A few years ago I was on vacation in the South of
Spain staying at a small local hotel. After spending a day sightseeing, I
returned to my room to find a huge trail of ants had entered through a bathroom
window. I walked down to the reception to report the problem which ended up a
challenge since the receptionist spoke no English. My Spanish was limited, but
I remembered a friend telling me that thousands of Spanish words were the same
or similar to English but just pronounced differently.
Well the receptionist did not understand “ant,” so I figured I would add a
Spanish ending and put on my best Julio Iglesias accent.
“Tenemos antos!” I said. The raised eyebrows and puzzled expression on the face
of the receptionist clearly communicated that he did not understand. I then
raised my hands to my head and wiggled my fingers trying to make them look like
antennae, “antos” I repeated. This only created a further contortion in the
receptionist’s facial expression. I was determined to make myself understood
and being a veteran of charades, I got down on all fours, shuffling around in
front of him shouting “antos.” His face now turned to an expression of shock,
and he rushed from behind the front desk and raised me to my feet muttering the
words “loco Ingleses.” I remember thinking at the time that this must be a
relative of Julio Inglesias but later found out he was saying “crazy English!”
As I leaned against the reception desk, I saw a pen and paper which I grabbed
and quickly drew a crude drawing of an ant. The receptionist’s eyes lit up in
recognition as he excitedly said “ormiga!” He disappeared into the office
behind the desk and reappeared seconds later with a can of bug spray.
A few years later, when I was planning to take another vacation in Spain, my
wife enrolled in a two week Spanish language immersion class. It was all day
for 10 consecutive days and they were not allowed to speak any English. It was
a hands-on interactive conversational class with everybody and everything in
the room involved. It was also incredibly effective. She could conduct
reasonable conversations in Spanish by the end of the course. Then when we were
in Spain, she handled all the transactions and conversations flawlessly. Even
though her vocabulary was not extensive yet, she knew enough words to make
herself understood.
Since then I have been a firm believer in immersion training. At the annual
InfoSol Business Intelligence Seminar (IBIS), bootcamps and immersion training
have been growing in popularity. This year, six out of the eight tracks at IBIS
are hands-on immersion training sessions. Three of those sessions are dedicated
to Xcelsius with Beginner and Advanced bootcamps and a new Xcelsius Gurus hands
on workshop, which will all be delivered by highly experienced and respected
Xcelsius specialists.
Xcelsius dashboard development is an ideal topic for immersion training. Just
like learning a new language, you need to be totally immersed in the topic to
really understand how to use it effectively. There are so many different
components, properties, modeling best practices and functions to learn, that it
would take months to fully understand them all. But by working hands on,
building dashboards under the supervision of an expert, you will be able to
“speak” Xcelsius very quickly. After this type of training, what you do not
know, you will be able to compensate for with what you do know. The IBIS
bootcamps and workshops are both interactive and packed with information; they
are different to conventional training which tend to be delivered at a slower
and more deliberate pace.
With so many people adopting Xcelsius for dashboard solutions, there is an
increasing demand for Xcelsius developers and a need to teach these developers
how to build functional and visually pleasing dashboards efficiently and
effectively. The Xcelsius Beginner Bootcamp at IBIS will take you from no, or
little knowledge, to a level where you will be able to design and develop some
slick dashboards. Meanwhile, the Xcelsius Advanced Bootcamp is for those
Xcelsius developers who have worked creating dashboards for a while and want to
learn more advanced techniques as well as how to utilize and master the data
connectivity options for connected dashboards. Finally, the Xcelsius Gurus
Workshop is oriented to the seasoned Xcelsius developer or architect who wants
to learn about new technologies and 3rd party add-on components and software to
take their Xcelsius dashboard knowledge and skills to a deeper level.
All in all, there is something for every level of Xcelsius user, and I highly
recommend you check it out. Not only is this immersion training valuable, but
at IBIS it is offered at an unbelievable price fully inclusive of 3 nights’
accommodations, meals, events and resort fees. It will certainly be the best
investment you make this year.
Register
for IBIS
Immersion training could definitely have helped me back in Spain to eliminate
those pesky “antos” a lot quicker. Immersion training at IBIS will help you to
overcome some of those annoying Xcelsius “bugs” too!
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