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Raves
Read what graduates of our classes have to say.
As an experienced web application developer, I have attended many training courses over the years. Joel brings great enthusiasm, energy, and insight to the class. His ability to engage participants from diverse backgrounds and levels of knowledge is unsurpassed in my experience. I'm looking forward to expanding my use of Plone based on what I learned from Joel.
— Evan Frisch <...gmail.com>
You are the best instructor I've ever encountered and your class is the best way to learn Plone fast I've even encountered. Hell yeah, you can quote me.
— Chris Calloway <...unc.edu>
I've taken a lot of computer classes - in Java, python and Plone - from world-class teachers. For expertise and teaching ability, Joel Burton ranks with the best. For the quality of of the class materials (notes, slides and software) and its immediate applicability, I'd say this WAS the best. Certainly, at $400 for a week of superb instruction, it is the best software training bargain around. I can't wait for Joel's advanced Plone class.
— Robert Stephenson <...alumni.princeton.edu>
You are a great instructor! You care about all your students. You go extra miles to help your trainees. Your classes are interesting, and the student participation is high. I learned a lot from you, and had a wonderful time at the Boot Camp. Hope I'll have the chance to attend more of your training sessions in the future.
— Haijing Ma <...aas.duke.edu>
Joel, your teaching style is second to none. Not a second is wasted, students questions get addressed quickly, and the amount of collaboration you weave into the week is perfect! I had a slight fear of Plone heading into the first part of the week. By Friday, the fear was gone completely.
— Tad Hunt <...notes.duke.edu>
Thanks a lot for the bootcamp class last week. Excellent stuff, and I feel much better prepared for what's to come.
I think the patterns are incredibly useful. Patterns like: creating a template, and then making the template the default view for a particular content type; creating the simple workflow (that part is quite intimidating in some respects, but you made it seem simpler). They all seem very simple once you've explained them.
— Ed Roberts <...u.washington.edu>
As someone who has only been working in Plone for a little over a month, I came out of the bootcamp much more knowledgeable and comfortable with Plone's different features and capabilities. Joel is a great instructor who knows the material inside and out, and will also take the time to answer your questions. I highly recommend it.
— Matt Meighan, Software Engineer, Eglin AFB
Joel's bootcamp gave a really great overview of Plone, and enough detail to create a flexible web application from page templates, data from RDBMs and Python scripts/external methods. The bootcamp is probably the most painless way to start developing on Plone, and is the best developer course I've been on.
— Cliburn Chan <...duke.edu>
I am impressed with your ability to teach to a fairly wide range of experience levels simultaneously.
— Glenn Little, little@cs.ucsd.edu
This is a time well-spent bootcamp. I really like the last three days of class with many hand-ons. As a newcomer in Plone field, the hand-ons get me familiarized to the "Plone/Zope" language. Next on my list, get a Python training to and define/find a Plone project to work on.
— Dai Le <...comcast.net>
There were about a bazillion nice things about the class in my opinion! The overview of the new version of Plone was great. I can't wait to start using it (and we will be in about a month).
The most helpful parts of the class, to me, were the sections and hands-on work for Workflows ( I and II ), cloning/creating Content Types, and Archetypes. I found the information from these sections very helpful and will be applying this information immediately.
Truthfully, just about everything I learned last week I am using / will be using as soon as possible.
— Kathy Craddock, UNC Health Care Systems, www.unchealthcare.org
As a web professional under constant time pressure, I am always grateful for tools and techniques which make my job faster and easier. The Bootcamp gives an excellent and thorough foundation to build upon.
The trainer provided an expert perspective and provided many insights and best-practice guidance which I never would have gotten from a book or even the excellent online material available. I highly recommend this course to anyone that wants to get running quickly with Plone, with a firm grasp on the underlying principles of the system."
— Peter Hull" <...allesfresser.com>
Plone Bootcamp rocks because, even if you haven't had any experience with Plone, you can pick it up quickly with the help of Joel Burton.
