When developing business I believe every enterpreneur need to do his best. Do you think webinars are important part of development and do you personally often participate in webinars? According to you free or paid webinars is better.

Tried a couple and had to endure a bunch of idiots all trying to prove how much better they were than everyone else. So I never bothered after that.

I think webinars / lectures / conferences are a great place to learn. I've never been to one where the speaker was trying to do what Fisicx mentions above although they have had some truly exceptional developers speaking. I want to attend conferences where the speakers know more than me - that way I learn

 

Socialising afterwards you will likely meet some devs who think they know everything, we even get them on here but they don't normally stick around for long... but everything in life is like that so why avoid them? You might meet some truly inspirational people who can help you become a better developer.

Edited August 24, 20169 yr by rbrtsmith

As with everything in life it is the quality that is important, not the cost. Just because you pay for something it doesn't automatically mean it is superior to something free.

 

I've participated in a few across a range of subjects, some totally unrelated to the web or internet directly, and some have been well run and organised whilst others have been a bloody shambles.

While you can learn a lot from a free one the very best are will almost always cost you money. If you are very good at something you rarely do it for free, especially is you have spent significant funds and time to acquire this knowledge. For example a Kyle Simpson or Harry Roberts workshop will cost you hundreds of pounds. Is it worth it? Absolutely yes, you will really struggle to find anybody better than these two at the subjects they teach.

 

I find with paid there is less of a gamble - the probability of getting crap information is significantly lower than with a free one. Ideally you would want to research the person who is giving it. I've invested about £2k in learning materials, conferences etc in the past three years and the payoff has been massive and I shall continue to invest money in quality resources because the return is so good.

 

 

On the other side of the coin Dan Abramhov's Redux course on Egghead is excellent and free! I suspect this is a combination of him wanting adoption of his library and Egghead funding it of a way to drive traffic to their website and ultimately land paid subscriptions to their other courses - which I duly obliged.

Edited August 24, 20169 yr by rbrtsmith

Giving away something for free can be a sprat to catch a mackerel, especially if it is a nice big juicy sprat.

 

I used to be on a local engineering institution committee which organised lectures for its members. We paid £800 plus accommodation for one speaker who came highly recommended, I think it was someone's idea of a sick joke. The bugger was more boring than a shipworm, after twenty minutes I felt myself losing the will to live. Lucky it was on the ground floor or there would have been a queue to leap from the windows.

Initially webinars are the best place to learn. Start your career(if wanted) by participating in free webinars, thou there would be an abstract view of the agenda but you'll get a well educated idea about HOW THINGS WORK. Later on, you can do research yourself and take the best out of you.

 

Regarding paid webinars, i personally never participated so it's to early to call instead of speaking something wrong. So the bottom line is, if you're newbie try to do bit research and go for free webinars.

 

So you had a single bad experience with a presenter when you worked in an unrelated industry, and for this reason you're saying all conferences and in person classes are worthless?

 

This makes no sense. All we can take from that is that you had a single bad experience.

 

Umm, could you point out where I'm saying this? The most worthless thing we've had to endure here so far is your inane trolling.

 

I organised several hundred of these events over the years and some were good, some were p*** poor. I kept records of the costs involved with mounting the events and we tried to get feedback from the members on what they thought of them. Many of the 'free' ones, only costs involved would be an overnight stay and a nosebag for the speaker, were very good. This is because the speaker was an employee of the business offering the event and it was of course a marketing ploy. No problems with that at all. As they say you have to speculate to accumulate. Spirax Sarco used to offer some excellent presentations and only asked for the speakers expenses to be paid and occasionally they didn't even ask for that.

 

Eddie Stobart always paid his own way entirely, with that sort of money I suppose it wasn't going to make much of a dent.

 

Overall I found that whether they were paid or free the what really mattered was the quality of the content and the presentation. Many of the free ones were put on by people who had something they wanted to share and were brimming with enthusiasm about it, not just companies using it as an opportunity to do a bit of marketing.

 

As Robert Smith pointed out earlier don't blindly sign up and pay for anything like this without doing some research on the speaker/speakers.

I think webinars / lectures / conferences are a great place to learn.

The second and third are excellent places to learn. But webinars are often just sales pitches. Of course there are some good webinars but anything to do with marketing in all its guises are generally awful.

 

Try listening in on SEO webinars - they are cringeworthy.

Edited August 24, 20169 yr by fisicx

 

Actually it looks like I just got you mixed up with the first response from fisicx - still no need for another display of your poor attitude though. You wanna sort that out.

 

As you actually quoted my post in the initial troll that is as disingenuous as a train ride with Jeremy Corbyn.

 

No probs, I'll consider it a grudging apology.

 

It would be as well if an end was put to this pointless sniping. On any forum none of the users are going to agree all the time and will have different points of view. This is an important function of a forum it can provide alternative views, if it doesn't then it's just a Glee Club at best and a mutual masturbation society at worst.

The second and third are excellent places to learn. But webinars are often just sales pitches. Of course there are some good webinars but anything to do with marketing in all its guises are generally awful.

 

Try listening in on SEO webinars - they are cringeworthy.

 

We had some that were sales pitches but on the back of new technology which had to be complied with, however if they were well presented and provided good information then that was fine.

 

The worst were when they sent someone along who was employed to give the presentation, they would have no enthusiasm for the topic and often even less background knowledge they had simply learned a script, verbatim and reeled it off like an automaton.

gents, the initial bickering was somewhat endearing and amusing....

 

alas now..... its getting a bit much and has derailed a few threads now.... time to maybe draw a line under this?

Not being funny, but he's instigating it each time. Am I suppose to just take a bunch of insults and not respond? Each time it's happened I've responded to personal insults and never the other way round.

just do what i do when the mrs is 'yet again' wrong, as she's giving me a b*llocking.....

 

just smile and say ''okay dear'', and pretend they are right

 

in the end.... like the saying goes.... ignorance is bliss

I've generated business leads through free webinar. Plan and schedule the marketing strategy in a correct way.