I recently stumbled upon a series of training workshops, for which I would have been very eager to sign up, only to find out that I was some 20 years too old to register.

Widely recognized for creating some of the most brand loyal customers around, Apple has designed an overwhelmingly popular in-store summer camp targeted at 8 – 12 year old children.  The camp features a series of four different workshops: Movies, Music, Photos, and Presentations.  Each is designed to give children exposure to Apple’s hardware and software suite.

While certainly not as exciting as the dinosaur camp that I attended in my childhood, I think that Apple is really onto something here, and all kidding aside, I know many adults  who could benefit from similar workshops.  Here is the ad for the Presentation Workshop: 

Replace kids with employees or executives and school with work and think about how many people you know who should probably be first in line for this workshop.

These sessions are being offered at all U.S. Apple retail locations free of charge and all technology required is to be supplied by Apple (unless you’d like to bring your own gear).  Of note is that if you’re looking to sign your litte one up, you’d better hurry as many sessions are already filling waiting lists and some have been closed for registration due to oversubscription.

I think this is an interesting example of industry creatively stepping in (albeit for self-motivated purposes and on a tiny scale) to help provide training in skill sets that our school systems may not be able to immediately address – advancing the technological skills and comfort level of some of our youngest scholars.

What’s your take on Apple’s attempt to create a little army of I’m a Mac evangelists?  Creative marketing combined with valuable skills training or targeting a market too young for comfort?