Recently, Red Pill Analytics announced an innovative new training simulation for those who not only want to learn how to use OBIEE 12c, but also want to learn how to use it effectively in the real world. We call this new training “The Jump Program,” named after a simulation program in our favorite move The Matrix. In this scene, Tank loads Neo and Morpheus into the Jump Program, and soon after, Morpheus challenges Neo to let go of his preconceived notions about how the world operates. After telling Neo he has to let it all go, Morpheus proceeds to jump across a large chasm between two skyscrapers, landing safely on the other side and amazing Neo in the process. The point of the exercise in the movie is that the characters need to embrace a different reality and recognize that what appears to be a large free-fall to certain doom is not really that at all, but an illusion.
At Red Pill Analytics, we’re constantly examining the truths we cling to in the Business Intelligence, Data Warehousing, and Analytics spaces to make sure we’re doing things the right way, not just the way we’ve always done them. For example, our product Checkmate brings a new development lifecycle approach to BI that more closely mirrors other development platforms. With The Jump Program, we’re attempting to do the same thing for training.
Have you ever attended a technical training class that taught you what buttons to push and in which order, but never really gave you a good understanding of why you were pushing them? Or have you attended a training class with plenty of exercises that taught you how to build really simple examples, but when you went back to your real environment, you had trouble applying those overly simplistic examples to the real demands of your users? Unfortunately, this happens all too frequently in training. And while there may be a time and place for traditional lecture/lab training, we feel the marketplace needs a newer, more innovative style of training to complement the old guard.
When you attend The Jump Program, you will immediately be immersed into a fictional company with an OBIEE and Data Warehouse implementation in place. You’re a new hire on the BI team, and it’s your job to continually deliver a backlog of user requests and enhancements as quickly as possible. How do you accomplish that? How will you know which features to use in which situations? How can you deliver content quickly without making the business wait months until they see their first dashboard?
Over the course of four days you will participate in four full project development lifecycles and release real code to production each day. You’ll learn how to use features and techniques in OBIEE 12c, including Mashups and new advanced metadata approaches, to deliver new content quickly, then refactor that content to make it more scalable or follow best practices. You’ll learn how to automate steps to accelerate the process and deliver a higher quality product. You’ll get assigned real-world tasks to develop in either the OBIEE front-end or metadata layer and have expert trainers guiding you on how those tasks can or should be accomplished.
All of this will be done in a highly collaborative way. While most technical training classes isolate you from the other attendees, The Jump Programcreates an atmosphere of cooperation through daily stand-ups, peer reviews, and a retrospective look back at the previous day’s work. Everyone attending The Jump Program is working on delivering content to the same OBIEE system, learning how to handle multi-user development and working toward a combined production release featuring different tasks by each individual attendee. Even the work environment has been carefully selected to provide a collaborative and comfortable atmosphere to work.
The Jump Program will be hosted at Vuka in Austin, Texas. We knew we needed a layout that facilitated breakouts while keeping the energy high. The atmosphere of Vuka encourages everyone to dive-in and work. Even the name means “wake-up” — a perfect complement to our metaphor of letting it all go.
And while Vuka is the perfect building, Austin is the perfect city. A burgeoning tech market combined with a unique vibe and a central location in the United States make Austin a fantastic choice for our special training event. And since Vuka is located in a happening part of the city, Red Pill will host a night out on the town to release some steam after a few hard days of releasing code to production. Work hard, play hard — so the saying goes.
The Jump Program will run March 1–4 and you can register now on the website at jumpprogram.com. Space is limited, so go grab some of those unused 2015 funds to reserve your seat now.
