Great, you have decided you want to create a training session for OpenDNSSEC. So there is some preparations you need to have before announcing your amazing to the world:
- Decide the primary target audience;
- Identify the channels where to make the announcement;
- Decide where it is going to be, and make sure there is a room where you can be;
- Is there a teacher available? Make sure he is available;
- Is this a workshop that is supposed to cost something?
When you have all your resources secured, it's time to annouce the workshop to the world. You should announce the workshop at least a month before the training, preferably longer. This is what you need to make an announcement:
- Create a web page somewhere, i.e. opendnssec.org and iis.se, containing an all important information such as dates, times, place and how to subscribe to the training session. Do not forget to add information on which date you have to subscribe to the session in order to secure the persons subscription. (You might need to order coffee and food for a certain amount of people).
- Create a signup page (and link it from the information web page created above), using a system that can handle this. IIS uses wufoo.com.
- When you have a web page with the basic information and the signup page, you can start to announce the list. You can announce it by sending e-mail with the invitation (and possible the agenda) to the lists or persons associated with the target audience. Also announce it using the social media of your choice, and by any other means of reaching your audience.
- Do not forget to monitor the subscriptions coming in. There can be more people coming than you expected, so keep on eye on the interest. There might also be people with special needs, for example visa applications or whatever - so you might have to arrange special things for the people who wants to come.
If this workshop is supposed to be paid directly by the attendees, send each of them an invoice.
A week before the workshop you have to start doing the arrangements to make the workshop the success you want:
- Send out a friendly reminder to all the participants, reminding them that they have subscribed, and at what times they should be in the room you have booked. If you are using servers in the cloud, make sure that they also bring their laptops with an SSH client installed;
- Order food and coffee for the breaks. Take into account the number of people and any special dietary restrictions;
- Make sure that the servers (physical or in the cloud) are prepared;
- Compile a list with the participants and hand out to the teacher and to any person or function that requires it to let people in to the locale.
- On the morning of the workshop, make sure that any reception is set up for welcoming the participants. Also make sure that the room is laid out for the workshop.
- Set up tables and chairs and anything else that is needed in the room (projector, audio)
- When everybody that subscribed have arrived, check them off on the list of attendees.
- Introduce any facilities (wifi, ...)
- Introduce yourself, and then make a round of introductions, and the attendees expectations of the workshop. (What do they work with, their experience with DNS and what they need to take home with them.)
- Go through the material and the labs.
- Take note of any bugs in the software or things that needs fixes in the documentation or the labs.
A week or so after the workshop:
- Set up an evaluation form where the attendees can rate the teacher and other things. (There is probably a template somewhere.)
- Send out an e-mail thanking the participants for attending and attach a link for the evaluation form;
- Compile the responses of the evaluation, and make a small report;
- Fix the issues with the software or documentation that you noted during the workshop.
If this was a paid workshop from a single organization, send them an invoice. And now perhaps schedule the next workshop, and start over again.