Pariah Burke Consulting & Training with Creative & Publishing Workflow Expert Pariah S. Burke | Informing & Empowering Creative Professionals™

Frequently Asked Questions

• How soon can Pariah get to your office or deliver remote training?
• Who should make Pariah's travel arrangements?
• Where can Pariah travel? Is his training and consulting limited to the US or North America?
• What about after sale support?
• Who owns software purchases?
• I'm an individual or small group. Can I/we combine training with other individuals or small groups?
• Does Pariah offer open enrollment classroom training?
• Aren't you listed as a trainer for that training company...?
• Does Pariah offer Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced courses?
• Where are the course outlines and syllabi?

Q:Where are the course outlines and syllabi?

A:

On many train­ing com­pa­nies’ Websites you will find course out­lines and syl­labi. You won’t find many here. I rarely use them. Why? Simple: The needs of real world work­flows don’t fol­low a pre-written syllabus.

A syl­labus or pre-written course forces learn­ers into work­ing toward the instructor’s goals, not their own. Every client has its own needs and goals; every cre­ative and pub­lish­ing work­flow oper­ates dif­fer­ently in some way from other work­flows. I build a course specif­i­cally for your work­flow, your per­son­nel, and, most impor­tantly, tar­geted squarely at reach­ing your goals.

Before arriv­ing on site I will coor­di­nate with you through tele­phone and e-mail to build a crys­tal clear pic­ture of your goals. I will ask you about your cur­rent work­flow, what works, what doesn’t, and how you feel it can be improved. Along the way I’ll lis­ten for what you don’t say, too, for the ques­tions you may not know to ask, and the pos­si­ble solu­tions and options you may not be aware are avail­able to you. I will present your options and my rec­om­men­da­tions, and together we will final­ize the goals for the engage­ment. This will become the foun­da­tion for the cur­ricu­lum by which your per­son­nel will be trained.

Once on-site the instruc­tion and con­sul­ta­tion will flow flu­idly, adapt­ing to any revised or newly dis­cov­ered goals or needs. Because of my exper­tise with the processes, con­cerns, and tools of a wide vari­ety of design and pub­lish­ing work­flows, I can turn the plan on a dime, adapt­ing it on-site with­out delay or confusion.

Every con­sul­ta­tion and train­ing class I deliver is cus­tomized specif­i­cally to the needs, goals, and unique work of the client. Whenever pos­si­ble, the client’s own projects are used to dra­mat­i­cally improve learner com­pre­hen­sion and reten­tion over other types of exam­ples and learn­ing aids.

Back to the Top

Q:Does Pariah offer Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced courses?

A:

Yes, and no. I teach peo­ple with all lev­els of expe­ri­ence, but I don’t use words like “begin­ner,” “inter­me­di­ate,” and “advanced” to describe either the instruc­tion I give or the peo­ple learning.

In for­mal, lin­ear edu­ca­tion such as a col­lege course, when one starts out with no knowl­edge of a tool and no spe­cific goal other than to learn the tool, and then pro­gresses toward mas­tery, draw­ing such dis­tinc­tions in skills and abil­ity lev­els makes sense. On the job, how­ever, with real world projects to com­plete and pay­ing clients to wow, all that mat­ters is being able to get work done cre­atively, effi­ciently, and with min­i­mal con­fu­sion and frustration.

In the mid­dle of a project, rac­ing toward dead­line, no designer has ever uttered the phrase: “Holy cow! I’ve just com­pleted an inter­me­di­ary level InDesign task!”

I teach your per­son­nel every­thing they need to do their jobs and reach your goals–be those so-called begin­ner, inter­me­di­ate, or advanced skills.

Back to the Top

Q:Aren't you listed as a trainer for that training company...?

A:

Probably. The soft­ware train­ing com­mu­nity is small and rather nepo­tis­tic. Most of the more expe­ri­enced and adapt­able instruc­tors and con­sul­tants know each other and work together on some projects and at some times even while we com­pete on other projects and at other times. Because ser­vic­ing clients is the over­rid­ing goal for us all, we tend to send our over­flow work to, and even hire, our com­pe­ti­tion. Additionally, inde­pen­dent con­sul­tants like myself are often brought in by larger train­ing com­pa­nies to ser­vice their most impor­tant clients, lead teams of train­ers on large engage­ments, or fill-in holes in train­ing firms’ ser­vice offerings.

For instance, most con­tem­po­rary firms offer ePUB and dig­i­tal mag­a­zine and cat­a­log pro­duc­tion (dig­i­tal pub­li­ca­tions to iPad and other tablest) train­ing and con­sult­ing, but few actu­ally have experts on staff that under­stand those con­cepts and work­flows well enough to teach and con­sult. Most of the time, these com­pa­nies secure the assign­ment and then call me to ful­fill it (con­se­quently I’ve earned the moniker of “the Digital Publishing Guru”).

While you can request me as the instruc­tor from any of the com­pa­nies with whom I sub­con­tract, by hir­ing me directly you enjoy not only the same expe­ri­ence, exper­tise, and adapt­abil­ity, but you also get me at a much lower rate. It’s sim­ple eco­nom­ics: cut out the middle-man–and his markup–and go straight to the supplier.

