Pillar: Training & Speaking
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When the website qualifies but the distributor closes
M.L. Campbell is an industrial wood-coatings brand sold through distributors. The website can’t sell anything — there’s no cart, no checkout, no direct purchase path. That one constraint reshaped every decision in the build: IA, product page layout, navigation, and the thing I called the buy button even though it isn’t one.
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Microsoft Office training at Grand Valley Institution for Women, Spring 2017
Two days at Grand Valley Institution for Women in Kitchener — teaching Microsoft Office to a class inside the federal corrections system. The work mattered more than most one-day training engagements do.
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PowerPoint and presentation skills training at Privy Council Office, Fall 2001
PowerPoint and presentation-skills training at the Privy Council Office in Ottawa in fall 2001 — the senior public-service department that supports the Prime Minister and Cabinet. Two three-hour sessions across two days.
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PowerPoint and presentation skills training at Privy Council Office, Spring 2002
A return engagement at the Privy Council Office in spring 2002 — six months after the first session. Return bookings from senior government are a signal about the first session, not just about scheduling.
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Training Specialist at Center for Arts and Technology, 2003 to 2007
Three and a half years as a Training Specialist at the Center for Arts and Technology in Fredericton — Photoshop, Video Production, Marketing, Career Management, and Web Technology on a rotating six-month cycle. The current training practice grew out of those years more than any other single source.
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M.L. Campbell teaching engagement, 2020 to present
The M.L. Campbell teaching engagement began in 2020 and continues as of 2026 — six years across four delivery modes: classroom instruction, practical labs, online modules, and customer-site sessions. The LMS architecture built today is this same curriculum encoded for scale.
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WordPress (for-credit course) at Sheridan College, 2017
Three terms of for-credit WordPress instruction at Sheridan College in 2017 — winter, spring, fall. Not a workshop. A real college course with a syllabus, assignments, and grades, for students who needed to understand why the stack works, not just that it does.
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WordPress (for-credit course) at York University, 2017
Three terms of for-credit WordPress instruction at York University in 2017, parallel to Sheridan. A research university context changes the teaching — more theory before the room gets restless, assignments that ask for reflection alongside the technical work.
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Pedigree of Oat Lines (POOL) keynote at AAFC Central Experimental Farm, 2008
In 2008, I gave a keynote at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s Central Experimental Farm in Ottawa, to oat geneticists from around the world, about a database I had built for them. Unusual chain: built the platform, then explained it to the people who would use it, with both audiences in the room.