How to Utilize New Found Time and Take Advantage of Digital Training
Was your calendar jam-packed with travel this spring and now wide open? During March through June, the Evolving Solutions team had plans to attend over 15 technology industry and/or partner conferences across the country. Due to the challenging times, we are experiencing, these events were either canceled or moved to a digital format. While we will not be able to get the full immersion experience of being there, we can still benefit and learn together.
One of the unintended benefits of moving to an online format is that the majority of these events are now being offered in consolidated timeframes and at no cost. For Evolving Solutions, that means we have employees who are signing up for new conferences and training events to sharpen their skills and deepen their knowledge. There are no longer time or financial barriers to attending, so we have opened these sessions up to the masses! This is a benefit to companies like us and our clients, partners and communities.
Several members of the Evolving Solutions team decided to take the time they were supposed to travel to participate in training that has been on their radar for a long time. The team said they are excited to learn about over the coming weeks.
Here are a few of the team members taking this time to learn:
- Joel Conaway, Storage Specialist, is eager to learn about new IBM utility pricing models that we can offer to our clients. “During the past two weeks, I have participated in several WebEx workshops to learn about utility pricing options, how to structure these solutions to meet our client’s financial needs and how to leverage these solutions to enable clients to implement solutions that will grow and expand with their business requirements.”
- Lauren Stovern, Marketing Coordinator, is participating in online training to further develop her Adobe InDesign “InDesign is a key application that I use every day in my role. But there are so many new and expanded features, I don’t always have the time to dive into the new capabilities. It has been beneficial to participate in virtual sessions to develop deeper capabilities with the toolset so I can better support our employees and clients.”
- Jim Pross, Senior Consultant, is working with core vendor partners on product certifications and new solution training. “Many of our clients have embraced hybrid cloud technology solutions. During this time, I am working with our key partners like NetApp, and am completing my NetApp Hybrid Cloud Professional Certification. This covers technologies such as NetApp HCI, ONTAP Select, StorageGrid, Cloud Volumes ONTAP, and Cloud Insights. Additionally, we are doing a lot of work with Nutanix in support of client’s work from home initiatives. Right now, I am completing labs and advanced training on Nutanix Karbon, Flow and Frame technologies.”
- Scott Dowd, Account Executive, is investing time developing additional skills on the ever-changing Containers landscape. In conjunction with his peers at Keyva, Scott is focused on Red Hat OpenShift, Docker and IBM Cloudpaks. Additionally, Dowd mentioned “With the recent launch of Evolving Solutions’ Enterprise Monitoring and Analytics practice, I am extremely excited to dive further into the Application Performance Management space. I am spending a lot of time with our team members and vendor partners such as AppDynamics, Dynatrace, Virtana and Sysdig.”
- Leah Sandell, Services Project Coordinator, recently completed a Project Management Institute Following the bootcamp, there is additional virtual training that Sandell is completing. Accounting to Sandell “the recent PMI bootcamp was fantastic. As soon as possible, I will be moving forward with completing my PMI certification exam. By doing so, I’ll continue to advance in my career, and be able to engage further with clients to help them manage complex technology projects and solution implementations.”
We have included several of our partners’ client-facing events and conferences on the Evolving Solutions Events page. Have you wanted to learn more about a vendor but didn’t have the time or money? Check out these digital events and register to attend one or more of these sessions. Let us know what you learn!
While there is a lot of uncertainty around us during these times, our team is busy helping organizations support their internal end-users and external clients. Our team is also working hard to stay engaged with their teammates and vendor partners to utilize the coming weeks to learn new skills. While we are all trying to integrate our home and work lives, remote learning allows us to participate when we want to, whether that’s in the early morning over our favorite coffee, during a cold and dreary afternoon, or at nighttime after the kids head to bed.
Evolving Solutions Author: Bo Gebbie