— Eileen Rendon
The teaching style was very clear and easy to follow. Despite having self-taught myself the majority of the material we covered during the previous year, the class was well worth every penny. Everything I already knew was made much clearer, and there were many tidbits which will make my life a lot easier in the future. [you can quote me if you like]
— Edmund Moseley <...mail.fpg.unc.edu>
Frequently during the bootcamp Joel would utter the wise words "Don't sweat the small stuff...", five days later I'm still sweating, but sweating with confidence. Five days in not enough time to learn all there is to learn about Plone, but in the right hands in five days you can gain the confidence you need to go forward with Plone at a faster pace.
— Tony Reid, Centrepoint, London, UK
Taking the Plone Bootcamp course with Joel Burton was a great way to get up to speed on Plone.
Having limited experience with Plone greatly limited my ability to complete web administration tasks on our site, however, after this course, I feel that I can rather adeptly add, remove and manage content, helping build a much stronger website for both the company and our clients.
— Michael Schreiber, MDA Federal, Inc.
Plone Bootcamp is the one of the best technical training experiences that I have ever had. Joel has the unique ability to explain technical details in a way that is easy to understand. I would highly recommend this class to anyone that will be developing and/or designing on Plone.
— Andrew Corcoran <...notes.duke.edu>
Joel's bootcamp was thorough, interesting, and extremely informative. He hits all the essential topics and provides students the tools needed to continue learning on their own. This course is essential for anyone who will touch a Plone site.
— Marcos Lindekugel , Programmer, Content Entry Systems, Revolution Health Group
As an engineer and a content management practitioner, I appreciated the level of detail, general subject knowledge, and Plone mastery brought by Joel. As a former software trainer, I recognized his ability to adeptly manage the class to ensure the subject was covered, all questions were answered, and each student received the attention they needed. Not an easy task"
— Wayne Glover, TechnicalMedia, Inc.
The Seattle Plone BootCamp has been helpful, enjoyable and enlightening.
I am not and IT person by career. I am a Business Anaylst with WA State Employment Security Department. My agency has chosen to use Plone to run their internet and intranet sites. My job is to act as liaison between the business managers and the IT staff, assisting them in content management decisions.
I attended the BootCamp in an effort to gain general knowledge about Plone, how it works and what it is capable of. I got that and a great deal more. You have quite a talent as a trainer and a gift in your ability to reach people at all levels. Even with limited skills, I was able to learn a lot.
— Cheryl Flynn <...yahoo.com>
To call the bootcamp a life-changing event might be overly- dramatic, but it was pretty darn close. Joel is a personable and engaging presenter with encyclopedic knowledge and a knack for answering questions using real-world examples. One week of training clarified relationships between the many moving parts of Plone that I had been struggling with for the past year. Run, don't walk, to the nearest bootcamp!
— Trey Beck <...ohtogo.com>
Plone Bootcamp was a nicely-paced course that was equally valuable for me, an experienced Plone developer and my client, a brand-new Plone developer.
— Paul Smith <...capstrat.com>
Two thumbs up for Joel and the Bootcamp. It's not often you get an instructor for a class who REALLY understands the product they are teaching. You will walk away from one of Joel's Bootcamps with a greater understanding of Plone and be ready to put your knowledge to work.
— Steve Walker <...animas.aclin.org>
Joel teaching technique bought Plone into focus and gave me the ability to shape it in the ways that were needed for my projects.
— Gary Reck, greck@ucdavis.edu
I would encourage anyone who is using Plone to consider attending a Bootcamp! Whether you are new to Plone or have been developing Plone sites for sometime, attending a Plone Bootcamp taught by Joel Burton will be a valuable experience. Joel has an ability to make difficult concepts easy to understand and his teaching style and manner make everyone in the class feel comfortable asking questions.
