What do they have in common – I don’t know yet: I’ll have to wait until I finish this post.

 Holidays are good things – celebration and fun and food and presents: what’s not to like?  Oh, and Time Off from work – an Excellent thing for battery charging and sudden flashes of the Blindingly Obvious in the middle of the night.  I don’t think we’ll mention the relatives coming to tea who can be a charm or a chore and sometimes both at once. 

 Moving on to bricklaying – bet you wondered how I was going to get there.  At work (see above reference w/respect to Time Off) we put our heads down and lay those bricks.  Day after back aching, head aching day.  Stand up, straighten out and look: all those soul deadening bricks have become a wall – you’ve really been building a wall and its part of a house or a palace or a church or a synagogue or a school or some other architectural wonder. 

 Much better to stop laying bricks and start building wonderful things.  Much better to stop, recharge and celebrate than plod on laying bricks and grumbling about how many there are in a ton or a truckload. 

 Back to the first sentence: What do holidays and bricklaying have in common?  Both are absolutely essential to where we’re going.  Holidays give us time for a flash of the Blindingly Obvious (see paragraph two); that we lay a lot of bricks (not the same as laying eggs – that’s a topic for another time) and we build wonderful places and programs.   

Celebrate early and often and look up from laying those bricks! 

The International Learning Unit (ILU) has only been used for a few years, developed to fill a void with an emphasis based upon competency to measuring learning. The ILU requires an outcome based competency minimum result of at least 80% or better. As eLearning continued to expand how much time the participants spends in the process of learning loses importance and is being replace with comprehension, competencies, outcomes, and retention. Faculty and employers are more interested in knowing that in a learning situation substance is more important than space. Where, when or how a person learns is not as important as what and that they learn.

Certification provides opportunities to people that might not otherwise exist. It allows knowledgeable and experienced people in the career of their choice to show everyone else that they are knowledgeable and experienced and that they are invested in their career.

Certification provides a standard – for persons and for an industry or community that may want a qualification standard to show intrinsic value or to show external markets that they are self-policing.

Certification provides us the opportunity to work with volunteer subject matter experts. The bonus you get from volunteer experts is that they provide all that expertise free of charge because they think it’s something they should do. I love working with volunteers – even if I love working with some more than others!

Why do you “heart” certification?

And just as I am about to post this, I find this “Why I Love Testing” – check out the reasons why at this link: http://www.linkedin.com/groupItem?view=&gid=1426447&type=member&item=15239320&qid=412f6244-67af-4c67-870e-187350a7b661&trk=group_most_popular-0-b-ttl&goback=%2Egmp_1426447

I want to be clear about the widely accepted definition of the CEU because it is generally the accepted standard for measuring continuing education and as stated, certification standards. During the mid 1900’s the International Association for Continuing Education & Training (IACET) worked with many universities and the Department of Defense to promote this industrial age standard of measurement. The CEU as a standard for measuring continuing education is based upon time, or to be more precise – seat time in class. For decades this system of measurement worked well for most concerned. Licensing boards and certification boards could feel comfort knowing that someone was watching to ensure that the professional/participant/student was in the classroom while the qualified instructor was delivering his/her presentation. All the while someone was measuring the length of the class, the time from start to finish. Now all of the rules and laws are written measuring the professionals success in time spent at the event.

Around the turn of the century marked the new “Age of the Internet” that came in like a storm. Suddenly the web began to warp, change, and reshape time. In part this started because of differences with access speeds of various platforms, hardware and software. Early hardware and software affected the “time” people spent accessing and participating on, online courses. People began to challenge the importance of time on the web. Related to continuing education concerns for competency based learning has come back with a vengeance. To tie this together, the CEU is a time based measurement, not necessarily a competency based system. So I ask – has the CEU become irrelevant in the age of the Internet?

Measure twice and cut once seems to be pretty good advice then and now. Measuring wrong and cutting the wood wrong tends to spoil the project – beginning a project with wrong or unclear requirements will not only ruin the project but possibly your career. Analyzing and gathering requirements should be your first task undertaken -not internet searches for vendors, software packages or consultants. Successful projects are successful because requirements have be collected and analyzed removing any last minutes project killing surprises.

Requirements or features, from my experience, fall into two categories; core and wants/desired. The core features are those absolutely needed to create a successful project, a project that solves a problem or improves a process while creating value for all stakeholders. These are the must haves, without these there is no reason to move to the project forward because there is no derived value.

