In addition to finally finding the time to update my site, I rediscovered a simple truth: Teaching is simply learning from the front of the room.

The student reviews were excellent, which has dangerously inflated my ego, though that’s tempered by the fact they asked some difficult questions.

That’s the learning moment for the teacher; the world isn’t always oriented the way we think, and an innocent question from a student can turn your closely held perceptions on their ear.

The most significant accomplishment was dynamiting the students’ concept that online marketing involved building a Web site and standing back while the money poured in.

Dynamic Web sites, content management systems, content marketing, engagement marketing and online CRM were all fodder for discussion – as was the concept of internal capacity.

That’s the amount of time a small business owner can reasonably pour into online marketing. Accordingly, the boot camp focused on leveraging content across multiple media channels.

With business trying to feed Web sites, blogs, email, twitter and other channels, leveraging content offers a ray of hope for those who don’t generate words or pictures for a living.

It’s the kind of structure I suggest to my consulting clients – the kind of system I just created for a new client, who built a Web site more than a decade ago and hadn’t done much since.

Web site, blog, and email are all singing the same song, and the focus is on leveraging quality content across all three.

The open rate on our first e-newsletter is three times the industry average – only two days after it dropped – is still climbing.

We’re doing something right.