Everyone, regardless of their Plone skill-level, will benefit from attending one of Joel Burton's Plone Bootcamps.
— Kevin Batman , Information Systems Specialist, University of Louisville Graduate School
I came to Plone just wanting to learn how to integrate it with my GIS mapping applications for a specific client. After your bootcamp, I realized I should be harnessing the power of Plone for all of my clients.
— Josh Livni <...livniconsulting.com>
I came into Joel's bootcamp a with minimal experience in the ZMI and Plone development. Even though I am a graphic designer I got a lot out of the 5 days. Now I'm working with UML modeling tools, diagnosing products, and feel totally in control of the Zope/Plone environment. Joel is patient and willing to come to your level and work with you no matter what your experience. Thanks for a highly useful and intense session. -- Peter Anderson, Sr. Web Designer/Duke Clinical Research Institute."
— Peter Anderson, Sr. Web Designer/Duke Clinical Research Institute."
As a professional educator and beginning Plone developer, I find Joel's instructional methods to be very impressive. Joel presents the material in an engaging and non-threatening way that gives beginners confidence and skills to create dynamic Plone sites within a very short amount of time.
The content I learned from Joel has brought me light years ahead of the learning curve and onto the fast track of getting my school web site developed. In this course you will learn many "tricks of the trade" to help streamline your development and cut your debugging time significantly. I would highly recommend to anyone wanting to learn Plone to take Joel's class.
— Anthony Bollino <...adytum.us>
Thank you for putting together the Plone Bootcamp. Several times I have tried to learn Zope/Plone with the hopes of using it for different projects. Each time I would find myself understanding disparate parts of Zope or Plone, while other parts remained elusive or just plain forgotten. The bootcamp provided a solid map of the different parts of Plone and how these parts work together. The bootcamp also provided clarity on when to repurpose existing content types and when to build new content types.
— Anjanette Young <...u.washington.edu>
Now that bootcamp is over, I feel abandoned and alone. I miss my total immersion...
A good thing about the class was the breadth and depth of the content--we looked at lots about Plone and Zope, and I learned of things that I didn't know exist and more detail about things that I was already aware of and using. That's why whenever you stopped to gauge the speed and comprehension of the group I was able to answer--without lying--that you were not going too slow and that you were covering things of value. And you really are an excellent teacher. The absolute best thing is that as soon as I got back here, I was able to quickly fix a a couple of problems we had been having with SimpleBlog.
— Sarah I Wardell <...mc.duke.edu>
I really appreciated how gracefully you were able to handle the fact that people come to Plone with a wide variety of skills and knowledge, not to mention very different learning styles. You created a rich mix of show, tell, theory and practice that seemed to be effective for everyone in the room.
— Jon Stahl <...onenw.org>
All during the class, I saw ways I could use Plone to create a new Intranet environment for my library. After the class, I am fired up about putting what I have learned to use. I now feel confident I can create a new Intranet page for our user services desk that incorporates all the features they need and give them things they have wished for. Thank you so much for a great class and I hope you do the advanced class. I will be there!
— Lynn Eades <...med.unc.edu>
In a word...terrific! Coming from a corporate environment, this was my first exposure to 'open source' training and this bootcamp was on a par with any corporate training I have attended. You brought expertise in the subject, great energy and excellent communication skills to the class. Even though we were in an informal setting, you controlled the environment and delivered a wealth of information about Plone.
— Richard Kessler <...Matteicos.com>
I found the training to be insightful and very educational. As an instructor you handled the class very well. As a result of the class, I have leaped ahead in my understanding of how the world of Plone works, and how I can leverage that in my work providing solutions to end-users. I develop solutions in Microsoft Office, SQL Server, IIS/ASP in the corporate world. I have been working in Zope and Plone for 3-4 years off and on for personal projects. I am very interested in broadening my focus to include Plone and Python solutions in my corporate work. I now have the foundation I need to do that, and will be taking on two non-profit projects to dive in and get my feet wet.
