Do-more webinars?

[ATU]

I prefer YouTube and to break it up into short 3-5 minute specific topics, so you don't have weed through a long video to find what you want. I think that would help you also, to give a link for a detailed answer to common questions.

[Garyhlucas]

Yes but experience is what allows you to recognize a mistake.  When you make it again.

[Mike Nash]

@BobO: I personally prefer YouTube, and then will just jump on here to ask any questions.

Me too.

[Mike Nash]

I prefer YouTube and to break it up into short 3-5 minute specific topics, so you don't have weed through a long video to find what you want. I think that would help you also, to give a link for a detailed answer to common questions.

This is a really good point, but may get back into skipping over important nitty-gritty stuff if there aren't enough in the series.

Yaskawa has some nice training videos that you have to download, but they have the sections in the presentation available as a menu bar. That works well, but you do have download the player and videos. If anyone wants to check that format out, it's here: https://www.yaskawa.com/pycprd/training/elearning-curriculum

[Dean]

+1 on the video option. As said, being able to break it down into small bites is most effective for me.

[BobO]

After some discussion, we are going to pursue the YouTube or vlog approach. There are a number or very good reasons to do it this way, and it will tie in nicely with plans we have for DmD 2.0.

We will also kick around the possibility of offering some advanced training here at Host. I always enjoy meeting our users and always seem to learn things when I do. As Host ups our hardware game with the new platform, we also need to up our game in other areas.

[mhw]

I think there is a tendency on our part to "play nice" and stay out of the areas that Doug Bell or ADC's video guy (I'll assume he prefers anonymity) are in. While I think that is clearly the right thing, I do think that we are depriving our users of the developers' perspective. Doug is an awesome human, but he is never going to approach the "whys" from our perspective...he simply can't know what was in our head.

Partnership. Exodus 4:16

[BobO]

Partnership. Exodus 4:16

Of course if we took that to the extreme and remained completely silent, this forum wouldn't even exist and Do-more would not be nearly as capable as it is, because this forum has been a very important part of that. Part of Host growing into being a full PLC system provider is us also trying to figure out where to draw the line in customer interaction. We have been very Moses-like in certain ways, not because we were incapable of speaking, but because we felt our time was better spent designing products. In 24 years of doing this I have learned a few things, and one major lesson is that interacting with our users is never a bad thing. Even when it isn't on the best or terms, which is rarely the case, we still learn things.

So the challenge has been to interact enough to learn what we need to build better products, while still staying focused on the building products part, and to do so in a way that is respectful to our partners...Doug Bell being a great example of that. Doug is a good friend to Host and somebody that we absolutely don't wish to harm, but that doesn't mean that there isn't value in Host addressing some of the more complicated aspects of the product that go well beyond what he teaches in class. Our recent experience conducting training with ADC's tech staff is showing us that there is a big need for this, even with people who have been supporting Do-more for years, and a big part of it comes back to teaching how we envision Do-more's feature set being used to solve certain problems.

And that is what this is about...finding the best medium for delivering advanced Do-more subject training and getting a sense of what subjects need to be covered.

[Controls Guy]

Doug is a good friend to Host and somebody that we absolutely don't wish to harm, but that doesn't mean that there isn't value in Host addressing some of the more complicated aspects of the product that go well beyond what he teaches in class.

Exactly!  Doug does a great job, but he actually has a video on normally open and normally closed contacts!  What I suspect you'd be doing is light years removed from that.

[ATU]

.... trying to figure out where to draw the line in customer interaction.....

Does that mean, if we take a class, we won't be invited over for dinner at your place?

[BobO]

With my house being a whopping 1/4 mile from the office, I have to be careful about letting business riff raff anywhere near!

[ATU]

...business riff raff ...

I resent you talking about Steve like that.

[BobO]

...business riff raff ...

I resent you talking about Steve like that.

Resentment noted.

And for the record, so complete is the isolation boundary that ADC affords us, that I can recall eating with only two customers in the 24 year history of Host. I think you know one. Turns out that the other ended up taking a position with ADC...so technically the number is back to one!

[Controls Guy]

...business riff raff ...

I resent you talking about Steve like that.

Oof, ouch!  Tough crowd!   

[Greg]

Do-more Tech Training Slides:

http://www.hosteng.com/FAQFiles/TechSlides/TechTrainingSlides01.html

Remember, these were not made for public consumption, but I use them to teach AD techs on a personal basis (I'm there talking). I don't guarantee them to be error free or even always technically accurate.  Also, they are animated, so PDFs and printouts do not exist and are very difficult to produce from animated slides. You'll need PowerPoint, or a viewer of some kind. I also did not zip them up, but posted them individually because as I change them I didn't want to have to keep updating the zip file every time I changed a typo or something.

Of course, I'm open to suggestions on improvement. Just keep in mind they are not to train the general public on PLCs, but rather techs. I don't always use all the slides and some I haven't updated completely. They are in a constant state of revision. I have no idea if there will ever be a final version, especially since our new Do-more PLC is coming out soon and thus will necessitate even more slides.

They are also subject to change without notification at any time I see fit. 

Also, MikeS is creating some ways to get to them from different spots on our website. Currently you can access them in Do-more PLC FAQs; I put a pic and link at the top of those.