June 13, 1996
Dear Everyone:
Happy Father’s Day
to all you Dads out there!
“Jeannie” showed up
on my doorstep last Sunday afternoon with three kinds of
Baskin & Robbins
ice cream and a jar of hot fudge sauce.
It’s been that kind of a week; unexpected changes in plans, some
good, some better.
A few weeks ago, in
a staff meeting, “Murray” mentioned that some people were coming from
Texas for training. Among
other things, they were going to take “Train the Trainer” lessons which
would teach them how to show people back in “Hobby” how to use
Versatile.
This training would be provided by “Jerry” and me.
Naturally, “Jerry”
and I looked at each other.
Hello? We’re going to do
what? How we gonna do that?
What’s more, this training is to take place the Monday following
a week that “Jerry” will be on vacation and I will be attending the
Information Technology Conference.
In other words, it has to be ready by this Friday (tomorrow).
Actually, there’s
really only one person to train and that’s “Lewis” at the “Hobby”
Records Center. He’s the one
who would show new Versatile
Users in the “Hobby” area how to use the system.
So we called “Lewis” at the “Hobby” Records Center and asked him
what sort of training he was looking for.
What did he want us to teach him that he didn’t already know from
using Versatile himself?
“W-e-l-l, y’all
would have to ask “Murray”
tha-at. Ah don’t rightly
know what he wants y’all to show me.”
(Texans talk that way ‘cause their hats are too tight.
Of course, you could also say that of
Republicans.)
Talking to “Lewis”
didn’t prove very helpful.
“Murray” was also rather vague, but suggested that this training should
be generic enough that anyone (more or less) from “Livermore” could also
use it to train new Users in the
Bay Area.
We struggled with it
for a couple of weeks, trying to get a handle on what this beastie would
look like if we had any idea what we were trying to do.
I went to the Learning Center at Company Park to see if they had
any other “Train the Trainer” courses that might give us a clue.
They didn’t. Back to
square one.
Then I tried the
Library, which is part of our Information Management Services group.
They had a few books on “generic” training, although most of them
were geared towards the Human Resources schmuck who’s stuck with coming
up with some sort of employee on-the-job training program.
I took a few back to the office with me.
I can keep them until 7/3/96.
Frankly, I don’t need them that long.
Time was galloping
on towards the deadline.
“Jerry” was trying to use excerpts from the User Guide, but found
himself just typing the same text word-for-word and (possibly) getting
too bogged down in detail.
In the meantime, I was trying for an outline approach, leaving out as
much detail as possible. We
weren’t working together because the only time we could find for it was
on the weekends.
We dragged “Murray”
back into my office for another “what is it you expect us to come up
with?” session in which he agreed he didn’t know what it would look
like, but suggested using
PowerPoint.
PowerPoint is a
Microsoft product that usually comes bundled with
Access,
Excel and
Word.
It’s the one most people ignore.
Actually it’s a
nifty presentation program that takes your bare bones text and dresses
it up with lots of eye-catching color and graphics (and you know how
fond I am of graphics). One
of the advantages of PowerPoint is that it “helps” (i.e., forces) you to
organize your thoughts. If
you ramble on, or go into too much detail, you tend to run off the
screen. (Now there’s a
mental image!)
In a (relatively)
short time, everything sort of fell into place.
We put the package together and “Jerry” is going to “test drive”
it with a new User tomorrow.
Then we’ll fine-tune it before “Lewis” arrives a week from Monday.
Until then, I can
always fall back on the rocky road ice cream that “Jeannie” left in my
freezer.
Love, as always,
Pete
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