“Training is one of those things that we like to put off until we have more time,” says Joe Wigzell, Academy Manager for Roland DG, “and now that most of us are stuck at home, it’s the perfect time to build your skills and knowledge.”

The Roland Academy has been providing training, education and support to individuals and businesses since 2006. Under normal circumstances, workshops and hands-on courses are held regularly at the Roland Creative Centre in Clevedon and at customers' own premises. However, in line with the government's essential guidance on social distancing during the COVID-19 outbreak, these activities have been put on hold.

With the unavoidable cancellation of all Roland Academy courses for the next few months, the Academy team has taken the opportunity to focus exclusively on producing digital content to support Roland’s We Are Here campaign.

"We already provide loads of webinars and online support videos, but it’s something we’ve always wanted to focus more on,” explains Joe, “this has been a great chance to build a structured programme of handy, useful and hopefully engaging content,".

Topics for the coming weeks include Time Saving Tips, Bitmaps & Vectors, Improving your Business, Personalisation and Setting up Your Workshop. The content will be delivered on a regular basis in the following formats:

Five in Five
Even though you have more spare time, you might not want to spend it all learning how to do your job more effectively. Every Tuesday, Roland will publish a short video featuring five tips in five minutes or less, giving you a short blast of essential information.

Webinars
Despite having no access to Roland DG equipment, Roland Academy’s popular webinar series will continue, albeit from the homes of Joe and his second-in-command, Ollie Bishop. To get around the unavailability of a printer, they have updated the webinar schedule to include more theory-based content, design tips and software walkthroughs.

Roland Elevenses
At 11AM, every Friday morning, you can join the Academy team in a Facebook Live broadcast. “It’s the end of the week and everybody is starting to wind down, so these are pretty informal little chats,” says Joe. “We talk about everything from application advice to marketing tips, but we’ve also had some great recommendations for Netflix series to watch!” Following each live event, the recording is made available for anyone to re-watch or catch up at later date.

“So far, it’s been a great experience for us,” comments Joe “we wouldn’t normally have time to engage with our followers in such an immediate way, and in a lot of ways, we’re learning more from them!”

For those interested in teaching Joe and Ollie a thing or two, you can follow Roland DG on Facebook, or register for upcoming webinars on the Roland DG website.