Having worked in other environments in the corporate world of IT, I truly appreciate the features and functionality provided by Zope/Plone/Python. Plone's focus on security out of the box, adherence to standards, well thought out framework, and built-in interface give it a major advantage over other products I work with.
Thanks for your time and effort. I hope I can contribute to the community as a way of paying you back for your time and investment in the class.
— Robert Allyn <...allynconsulting.com>
As a begining user of Plone I thought that Joel's bootcamp covered all the important areas in detail and the pace of the class was right on. I would recommend this class to anyone who's interested in Plone.
— Scott Williams, got.net
Probably the best course I have ever attended. The pace of the course was appropriate, and the material succinct . I would recommend this course to any Plone user, beginner or advanced.
— Tobias C. Cahoon, Group Leader, Eglib AFB
Having created several complex Plone sites in the past few years I highly value Joel's clear, concise exploration of plone. The Plone Bootcamp class has opened a whole new worlds of possibilities for me and my customers towards accomplishing their needs and goals!
— Mark Bartlett, CEO, Command IT Services, Inc.
As a novice administering Plone/Zope, I was a little worried that a hands-on lab in Plone/Zope would quickly move over my head, but Joel was great at presenting interesting material to more advanced students while keeping the material and content accessible to beginners like me throughout all five days. I have had experience with other content management systems, html and programming but hardly any exposure to Plone/Zope before the training. Joel was the best technical trainer I've had in my life! He has gift for explaining technically complex topics in metaphors that the average human can parse, with humor to make it all enjoyable. The training is the best value for the money of any technical training I've ever attended.
— Deana Meyer, Technology Associate, TACS
Joel Burton is one of those rare individuals who can relate to both computers and people.
— Larry Pitcher, Internet Product Manager, Baker Boyer Bank
There are only a handful of people in the world with the deep & thorough understanding required to effectively describe and detail one of the most exciting technologies shaping the next generation of the web, "Plone." It's equally rare to find instructors with the clarity, patience, energy, and good-humor required to keep an entire class not only awake, but completely engaged for a week-long, technical course. Joel Burton is both.
— Dave Beyer - Founder, Rooftop Communications Inc., & GroupPress Inc.
As a fairly experienced Plone user who already knew how to create basic Products and skin Plone to look how I wanted, I was able to find advanced methodologies, better programming practices, and more efficient methods to accomplish the tasks I already do on a daily basis!
Joel explained the basics in such a way as to make it easier for me to teach my clients how to use Plone while the more advanced information gave me something new to play with every few hours! I would highly recommend this course for any Plone user or developer. There is truly something to be gained by everyone in attendance.
— Steven J. Haddox, <...haddox.us>
Joel Burton is an excellent teacher. Even though he understands Plone and Zope at a very deep level, he is able to deliver these concepts in a way that everyone could understand.
— Jonathan Thomas <...yahoo.com>
This was the most value-packed class I have ever attended. I walked away much more confident in Plone and ready to tackle my next project with your best practices. Joel is a great teacher who knows how to handle a large class and keep things on schedule, I can't believe the amount of information we got through. Thank You!
— "Stephen Ferrero" <...fccchurch.net>
The organization and structure of the class were fantastic. Your knowledge of plone and ability to answer every question were truly astonishing.
— "Stuart Rowley" <...ktd-kyocera.com>
As a developer working with Zope for five years and Plone for three years, learning how to use the system independently was an uphill battle in the beginning. I wish comprehensive training like this existed three years ago, it would have made my job much easier.
— Clint Malone, Webmaster, NCI Center for Bioinformatics, Contractor, SAIC
There were many, may nice things about the class. Like any big software package, it helps to just watch an expert move through the product.
the major "ah-ha" moments came with you walking us through the tal: calls in templates, in the thoroughness of how you demo'd workflows, and walking us through OurSite, DCWorkflow and other debugging and development techniques. That's the sort of stuff it would have taken me forever to figure out.
