With a shortage of well-trained sales people, interactive marketing faces an ongoing human capital problem. Enter Upstream Group, which announced that with the addition of industry veteran Scot McLernon it will begin offering courses for digital sales professionals.

Dubbed Upstream Habitat, the traveling school will offer three days of intense courses for industry sales professionals. Habitat is the brainchild of Doug Weaver, Upstream's CEO, and McLernon, who will serve as president of the company.

The school will allow students to customize their schedule based on their own needs and experience levels. However, a final assignment -- a real world problem -- will put students in the driver's seat of an integrated digital campaign based on a real world case study.

"If we crack the code on this, I think this will be something that sales people will want to come back to again and again," Weaver said.

The school's faculty will include a who's who of digital, with each class being taught by an expert in the field.

That's something that is important to McLernon, who joins Upstream after running the sales teams at MarketWatch and CBS Digital Media.

"We think Upstream Habitat will be exactly what today's and tomorrow's digital seller will need," explains McLernon. "We're offering timely education, critical skills training and a network of peers they can reference time and time again."

Habitat's first class will be in April.