The second category of wants/desired features become a little tricky because they are in the bells and whistle – nice to have but no added value for the project. These features usually fall prey to project budget, time frame and scope but should be retained and place in a parking lot for consideration in any future project iteration.

The term value has been used several times but what is this created value? The easiest way to define value is anything your membership/certificants will purchase- actually pay real money. Features that might saves money and time, helps members/certificants create and build community while allowing your association/certification body to continue building overall value for your membership/certificants.

So for successful projects, without any last minutes surprises, begin with requirements gathering from all of your stakeholders remembering – Measure twice and cut once.

Next time we shall look at stakeholders and how to gather your requirements

Photo on Flicker by azwaldo

According to Wikipedia the “International Learning Unit (ILU)” is an outcome based measurement of learning designed for lifelong learning activities. The ILU is a competency based approach to measuring learning education courses. The ILU is an alternative measurement and standard to the time based continuing education unit (CEU). The ILU measurement can be used to provide evidence of completion of continuing education requirements mandated by certification bodies, professional societies, or governmental licensing boards.”
Developed in the 21st century to address the changing needs of continuing and professional education for the 21st century by the Learning Resource Network (LERN).  Instead of seat time in class it measures knowledge and skills. However, web based education has begun to warp, change, and reshape time as it relates to learning. Unfortunately all of the rules and laws are currently written measuring the professionals success in time spent at the event. Does this still make sense in your certification program?

So I ask – Isn’t it time to adapt the International Learning Unit?

The high response and excitement for CNG programs about networking skills, mentoring practices and social media for certification organizations are just a few reasons why we had to “walk the talk” by making our own website a stronger conversation center for members.

We had a member earlier today ask about their CNG Members’ Area account. They are involved in the CNG LinkedIn Group, and received CNG Network Power User Email that was sent to each of the CNG Members. When they tried to create a CNG Members’ Area account, they received the following message:

Either the username or email address do not exist in our records.

The CNG Member brought up the fact that the address the CNG Network Power User Email was the same email they had tried to use as username and login, but continued to give them the same message.

Once they contacted us at the CNG email address included in the announcement, we found what the problem was: The address they had received the CNG Network Power User was a personal email address. This is where all CNG alerts were being sent. The email address they had their CNG Members’ account under was their professional email address, one that they had from their employer. At some point, they may have updated their CNG Email Alerts address, but when this happens, the email in your CNG Member’s Profile stays the same, and does not update.

Once they were verified as an existing CNG Member, we sent them their username/email address they established the account with via email. They were able to login and update their profile with their LinkedIn Profile, update their username, and change the email that is associated with their account.

Situations like this arise from time to time, and many of the circumstances were unique to the CNG Member mentioned here. This reminds us of why its so important to log into your CNG Member’s Profile and make sure your information is up to date, and that you have a username that is unique to you, and not necessarily tied to an email address.

Initially, usernames and passwords are the same as with the original CNG Members’ area, meaning:

1)   When you log in, your username will be the email address you established your account with

2)   Your password will be the same as what you established your account with.

So how do you change your username? Follow these steps:

1)   Login using your current username/email and password .

2)   In the sidebar, click on the Edit My Info/Change Password link.

3)   Choose the “Change My Username” link and follow the directions shown.

What if you can’t login? Don’t panic. First, try your current email address as your username, and what you remember to be your password. If you have no success there, try using older email addresses you may have had with the same password. There’s also the ability to reset your password and have a new one sent to you by using the “Forgot password? Click here to reset” link underneath the Existing User’s login area in the member’s page. You’ll want to use the

Username and email combination you created your account with, not necessarliy your current email address (unless those are the same).

An up to date Member’s Profile is absolutely necessary if you are to get value when you network with current CNG members, so why wait? Update your profile, add your LinkedIn profile, and get to the business of Networking, CNG style.

• Certification programs are designed to aid the profession and the public that the professional serves.  That public may be an employer, a client and indirectly, the client’s clientele, the certified person’s family and even the nation’s GNP.  No matter who the public is, the certified practitioner has the responsibility to do his/her best for the public he/she serves. 

