I have observed that training-as-incentive works very well. PerlMonks here probably tend to be self-motivated to improve their skills on their own time. Programmers who have chosen a different work-life balance can be greatly motivated by formal training on company time. Excellent training opportunities can be purchased from major database vendors and O'Reilly.

You can tell that some people respond to training because they often refer to things they experienced during the training. In some cases they are referring to information, and at other times they are really talking about the prestige they feel from being enabled to participate in the training.

Training can be anything from a genuine learing opportunity to the equivalent of a sales-quota rewards ceremony in Hawaii. TheDamian once remarked at an O'Reilly conference that his real purpose there was to warp our minds and stretch it into new positions. He's very good at it!

Probably the ultimate training incentive for a perl programmer would be a single-occupancy ticket to a Perl Whirl.

It's probably not a coincidence that all these courses are expensive. YAPC might be cheaper, and I'm still looking forward to filling out my first YAPC travel expense report!

It should work perfectly the first time! - toma