One of the most important aspects of SilverFern's culture is education because it touches so many aspects of not only our company's life, but also the daily lives of our clients. In fact, customers in this new economy are demanding it. Constantly.

Increasingly, today's businesses are tired of inneffective elevator speeches, cold calling and comparing the competition solely on price point. Instead, they want help making smarter decisions and are attracted to companies and individuals who educate rather than sell.

When you think about it, it's simply smart business. Well informed customers make better decisions, which in turn save time, money and set the stage for sensible, sustainable growth. Education also fosters trust. If you are honest and authentic in educating your clients and prospects, they will quickly understand that you are acting in their best-interests, are a solid business partner, and a valued member of the local business community.

With this in mind, starting March 7, 2011, SilverFern is offering a 5 day .Net Journeyman course to help intermediate programmers sharpen their toolsets with current industry best-practices. Our educational mission is to raise the average skill level within the Kansas City .Net developer community, which in turn sets Kansas City up to compete openly with other strong technology cities such as Austin, TX. Everyone wins. Developers become more productive and marketable while companies benefit from fresh approaches.

Lee Brandt, the instructor for this inaugural course, is a Microsoft MVP and local developers community leader and mentor. When you have time, we highly recommend that you read Lee's excellent blog article "Of Consultants and Contractors".

SilverFern is committed to educating our clients, our prospects, and our developer community. We firmly believe that a stronger .Net community will help Kansas City businesses work smarter and more efficiently than ever before.

About the Author

I’ve had the good fortune to travel and work internationally. I’ve also had the good fortune to have grown up in New Zealand and have lived the American “immigrant experience” for more than half of my life. I’ve also had an unorthodox musical journey that led me to and kept me in Kansas City. Music, IT and travel became partners along the way helping me appreciate multiple worldviews and the concepts of cross-disciplinary approaches to life and work. My non-conventional experiences reflect my meanderings about this interesting occupational field. The beauty of having been in IT for 30 years is that our solutions become predictably cyclic while our problems remain the same. Culture is a topic I’m rather obsessive about. I firmly believe that it will help to usher in a renaissance in American business – oddly enough in the hands of IT.