• While certification is not solely a member benefit, for associations certification signifies continuing leadership in the industry.  For the employer, certification provides a means of distinguishing applicants for hire or applicants for promotion, and it provides a means of demonstrating the employer’s continuing pursuit of excellence.  For individuals, certification provides a means of distinguishing oneself from one’s peers and may mean an increase in responsibility, an increase in influence and career advancement. 

• Certification programs have their own industry standards for development.  Certification best practices have been published by associations such as American Educational Research Association (AERA), National Organization for Competency Assurance (NOCA); they have been enacted into law as employee selection guidelines (41 CFR§60.3) and have become the focus of an international standard (ISO/IEC 1704) for which ANSI has developed an accreditation program that was adopted by ASTM and that has become the American national standard. In other words, any old test just won’t do.  

In short, a certification program provides a candidate with proof that he/she has the knowledge to practice and to make sound judgments.  It provides the industry with a conduit for ensuring that candidates have the knowledge considered essential for practice.  It provides associations with an opportunity to increase their influence and membership and it provides them with knowledge that can be used to guide its education programs, conference content and specific member benefits.

Mickie recently posted an
announcement to this network related to an ASAE project covering competencies of
certification professionals. She indicated that the project was not similar in
nature to the project NOCA has announced. I would like to clarify to everyone
that the development of competencies for certification professionals by the ASAE
Professional Development Council would, in fact, represent a similar if not
identical effort already announced and initiated by NOCA. Of course, the ASAE
Professional Development Council may elect to proceed with its project but but I
would like everyone to understand it represents a duplication of efforts of what
NOCA is already pursuing.

I would encourage all of you to consider
participating in NOCA’s job analysis process. The results will be used to
further develop NOCA’s education and training programs as well as provide the
foundation for other credentialing related products and services for
certification professionals. We anticipate and welcome other entities to use the
tool created by NOCA to develop educational programs for their
members.

Jim Kendzel
NOCA, Executive Director

We had a great meeting and more than 150 members signed up.  The membership continues to grow and we are at 500, exactly, today. That's 500 active, networking, deep-into-certification professionals.  (By the way, if you have not gone to the JOIN tab on the CNG web site lately, you need to do that now.  The information you put on the JOIN form overwrites the latest information we have from you. If we don't hear from you or see you at a meeting for 9 months, we assume you are not networking and that just quietly dissolves you from the group.)

Right before the December meeting, we have the annual gathering of the steering committee and all of the representatives from all of the CNG Sponsor companies and organizations to brainstorm and decide on the programs, priorities and new projects for the year ahead.

Our leader of certification leaders, Trish Serratore, moved the group through a great discussion of how will we make the CNG experience even better in 2009 for all members, new members, the growing numbers who are networking virtually from places far from Washington, DC, and for the increasing numbers of service providers, looking for ways to work their way into the credentialing industry.

The great news is we worked through the program topics, program leaders and ideas for the March, June, September and December events for 2009.  We brainstormed some special programs at other times of the year, such as the special symposium we conducted in 2007 at the AIA Conference Center from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., including the luncheon, which went over so well.  We hear the requests from our members in Chicago, Philadelphia, midwest and western cities to convene programs there.  We plan to do something special and new in those cities.  We hear the requests for going virtual with the programs, not just the networking, chatting and problem solving on our LinkedIn for Groups area and in this blog.

Add this to the top of your list for 2009, as well:  Click here to go to the CNG Group on Linked In and make sure you are active in that group.  You will know it the following ways.  Look at your profile on LinkedIn and make sure you see the CNG Group logo on your profile page.  If you clicked on that link and it says you are already in the group, then click on the MEMBERS tab and see if you are showing up along with the list of all the other members you can see when you click on that MEMBERS tab.  On the other hand, if you clicked on that link and it offered you the option to ask to join the group, then you just found out that you are not in the middle of the conversation and fun.  You need to correct that immediately by adding the CNG link to your profile.  

We have 500 members and about half of them have completed their LinkedIn connection.

We have an active chat area in LinkedIn and if you are not in the middle of the conversations, you are missing out on some interesting questions and responses from other CNG members. 

Final word on getting the most out of 2009:  Network

It's not called neteating or netsitting or netlurking.  It's called networking and that means getting off the bench and into the game.

Ahead:  More details about the programs and special task forces (you can sign up for any of them right here, right now) to make sure you are totally equipped to navigate the choppy waters of 2009 and have all the help and support you need from your colleagues in CNG.