Plone implements a lot of things in an elegant way--the separation of form and content is so thorough it's hard to appreciate until you see the big picture. The class was very good at giving me that perspective. Most other web frameworks seem kludged together in comparison. I've been testing and rolling out Plone for a few months, but now I'm going to be able to proceed in a much more sophisticated way.
— Ben Donnelly <...duke.edu>
I came to bootcamp after six months of intensive Plone development / self-training, so a fair amount of the material covered was review. Even so, each day was full of nuggets of Plone wisdom I might never have learned on my own. I came away with a much broader understanding of Plone, as well as lots of best practices, and development tools and strategies that are already saving me all sorts of time. I particularly appreciated Joel's easy to follow instruction, his agnostic and practical approach to development, and his real-world client-centric tips. Easily the best technical seminar I've had, can't wait for the advanced camp.
— John Hannon, LucasFilm
As a web developer experienced in other platforms, I found some very fundamental aspects of how Plone works very confusing and counter-intuitive. Trying to piece together a solid basic understanding of this system from various written sources that often contradict one another was often discouraging. After Joel's bootcamp, I feel much more confident about the general lay of the land, and in a much better position to evaluate for myself the relative merits of different design approaches.
— Jesse Snyder, NPower Seattle
Joel, thanks so much for your bootcamp! The scope of the class offers something for everyone while still covering those topics in great depth. Highly recommonded!
— Kai Harris, Operations Manager, Legal Assistance for Seniors
If Plone and Zope is in your targets then Joel better be your instructor--as he, without a doubt, is the most passionate, complete instructor for this technology.
— Rashid Chowdhury <...@humanitas.com>
I really learned a lot at this bootcamp. The range of information covered was extremely helpful in getting my first site up and running. Having an informed instructor like Joel really made the experience that much better. He had no problems answering any questions and setting us all on the right path to success with our Plone sites. If you're setting up a Plone site and can get to any of these classes, Do It. It's worth the money and then some.
— Steven Dessin, Dunkin’ Donuts, Mid-Atlantic Distribution Center
I had been working with Plone for a few months before bootcamp, but there were still parts that I didn't understand, and I missed parts of the "big picture". Joel's class took the parts I had learned and tied it all together.
Within a few months of class, I had the skills to land my dream job—as a Plone developer for Burning Man. I recommend the boot camp for anyone hoping to get their Zope/Plone skills up to speed, quickly.
— Paul Showalter, Burning Man
I've attended two of Joel's training sessions. One in my back yard, and one on the opposite coast. Each had different audiences, sizes, and environments, but the constant is Joel. Plone Boot Camp is the best value in technical training you're likely to see in a lifetime. Joel presents the strengths and foibles of Plone clearly, in absorbable doses. His training emphasizes best practices, but not at the expense of getting things done. If you spend a week in one of his boot camps and aren't able to dramatically improve your own Plone efforts, you weren't paying attention.
After a few months of slogging though on my own, I attended the first session. Watching Joel step through the disparate chunks of Plone turned on a lot of lightbulbs. Even in a second round, I picked up things that simply didn't stick the first time, and I was able to again improve my center's Plone sites. Joel knows Plone intimately, can communicate that knowledge, and isn't reticent about sharing what he knows.
— Rob Lineberger, <...med.unc.edu>
Now, thanks to the bootcamp, I am finally able to tackle these requests and actually get them resolved. I've added portlets, moved portlets, changed the workflow and am working on adding a form.
The thing that I found most useful from the course was the logical progression through the course. Looking up specifics in the reference manuals I missed a lot of the preliminaries that are really necessary for the long term life of the site.
