Only two weeks remain before we return to Sydney to run another round of Umbraco certification courses from the 19th to the 22nd of July. This round we have a change of venue and have moved to a more central location in the city at the offices of Umbraco Gold Partner Next Digital.

I have to say a massive thank you to Next Digital for providing a venue as they have for all of our Melbourne courses. We really appreciate their support and help with logistics.

If your company uses Umbraco as its main CMS platform, I would encourage you to consider certifying developers. We have room on the Sydney course for a company and to become a Certified Partner. This involves having four certifications at either Level 1 or 2. We currently have 2 spots left on level 1 which also means we have 2 package deals available for Level 1 & 2. Having two developers certified at both level 1 & 2 is by far the most cost effective way of gaining Certified Partner status.

I really enjoy teaching the courses as its great to see the "AHA!" moments when a developer discovers something new or for the first time and then seeing the satisfaction a developer gets when they finish up the course and can finally claim the badge of Umbraco Certified Developer. Even greater is when I see that developer become part of the wider developer community contributing on the forum, twitter and in some cases developing packages.

Umbraco is truly more than a great tool that you use to build content managed websites. It is also a community of dedicated developers passionate about what they do. I encourage all newly certified developers to join in the conversation and contribute back as there are opportunities to give input even if you are not a "Core" developer.