During the week of 25 to 29 February of 2008 I choose to self fund and attend a course offered by The Ted Pattison Group (http://www.tedpattison.net) called The Great SharePoint Adventure (GSA401) (http://www.tedpattison.net/Courses/GSA401.aspx). The instructor was John Holliday, who is famed for, among other things, no less than four chapters written in the WROX press book titled "Professional SharePoint 2007 Development". John's presentation was highly professional, very articulate, patient with all that was required and he still managed to strike the right balance between the need of those in the room who were sent by their companies and had one set of needs, and those of us who were self funded and had a more intense feeling of return on investment. I used to instruct Windows NT courses at a local community college for two years worth of Saturdays, one to three three hour courses a day and feel that when prepared I do well in satisfying the needs of students. I felt from the first day that John was going to be a professional I could learn from on many levels and I could not have been more right.
Now this course is not for the feign of heart. No matter how thechie you may feel you are, and I am an MCSD in C# and MCDBA with years of C#, BizTalk and middleware development to my back, you will get your monies worth. An how could you not? The course is two eight hour days and three ten hour days with about 30 to 45 minute breaks. The curriculum is made from most or all of their other extensive list of offerings (http://www.tedpattison.net/training.aspx). It's clear that there are courses offered that drill more extensively in to various individual technologies, such as Workflows or InfoPath development integration, but still I got my monies worth.
And I'm not alone in this. In attendance was a Microsoft evangelist who was there to hone his skills from middleware to SharePoint 2007. Yes, Microsoft not only relies on Ted Pattison and his band of technical developers to instruct on their platform, and not only do they send their people to TPG courses, but while I was attending this course Ted was in Redmond conducting the same course for more Microsoft developers and managers. And if you have any other question as to how heavily Microsoft relies on Ted, check out the primary Microsoft SharePoint development location (http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/office/aa905503.aspx) and you will find the vast majority of the information available is published by Ted and TPG.
In closing, it's worth it, it's worth it, it's worth it.
TPG The Ted Pattison Group (http://www.tedpattison.net) The Great SharePoint Adventure (GSA401) http://www.tedpattison.net/Courses/GSA401.aspx John Holliday Professional SharePoint 2007 Development http://www.tedpattison.net/training.aspx middleware SharePoint 2007