As a savvy graphic designer you know you need to keep up on your skills. But carving out the time to do it can be tough. Now, me personally, I love to learn whether by reading books, or industry blogs, or being taught by someone who knows more than I do. I particularly like the last one because I feel like I’m able to get to the point more quickly than if I have to discover it on my own. Know what I mean? Well, a friend of mine, and fellow graphic designer, recently turned me on to webinars hosted by CreativeTechs. What’s a webinar, you might wonder? Well, it’s a web-based seminar. Who are CreativeTechs? They’re basically Mac geeks (and I mean that in the most loving of manners). They offer Mac support to, well, anyone who needs it.
They’ve recently branched out to offer free (yes, I said free) Adobe product webinars. Fantastic! I recently upgraded to Adobe CS4 and have not had the time to sit down and explore all the new features and figure out more cools stuff to do with them. Now, I’ve found someone who will do just that for me. (Did I mention how fantastic that is?!) Their goal is to ‘marry the experience of a live class with the reach of the Internet.’
How it works
Pick a class and sign up. They send you a reminder email 2 hours before the class with a link to join the meeting. Click on the link and go! Super easy. They have a camera set up a the back of the room so you can see what’s going on before hand, and during the presentation (taught by an industry expert) you see their screen on your screen. While you join the meeting in listen-only mode (meaning you can hear them, but they can’t hear you) you are still able to type in questions in instant messenger fashion and someone there moderating will ask it for you. The presentation usually last about an hour, with a further hour of Q&A following. You can check out at any time.
Why webinars?
1. Super easy (I think I may have mentioned that. Simply click on the link to join the meeting and sit back and absorb the information.
2. It’s convenient. You can take part in it anywhere you are as long as you have Internet access (and a computer, obviously).
3. It’s interactive. There’s about an hour of Q & A after the hour long presentation.
4. It’s a bargain! Creative Techs offer their webinars for free, but even if it’s not free you’re still saving on travel and accommodations and time away from your normal work flow.
Whether you’re looking to keep current on your skills or even learn a new skill, this appears to be an easy, convenient, cost-effective way to go about it. Have you found any other useful webinars out there?