— Dave Sollers
Boot Camp last week was incredible, as I knew it would be. After taking training from you previously, I expected that going through Boot Camp here at Carolina wouldn't disappoint - and I was right. While some of the material last week overlapped what I learned from you in January, you managed to present it in a slightly different way, geared towards our class. I think that's one of the things I appreciate most about you as a teacher: that you are able to gear the class and your knowledge to the audience you're addressing. As you know, it's one thing to be an expert in your field; it's another to have the ability to teach that knowledge to others.
Your knowledge about Plone and Zope is obvious and incredibly impressive - and I'm sure I don't even know the half of it. But even more impressive to me is your teaching style; you are the best teacher of a technical subject that I've ever had in my career.
I'm not sure how you seem to be so well prepared for class each day, but I have a hunch that it just comes naturally to you.
Anyway, I truly hope that I have the opportunity to take more classes from you in the future, be it advanced Plone development or advanced basket weaving.
— Peter Lawrence <...med.unc.edu>
Thanks for an impressive performance last week! You've got the curriculum, materials, and delivery dialed. More formally put: as a developer that has worked on over 60 Plone sites, your boot camp gave me a more cohesive view of how the various parts of Plone fit together. You exposed me to a number of tools that will make development easier and faster, and you got me really excited by showing how powerful the framework is.
— Jon Baldivieso <...onenw.org>
Well, I can say a lot of nice things about your class. You really are a fantastic instructor. You covered a lot of extremely dense, technical material in a short period of time, but made it easy to follow, even for a "newbie".
— Veda Williams <...unc.edu>
Thanks for a great class, you really did a wonderful job of covering a large amount of material in a short amount of time.
The most immediately useful information for me was the part about setting up custom workflows, and how to properly use security (which we had not really gotten set up correctly yet at my work).
— Jason Guiditta <...yahoo.com>
Things I liked:
- The intro to using UML to generate Archetypes-based products. A rather complex set of ideas and tools became clear and accessible, and the exercises let us generate our own product in class.
- Listened to and answered all questions completely and clearly, always encouraging the questioner even when questions were muddled.
- You created a great learning environment with students coming back every day eager to learn more.
- Presented great exercises that let the students try out Plone modifications etc. themselves and gain confidence that they at home will have the ability to go home and work with Plone.
- You were funny and had interesting things to say.
— Jan Derksen, Ph.D., Technical Coordinator, KRIS Team/Institute for Fisheries Resources
I have several masters degrees and Joel is by far one of the best instructors I have ever had. He is well organized and presents the information clearly both verbally and visually. Rarely have I found someone so adept at the social aspects of teaching - answering questions clearly or equally as important telling you that question would be answered later so that the current lesson would not be sidetracked.
— Robert Albano <...mosslight.com>
Joel is an outstanding teacher. His encyclopedic knowledge of Plone, his ability to present complex material clearly, and his sense of humor made this a great class!
— Chris Glover, Technology Coordinator, Central Rappahannock Regional Library
The boot camp series provides a solid and cohesive introduction to the Plone technologies. The boot camp series demonstrated key concepts in a matter of hours, that had taken days and weeks to work through on my own. Having access to the boot camp instruction would have saved me many hours had it been available when I started working with Plone. The value of this series to someone who is starting with Plone cannot be overstated.
— Aaron Vanderlip, NetCorps
Thanks much for the great week of training. It was nice to meet you and I really enjoyed myself. I can't even put in words how much I learned in just one week. I'd recommend that anyone who wants to do Plone development attend your Bootcamp. It was the best technical training I've ever received, hands down. In fact, my supervisor is planning on attending a session later this year. He is pretty impressed with the small "victories" that we've already accomplished in Plone since the training.
— Paul Ertz <...silo.lib.ia.us>
This class was just what I needed. It was well organized and complete. I appreciated the context and rationales for the design of Zope and Plone that, coupled with the complete and ordered presentation of the core material, make a lot of the initially counterintuitive concepts (at least to a more traditional programmer) make sense.
— Ben Lischner <...terserahconsulting.com>
