Verizon has taken a page from Apple offering free 30-minute one-on-one training for the Droid phones it sells (the Motorola Droid and the HTC Eris Droid.) and Business Week has a review of the service. Here are some of the highlights:
Making the appointment for the training was frustrating. None of the automated phone prompts at Verizon mention the training, so you’re left guessing which number to press. These free sessions are offered at Verizon’s corporate stores, but not at their retail stores.
Upon arrival at the College Park store, I informed the greeter I was there to receive a one-on-one training. A few moments later the manager of the store told me I’d be receiving my training from one of their trainers, Jennifer, after she was finished with her current customer. That’s a good sign when the manager of a store is involved so directly with customer interactions.

I first asked how I could better manage battery life on my phone. My out-of-the box experience with my Motorola Droid (which I love) was very poor. The phone was not able to make it through a single day on a battery charge. One evening soon after I bought the phone, the battery was dead when I needed to make an important call.

It turns out that there are several very useful ways to extend battery life on the Droid. Jennifer showed me how to download a program (or app) from the Android Market that identifies what programs are currently running on your Droid. By quitting programs that are running in the background, you can extend your phone’s battery life. (In addition, before the training, I independently discovered a very useful widget called Power Control that has dramatically extended the battery life of my Droid. (See http://www.idg.com/www/rd.nsf/rd?readform&u=http://www.ehow.com/how_5596884_extend-battery-life-motorola-droid.html) I leave Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and synching turned off most of the time — and also make my screen a bit dimmer — so my Droid now lasts two full days (or more) before needing to be recharged.

…

As a final question, I asked Jennifer if she could recommend a Twitter client for the Droid. She told me she uses Facebook more than Twitter. Fair enough — we all choose the social networking tools that work best for us. Still, it would be good if Verizon trainers were aware of the most popular Twitter client for Android — Twidroid. I find Twidroid very helpful for following my Twitter stream when I’m on the go.

Seeing how busy this Verizon store is on a weekend, I began to understand why Verizon doesn’t want to schedule training sessions during this time. That being the case, Verizon needs to do better in scheduling trainings outside of Verizon stores. One possible location? Public libraries. I work as a public geek at a public library. All day long I answer people’s computer questions. Could I also be answering their Droid phone questions? I sure could. Would it be better if I were Verizon Android Certified? Yes, and even though such a certification does not yet exist, maybe it ought to.

Cell phone training classes in public libraries are a logical next step as cell phone become an ever more dominant part of our lives. I’m rather surprised public libraries have not begun offering this kind of training yet.