Crazy idea. Launch Plone 6 with online courses and certification

Training
1

Putting this out there, for what it's worth.
Firstly I believe experience is more important than certification but... there is still a role for certification.
Services like Coursera, Edx and Linkedin Learning are useful to those who want to learn a new skill. I know this will be a lot of work but I think being able to have a Plone 6 "certification" learning path will serve the following benefits (roughly in order of importance):

  1. Signal a certain level of maturity around the project. This will help enterprises feel more comfortable in adopting our enterprise CMS
  2. Help newbies ramp up on their Plone skillset
  3. Hold up standards and best practices for the community
  4. Introduce a path for providers who want to showcase their standards

I think Plone 6 courses should be available next to Sharepoint, Scrum and Project Management learning paths (already in Linkedin Learning).

This will serve as equal parts training and marketing.

4 Likes
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I like the idea, it's also a good marketing tool for Plone.

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Plone can give moodle and the rest of the LMS out there a run for their money. All that's really needed to create starter set of Diazo templates for the casual user.

4

I don't think the online courses/certification need to be implemented on Plone.
I would want the certification placed on an existing, widely used platform, specifically to increase awareness of Plone among users who may be unaware.

The LMS idea has been suggested more than once, I think it is a different issue. I wouldn't want to be distracted by the work involved in developing a new product (the LMS) while working on promoting a certification effort. Not trying to introduce "stop energy" to the LMS idea, just making sure it doesn't become a distraction.

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This is a great idea, a linkedin learning/youtube course of mastering plone 6 broken into the different section will be great marketing for plone. I like the mastering plone 6 by Philip but it is two videos of 4hours each, if it is broken into smaller sections and polished a little it will be better for newbies

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The Plone market and the Plone market share is too small for any kind of certifications.

  1. we usually deliver solutions where we sell Plone under the hood (e.g. publishing solutions with Plone as foundation)
  2. most customers don't care about the underlying technology
  3. we get dedicated Plone projects/inquiries either based on reputation and through recommendations
  4. reputation and references are more important that any kind of certification
  5. having a certificate for participating in an (official) Plone training is helpful for individuals for finding specific Plone jobs. On the other hand, the number of open Plone jobs is limited...you'll will get a job offer if you can spell P-L-O-N-E.
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@zopyx,
I place weight on your feedback, because you may be dealing with enterprise clients and may have a more informed perspective. I was considering it as part of a strategy to raise awareness and possibly grow the market share. Are there other strategic actions that need to happen before a certification effort? Do you think that having "certified implementors" will have no significant impact on credibility and market share?

I'm asking to better understand what an appropriate strategy needs to look like.

1 Like