum and other training tutorials and dvd's

bob

[miketadros]

Bob, thanks for the thanks. It was a fun show, and I certainly enjoyed the seminars. also picked up some great tips on the show floor for the crown moulding project I've got waiting for me when I get home ;).

dave, as bob mentioned, our company teaches courses around the country. We've currently got classes scheduled in San Francisco (i'm teaching those). Another one of our trainers (Nic) lives in the Seattle area so I would expect that we'll also have classes scheduled there soon.

here's a link to the classes page on our site:
http://www.go-2-school.com/classes/schedule

-mike

[David Meiland]

Wow... $250 per 3-hour class.

[always-learning]

David,

Where are you reading that info. at?

I found that it was $295 for a 6 hour day here:

http://www.cadgarage.com/sesiiib.html

[David Meiland]

Chuck, here's a cut n paste:

Jun. 25, 2009 San Francisco, CA
37.7850437-122.406745113 Google SketchUp - Essentials 1 Early bird discount ends 05/26/09 $250 details register

Jun. 25, 2009 San Francisco, CA
37.7850437-122.406745214 Google SketchUp - Essentials 2 Early bird discount ends 05/26/09 $250 details register

Jun. 26, 2009 San Francisco, CA
37.7850437-122.406745415 Advanced SketchUp Skills Early bird discount ends 05/27/09 $250 details register

I clicked on 'details' for two of the classes and they show as 3 hours. $750 for 9 hours of group instruction seems high to me, couldn't you find an individual tutor for $80+/hr.?

Now I sound like some homeowner wanker, second-guessing someone's prices.

[miketadros]

Thanks for the feedback guys. David, your response is actually pretty common and i don't think you sound like a wanker ;). Typically, I think people just don't realize how expensive it is to conduct live training seminars. For one thing, as a 'Google Authorized Training Center' the prices for our standard curriculum are established by the Goog, so we have very little wiggle room as it is. The other factor that plays into our live training events are the rental fees for the computer labs that we rent out for the classes (which can run upwards of $1k per day), plus travel expenses, etc. As a side note, for what it's worth, we do provide students with free DVDs as a value add for Live Training.

We've been working together with other companies to create opportunities for less expensive live training events - such as the JLC seminars (which were $80/ one hour seminar) and the classes coming up this week in Boston (in cooperation with CadGarage) are $300 per day (50% less than usual).

in addition, we also offer private, one-on-one instruction via WebEx (PC) or iChat (MAC) and the rates for that are around $100/hr.

and in addition to that, our 2hr DVDs range from $80-$130 each. it takes about 3-4 hrs to get through a disk so you're looking at about $20/hr-$35/hr for those. Minus the benefit of being able to raise your hand, that's probably our best option in terms of $/hr value.

if the budgets are too tight for that, then you've got some books out there (like SKP for Dummies) that you can find used on amazon for like $20.

and for the freebie junkies - we've got about 8hrs of free video tutorials on our website and a free QA forum on our site as well.

we are trying our best to create options to make training available to as many people as possible both in terms of content delivery and pricing. again though, we do appreciate the feedback and would welcome any additional thoughts you might have (maybe via email? - wasn't really expecting for this thread to turn into a big long ad for our biz).

cheers,
Mike
mike@go-2-school.com

[miketadros]

in addition to the stuff i mentioned above, we just released a new feature on our website today whereby people can register for a Pro Account. Pro account members gain access to watch all of our DVDs as streaming videos on our site. In addition you'll also get free access to Q&A webinars which will be held each month as well as discounts on everything else (including live training classes).

more info here: http://www.go-2-school.com/memberships

-mike