Class on Demand Report Card
News, views, and information from COD | October 2008
 And
the winner is….
Class on Demand garners two coveted Gold awards from Horizon Interactive
Class on Demand announced today that two of its training titles;
Basic Training for Final Cut Studio 2.0 and Complete Training for Adobe
Creative Suite 3 have both received the Gold Award in the video based
training category from Horizon Interactive. Building on the company’s
highly successful titles for Adobe products these products feature
award-winning instructors, Tom Wolsky for Final Cut 2.0 and Tim Kolb
for CS3.
“Being awarded two Gold awards in the same year means we must
be doing something right” said Paul Holtz, founder and CEO
of Class on Demand. “These awards are especially meaningful
because the judges at Horizon are real end users and our peers.”
Horizon Interactive judges look for the best blend between creativity
and functionality. Each product is judged on criteria such as solution
creativity and originality, overall graphic design, appearance and
user experience, communication of the message, technical merit, and
effectiveness of the solution. Class on Demand’s unique approach
to training and exceptional production values ensure that every training
title can take the student from basic functions to advanced capabilities
quickly and simply.
These award-winning titles form a library of training for Adobe
products from Class on Demand.
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Meet the COD team at DV Expo booth
408
We’ll be exhibiting at DV Expo in LA November 5 & 6
Our wide selection of tutorials is conducted by industry experts
and award-winning professionals will be on display at the show.
We’re taking a ton of inventory and don’t plan to
bring it back so stop by our booth # 408 for all your training
needs at great show discount prices. |
Top seller in the making?
We are taking advanced orders now for our highly anticipated
Adobe titles.
Adobe is hyping CS4 everywhere and we’re seeing a great
response to the training title due for shipment in November.
If the pre-orders from our distribution channel partners are
an indication we’ve got two very hot titles coming.
Host and post-production veteran, Tim Kolb, will be your guide
through hours of project-focused instruction developed to give
you exposure to the time-saving enhancements in the CS4 Production
Premium workflow. To pre-order click
here.
The Illustrator title is perfect for the visual designer looking
to make the leap into Illustrator’s versatile and rich
feature set. Adobe Certified Expert, Sue Jenkins, will
be your guide in this three part tutorial. To pre-order click
here.
We are accepting advanced orders for our two newest titles "Basic
Training for Adobe CS4 Production Premium" and "Designer's Guide
to Illustrator". What’s even better is we’ll give
you a 15% discount off the MSRP when you order
your advanced copy of either title and use CS4PRE15 during
checkout. Save on shipping,
buy the two together, you know you want to. To pre-order click
here.
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Class on Demand delivers training
for Nokia
We were called on to shoot and produce an internal education
piece
The security solutions division of Nokia is spinning out of
the mother ship and we were called up by Allison Taylor who manages
corporate PR for the division (we’d previously worked with
Allison at Sun Microsystems). Allison had a very narrow window
to get the business leader in front of a camera to explain what
this change means to customers, partners, integrators and employees.
American Airlines didn’t help arriving at SFO three hours
late but like the pros we are, we shot and edited it on site
and delivered web ready videos the same day. Much kudos to the
COD crew. |
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Paul Holtz Fires Back
We’re all connected but at what price?
I recently attended a meeting In New York. Three of the attendees were tapping
away on their BlackBerrys answering emails, booking restaurants, or god-knows-what
rather than participating in the proceedings.
Others were working on their laptops connected to the ever-present wireless
network. These multi-tasking meeting-goers had to be called out by name in
order to solicit a response and force them to curtail the important work at
hand (literally).
Another antisocial connected behavior that irks me is the people who are holding
a conversation with a hands-free, Bluetooth-enabled, headset while looking
at me. I’m often caught out and ask these people to repeat themselves. Where
I’m from, when you talk out loud and look at me that means you’re
trying to have a conversation with me. To the blue-tie-wearing businessman
in Starbucks on Randall Road yesterday morning, you have a self-righteous,
misguided notion that sporting a StarTrek-like dongle in your ear somehow makes
you important. I have no interest in your loud, boring, conversation. We need
to collectively abolish technology as a fashion accessory and demand a little
peace and quiet.
We seem to have become a nation with ADHD. In a brilliant article in Forbes titled Can
You Hear Me Now? Sherry Turkle of MIT compellingly argued that
this new era of hyper-connectedness is just a façade. While we have
increasingly more means of instant communication, we are building less meaningful
relationships.
I’m constantly talking to people in my business. In fact, I’m on
the phone or in meetings all day long. It’s great to speak with customers,
channel partners, or our amazing team of instructors. I’m heading to
DVExpo next month in LA, I’ll get to meet dozens of people there. I’ll
continue to treat every conversation as if it’s the most important one
of the day in doing so, I’ll be building a more meaningful relationship
with each an every person I meet. One thing’s for sure, I won’t
be checking how far my stock port folio has plummeted or where the Dodger’s
post season blow-out party will be held. After all, there’s nothing I
can do about the first and I’ll never be invited to the second - I’m
not that well connected!
Featured Instructor
| Sue Jenkins
 Home
town: Los Angeles, CA
College attended: San Francisco
State and Marywood University
Graduate studies: Currently
enrolled in an MFA program for Photography
Pets: None right now, but
I'm a cat person
Favorite food: Chocolate!
Favorite musical artist: Bjork
Favorite city in the world: London
Likes: Art, museums, rain,
the smell of grass, spicy food, the ocean, the
sound of fog horns, innovation, imagination, creativity
Dislikes: Whiners,
stinky stuff, spiders, big crowds, litter bugs,
bullies, liars, violence, war, and social injustice
Sue's Tip | Draw
Outside the Lines
To create that "drawing outside the lines" effect in Illustrator,
create a shape with a fill and no stroke, duplicate that shape and adjust
the copy so that it has a stroke with no fill, adjust the stroke weight
and color, and then scale and slightly rotate the stroked shape. If desired,
you can alter the path of the stroked shape using the Smooth Tool located
in the flyout menu under the Pencil Tool. |
| More
Training by Sue Jenkins |
 Designer's
Guide to Illustrator
This training is perfect for the visual
designer looking to make the transition into Illsutrator CS4's
versatile and rich feature set.
|
 Designer's
Guide to Photoshop
Learn to make the leap into Photoshop’s
tools for print, video and web-based projects. Additionally,
you’ll get a glimpse at using 3D in Photoshop.
|
 Dreamweaver
for Designers
Learn Dreamweaver® from the ground up
with this highly informative tutorial. Get the ins and outs
of Adobe®'s venerable website authoring software.
|
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