reason people don't use them, (ie. envelopes) is that VARs don't do much educating."
While I agree that VAR's are the proper mechanism for such training, I believe that it is almost impossible for VAR's to a very good job in training. It is not that they don't try and it is not that they don't have good people but it is "us", (at least me) that is the problem. Like most of us, I have gone to several training classes. We have all been in these classes where for three solid days every fact that can be crammed into the time are thrown at us. Then after three days of not being at work when we get back it takes weeks to a month to deal with all of the issues before we get much of a chance to review what was in the class... If many of you are like me, I'm lucky to find the book after a month never mind remember what I learned in the class. I just don't believe that the format for these types of training, (ie. 3 day cramm sessions) are very successful and yet this seems to be the #1 tool that is available to VAR's to keep us informed.
Are there better ways?
One thing that I have found to be extremely useful has been the i-pod casts that mountain-wave.com has made. For me they have just been extremely helpful. For one thing, there have been times when some little step went by too fast. But, this has not been a problem because I could rerun that section over and over until I got it. One of the problems that I have with the help system is that the directions will describe pushing some button.... Fairly often I have spend quite a bit of time looking for some button or trying to figure out what they are trying to say... whereas it is very clear in a good wav file.
Now to be fair to my VAR, they have developed several hunderd (about 15 to 20 minutes long) wav files. The problem that I have with them is that they are fairly expensive and because there is not a good index, it can take quite a while to actaully find what is needed.
One solution that I have made to SW is that instead of the VAR's making a system of wav files is that SW itself should do this. The main reason for this is the cost. I took some assumptions about making 100 total hours of wav files that were PROPERLY indexed and a production cost of $4,000 per hour, (just an estimate) that the total cost would be approximately $1 per user, (World wide) if SW would do this. This would be equivelent to three 30 hours classes and a 10 hour class on "whats new". Enough training for all of us. Who of us would not be willing to pay $1, $10, even more for such a set of training wav files? The problem with VAR's attempting this is that they can only spread these costs over a very small number of users so the cost is too high.
Another advantage for this is that if SW would make a set of standard files that a fairly large number of support questions is, "how do I do XYZ?" could be eliminated. At the very least, with such a wav system the tech support person could say, "look at wav 1234" and call if you have any further questions. (of course, a good index would allow the user to not need to call in the first place... :-) ) The over all effeciency with such a wav system for the users, the VAR's and SW should be greatly improved.
Also, if SW were to make such a system the links in the help system could be greatly expanded and improved.
Does anyone agree with these ideas?
Ed