The Best Practices Course is Underway!

After several months of planning and preparation the Best Practices Course has launched! It has been an exciting and exhausting process, and I’ve learned a lot along the way.

The past few months I’ve researched the best way to set up a robust membership website to host the training materials, and ended up with Digital Access Pass combined with OptimizePress, both of which are built on the open-source WordPress platform. These tools allow me to create pages for members with live videos and graphics viewable on computers and mobile devices such as the iPad. Members have the option to download videos for offline viewing or permanent reference.

I’ve purchased and set up a movable video studio with a backdrop and lights, along with a Kodak ZI-8 digital video camera and several pieces of software including Camtasia and Final Cut Pro. I’ll be able to create “live video” as well as screen capture demonstrations and combine them to create both training and marketing materials.

Just before I opened the course for registration I held a contest at 99 Designs to create a new logo. This was an amazing process: dozens of designers from all over the world submitted ideas, and refined them based on my feedback. Some great concepts came out over 4 days, and it was hard to pick the winner myself. So I invited people to view the top 8 designs and vote – and one design clearly was the favorite – so we have a great visual representation of the Best Practices concept to use for the course. I’m so happy about it, and am thankful for everyone who participated as a designer or who voted to help me choose!

Everything seems to take so much time to figure out, and there’s so much more I want to learn and do with all of this technology. Nonetheless, I’m proud of what I have been able to accomplish, and the results have been stunning! There are 94 people who signed up for the Best Practices Course in the past two weeks, so along with 14 who attended my Best Practices classes in L.A. we have 108 enrolled in the course. The comments and feedback from everyone has been very encouraging. I think we’re going to have a great experience together as I create this course over the next 6 months!