Blue U - What We Are.

As Über-Geeks with real-world experience and scaly skin, we know proper development relies on more than just technical knowledge.  We believe that a foundation of proper design and architecture is the basis for the successful completion and implementation of any project.  With this in mind, we developed Blue Lizard University as an in-house resource to train our own people on doing things the way a blue lizard should.  Soon we began receiving so many requests for training that we launched Blue Lizard University externally. Blue U provides a different approach to the training and development needs of our clients. We focus on delivering solutions, rather than delivering a classroom experience.

We practice what we teach.  Blue Lizard specializes in Microsoft technologies, and we use it in-house.  Every day.  In fact, our business is based on it.  So we better know what we're talking about.  All of our training and mentoring centers on these Microsoft core competencies. Our clients want expert training based on real-world experience. Through Blue U, they get that expert training from a company that believes in the technology and knows how to use it for real world solutions.

When we say customized. We mean customized.  Blue Lizard knows each business is unique. So we develop a customized curriculum to meet your specific needs. Blue Lizard trainers meet with IT management to establish performance goals and to determine the most beneficial mix of classroom instruction and individual or small group mentoring. We conduct focus groups; we assess knowledge base, experience, anticipated future software use, preferred instructional approach, and specific .NET-related topics that would be most advantageous to cover during your Blue U session(s). We customize your curriculum outline based upon all of your specific input: management goals, student knowledge base, desired training topics and your ideal mix of classroom vs mentoring activity.

Blue U - It’s About You.

We know there are a lot of choices for staff training, ranging from the traditional classroom setting to the occasional seminar or even webinars. But Blue U is uniquely suited to provide specific results – results tailored to your business. Blue U provides a powerful interactive learning process that focuses completely on your specific IT demands.

Skills assessments.  How do you want Blue Lizard University to work for you? What is your ultimate goal for IT performance? How close are your employees performing to that goal? Blue Lizard wants to design a custom curriculum that will make the most of your Blue U sessions. So in order for you to get your best value from our services, Blue Lizard conducts comprehensive skills assessments of your session members. This helps us to not only fine tune your customized curriculum, but also to determine where your team is in relation to your performance goals.

Inexperienced? We’ll get you up to par.  For some clients, the levels of .NET experience vary substantially across the prospective students.  We have designed a preliminary session to allow students with less .NET experience to achieve a baseline level of .Net knowledge. This ‘pre’ session allows us to bring every student up to par and avoids the potential “watering down” of the main training activities, encountered so often in standard classroom sessions.

Customized curriculum.  We conduct focus groups involving your management and staff. This helps us to determine your unique needs and requirements so we can develop your custom mentoring syllabus.

Flexible schedules.  Blue Lizard wants to give you the best possible result delivered with the most convenience. You choose the training schedule. Select session days and times that best fit the working schedule of your organization.

Increased employee productivity.  Since your employees have minimal travel, more staff time is devoted to instruction. Additionally, mentoring examples are based upon your application library and therefore can be more quickly applied to your entire portfolio. All instructional materials and code samples are placed on your intranet or internal network for all participants to reference during the study group and in the future.

Then there’s that free gift.  All code used during the classroom and mentoring sessions is based upon your existing software library. Most clients take advantage of this feature by selecting a legacy application to use as the instructional example. In effect, the client is getting a free application conversion to .NET as part of the training process.

The Blue U Advantage.

Faculty & Staff.  All training is done by Blue Lizard application developers who have hands-on real world experience.  In addition to being leaders in the IT field, they are the guys who have been in the trenches. They do more than just teach technology. They guide you on best practices and the pitfalls to avoid.

Direct one-on-one interaction. Our mentoring approach provides both standard classroom instruction, as well as direct interaction at the employee’s cubicle.

Greater knowledge retention rates.  Students retain more because learning is done slowly over a course of weeks and months rather than a 5-day crash course.

Wider breath of topics. Usually, standard training requires employees to take several courses to achieve enough depth to develop a practical application.  The range of topics covered by the mentoring syllabus fully prepares a developer to write good .NET applications.

Lower per student expenditure.  Mentoring is a very affordable alternative when compared to standard classroom training. Additional savings are also attained since employee travel expenses are lower.

Tuition. There’s a Break to be had. Blue U tuition is based on the designed curriculum as well as the number of prospective students. Price breaks are given as the number of students increase. Ideally, Blue U prefers smaller class sizes from 6 to 12 students to allow personal attention. All curriculum(s) and costs are approved in advance.