Back to the Top

Q:Does Pariah offer open enrollment classroom training?

A:

I don’t offer open enroll­ment train­ing or main­tain my own train­ing class­room. My focus is on improv­ing real world cre­ative and pub­lish­ing workflows.

In an open enroll­ment set­ting, every stu­dent brings dif­fer­ent goals, needs, and skill lev­els into the class­room. When all three of those fac­tors vary–and they always vary in an open enroll­ment class–it becomes dif­fi­cult for an instruc­tor to fully meet the goals and needs of every stu­dent while engag­ing each stu­dent. After a cer­tain num­ber of stu­dents it becomes impos­si­ble for an instruc­tor to fully meet the goals and needs of every stu­dent while engag­ing each stu­dent. Such classes are ideal for help­ing new soft­ware users develop an over­all edu­ca­tion about a prod­uct and for free­lancers and oth­ers seek­ing to improve their mar­ketabil­ity and job prospects. But for those with spe­cific needs and goals, those with jobs and projects already, open enroll­ment edu­ca­tion achieves only a min­i­mal return on investment.

From time to time, I do teach open enroll­ment classes on behalf of other train­ing com­pa­nies, but I limit the num­ber of stu­dents so that I can tar­get every student’s needs and goals as much as pos­si­ble. If you’re look­ing at an open enroll­ment class of 10 or more peo­ple not from the same work­flow, you should real­ize that no one with a job to do will walk away from that open enroll­ment class fully pre­pared to work more cre­atively and pro­duc­tively in a spe­cific workflow.

That is the key dif­fer­ence between soft­ware edu­ca­tion and workflow-focused train­ing and con­sult­ing: Is the edu­ca­tional focus on the soft­ware or what you will do with the software?

If you would like to arrange to attend an open enroll­ment class please con­tact me. I work with many of the best train­ing facil­i­ties, and would be happy to rec­om­mend one in your area. If you’re look­ing sim­ply to share a class with a few oth­ers, read the fre­quently asked ques­tion: I’m an indi­vid­ual or small group. Can I/we com­bine train­ing with other indi­vid­u­als or small groups?

Back to the Top

Q:I'm an individual or small group. Can I/we combine training with other individuals or small groups?

A:

Yes, but with some spe­cial considerations.

Every one of my classes and con­sul­ta­tions is 100% cus­tomized to the client(s)–to the client’s spe­cific and unique work­flow, goals, and per­son­nel. Whenever pos­si­ble I also keep train­ing groups rel­a­tively small to enable indi­vid­u­al­ized atten­tion to each stu­dent to max­i­mize his or her learn­ing abil­ity and reten­tion. Naturally all of this is best accom­plished when all stu­dents are from the work­flow or at least from the same com­pany and work within related work­flow segments.

Introducing indi­vid­u­als and small teams from dif­fer­ent work­flows and companies–in other words, an open enroll­ment class–can, but does not nec­es­sar­ily, require a lit­tle less class mate­r­ial and pace cus­tomiza­tion. I’ve taught many open enroll­ment classes, with some­times up to 35 stu­dents, all from dif­fer­ent work­flows, with dis­parate goals and needs for the class. During such classes I’ve done my best to tar­get the instruc­tion to each individual’s needs and work­flow (and, by some mir­a­cle, been able to actu­ally pull that off to every student’s sat­is­fac­tion). However, I can deliver the best qual­ity, most thor­ough instruc­tion when the class is lim­ited in size to only 2–5 dif­fer­ent workflows.

In other words, yes, you can join up with other design­ers or small groups to share a class with me. Because I don’t charge per per­son but rather per group of peo­ple (see my rates and pric­ing) this will enable indi­vid­u­als and small groups to share the cost of the class, thus reduc­ing the cost per student.

For your ben­e­fit and the ben­e­fit of other stu­dents, shar­ing an on-site class is lim­ited to 6 sep­a­rate work­flows rep­re­sented by the stu­dents or 12 stu­dents in total; remote, Web con­fer­enc­ing train­ing is lim­ited to a max­i­mum of 5 sep­a­rate work­flows and a max­i­mum of 6 stu­dents total. Those lim­i­ta­tions will enable me to meet everyone’s goals and still pro­vide indi­vid­ual atten­tion to each stu­dent with­out slow­ing down the class or neg­a­tively impact­ing anyone’s learn­ing experience.

To sched­ule a com­bined on-site class: We’ll need a facil­ity that includes work­spaces for all stu­dents and the instruc­tor. The facil­ity will need some­where onto which I can project my lap­top (e.g. a pro­jec­tion screen, a blank white wall, a big-screen tele­vi­sion, and so on), seat­ing for all, and power plugs for all (stu­dents will need to pro­vide their own lap­tops or com­put­ers). A con­fer­ence room is ideal, but design bullpens are also excel­lent as long the train­ing will be undis­turbed by co-workers. If nei­ther you nor the other stu­dents have such a facil­ity avail­able, we can rent one from a nearby hotel or train­ing cen­ter facility.

