A year or so ago, a developer lamented to me about the lack of 4D learning opportunities. Over the last few months we have tasked a team led by Chris V and Carin T to develop and manage the roll out of various training sessions. I believe they have made a tremendous start, there is still a long way to go or to paraphrase Churchill, it is not the beginning of the end but rather the end of the beginning. So far they have rolled out seven new online sessions , announced this year’s 4D Summit and today announced a series of seven roadshows across the country. There’s that number seven again, I must check which of them is superstitious

While developing curriculum is one part of their role, their other role is to ensure that 4D is recognized for delivering quality and value for money learning opportunities. Of course we are the 4D vendor but we want to be seen to be delivering the highest quality of trainings whether they be for trainings where there is a lot of competition in the Javascript or Flex areas or topics where being the vendor gives us a credibility lead such as in depth training on the new ‘4D v11 SQL Indexing schemes.

Another challenge is to get the mixture of classroom and online trainings correct. In some cases this is an easy decision as some trainings lend themselves to a short format ideal for web based learning but for other trainings that take eight or so hours it will be interesting to see if 4D developers like the opportunity for learning on the web or prefer traditional classroom formats. So as in most things this will also be a learning opportunity for us on how to deliver training that developers value.

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When I speak to people about the 4D Summit, many say they love going to meet the same people they’ve seen at past Summits. I’m as guilty as anyone. While I understand that we all love seeing people we know and are comfortable with, I can’t help but feel that when we do so, we’re missing the real business opportunity that the 4D Summit offers.

Whether you’re a consultant looking for your next gig, an in-house developer, or a vertical market developer, there are potentially major business opportunities sitting at the lunch table over from you — but you will never find them unless you step out of your comfort zone and meet up with new people.

As Summit organizers, we haven’t been doing enough to foster networking as well as we could in past years. The team was challenged this year to promote business opportunity networking, and so far they’ve come up with some ideas, but I am sure there are many more.

One of the first ideas was to organize “birds of a feather” lunches, where we organize lunch tables around business topics such as medical, education, etc. We hope this will foster communication over some of Memphis’ world famous food.

Another one of the major ideas is to ensure that attendees come prepared and know exactly who they will meet at the Summit before they even get there. Rachel and the rest of the marketing team set up a networking site to help people get acquainted before they meet face to face.

While we have some other ideas germinating, I’m sure we could be doing even more.

So this is what I’m asking: What else can we do to foster business networking at the Summit?

Perhaps you’ve been at another conference that had some great ideas on how to do this. Perhaps you have some original ideas of your own. Either way, we’d love to hear your thoughts. Let us know - we’re not too proud to borrow.

Don’t forget though, if you’re coming to the Summit (or even just thinking about coming) please visit our new site, register and get networking!

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