To sched­ule a com­bined Web con­fer­enc­ing class: Classes can also be held remotely, with each stu­dent par­tic­i­pat­ing from his or her office, home, or hotel room. There are three big advan­tages to Web con­fer­enc­ing and one major drawback.

The advan­tages are that stu­dents can par­tic­i­pate from any­where in the world; we don’t all need to be in the same con­fer­ence room or even in the same state. Full audio and video will deliv­ered via the com­puter; all every­one needs is a com­puter, head­phones, a micro­phone, and an Internet connection–preferably a net­work cable con­nec­tion rather than WiFi due to the amount of data real-time audio, video, and screen-sharing rep­re­sents and WiFi’s ten­dency to lag or drop some of that data.

Because I won’t be trav­el­ing to your loca­tion, you will not need to cover my travel expenses. The only costs are the price of the class.

Also, because there is no trav­el­ing involved for me, I can often sched­ule a vir­tual class sooner than an on-site. If you’ve got all your stu­dents ready to go and need train­ing this week, assum­ing I have the days open, we can go ahead and do the train­ing. I’ve deliv­ered rush or even emer­gency train­ing to clients with loom­ing dead­lines within 24 hours of con­tact and, a cou­ple of times, within min­utes of our ini­tial con­ver­sa­tion (some­times there’s a small rush charge involved).

The draw­back to Web con­fer­enc­ing is that I won’t be able to see your faces and screens. You can share your computer’s screen via the Web con­fer­enc­ing soft­ware, but it’s single-screen-sharing at any given time–either every­one sees my computer’s screen or every­one sees yours. In a class­room or con­fer­ence room set­ting I typ­i­cally walk around the room fre­quently to see everyone’s screens. This lets me see, with­out paus­ing the class or even my spo­ken instruc­tion, what and how every­one is doing, if some­one is miss­ing a step or get­ting unex­pected results, and gen­er­ally just ensure every­one is on the same page (fig­u­ra­tively or lit­er­ally). Just as impor­tant, in per­son I can see every student’s face and know imme­di­ately if the sub­ject I’m explain­ing is mak­ing sense, if I need to rephrase my expla­na­tion, or if every­one gets it and it’s time to move on. Virtual instruc­tion via Web con­fer­ence robs me of the abil­ity to see your faces, so ver­bal responses become cru­cial; in other words, you’ll be doing more talk­ing in a remote train­ing ses­sion than you might in person.

Several times a month I suc­cess­fully deliver both on-site and remote train­ing. Both have their ben­e­fits and draw­backs, but both are excel­lent options for shar­ing a class to reduce per-student expenditure.

Back to the Top

Q:Who owns software purchases?

A:

You do. As a con­ve­nience to my clients I am avail­able to make soft­ware and hard­ware pur­chases on your behalf. If you ask that I pur­chase prod­ucts on your behalf, I do exactly that, on your behalf. The money is yours, so the prod­ucts it pur­chases will be yours. You will own the licenses and be enti­tled to any war­ranties, man­u­fac­turer sup­port, and/or future upgrade incen­tives that accom­pany the prod­ucts. In the future, when it’s time to upgrade, you can go directly through the man­u­fac­turer or other avail­able sales chan­nels with­out the need to involve me–unless you want to (I’ll prob­a­bly be miss­ing you by then, too, and would wel­come the chance to help again).

Back to the Top

Q:What about after sale support?

A:

That’s a very impor­tant question.

You will receive one year of com­pli­men­tary sup­port fol­low­ing an on-site engage­ment, either train­ing or con­sult­ing. If the devel­op­ment of cus­tom plug-ins, scripts, or appli­ca­tions is part of my work for you, you will receive three years of com­pli­men­tary sup­port on those cus­tom devel­oped components.

All mem­bers of your team will be able to con­tact me for sup­port via e-mail, and team lead­ers, I.T., and man­age­ment will also be able to tele­phone for support.

Depending on the prod­ucts and sys­tems improved or intro­duced into your work­flow, you may also receive manufacturer’s war­ranty sup­port. For exam­ple, as of this writ­ing, Adobe offers com­pli­men­tary tech­ni­cal sup­port on the cur­rent and most recent pre­vi­ous ver­sion of retail soft­ware such as InDesign or InCopy. In addi­tion to sup­port from me, you will receive any war­ran­teed sup­port avail­able from the man­u­fac­turer, even if I pur­chase the prod­ucts on your behalf.

Back to the Top

Q:Where can Pariah travel? Is his training and consulting limited to the US or North America?

A:

Oh, no. I teach and con­sult any­where in the world. However, because I only speak English (well), I require that all stu­dents speak flu­ent English. (I can count up to 10, say please and thank you, and ask for direc­tions to my embassy in nine other lan­guages, but those basic phrases won’t get us very far toward opti­miz­ing a workflow.)

Back to the Top

Q:Who should make Pariah's travel arrangements?

A:

Typically it’s eas­ier and more effi­cient if I make my own travel arrange­ments, but if you have some­one to take care of such things, I’m happy to coor­di­nate with him or her.

Back to the Top

Q:How soon can Pariah get to your office or deliver remote training?

A:

Let’s find out!

Back to the Top