View this page "Membership Categories"

[Len Inkster ISP, MBCS, CITP, MIAPP, MIISP]

Click on http://groups.google.com/group/cips-ontario/web/membership-categories
- or copy & paste it into your browser's address bar if that doesn't
work.

[Pat Gaudet]

Hello, Len -- Many of the categories you have described already exist
(although not exactly as you have described) such as Professional
(I.S.P.) < http://www.cips.ca/standards/isp/default.asp >, Fellow <
http://www.cips.ca/join/fellows/ >, Candidate (I.S.P.) <
http://www.cips.ca/standards/isp/candidate/ >, etc.. Other than in the
by-laws < http://www.cips.ca/about/constitution/bylaw.asp?load=bylaw1#by
> they are not summarized / publicized in one place on the website - I
agree that this would be beneficial. I suggest you speak to Mary Jean
Kucerak and Adam Cole to clarify the current details about membership
categories so you can respond to queries with about the current
situation.

[GinavanDalen]

Hi Len - to clarify, there indeed are two national membership
categories - Regular Member and Student Member. However, under these
two categories there are the privileges such as Regular I.S.P.,
Regular Candidate Member, Student etc.

The main difference between CIPS and other professional associations
is that the "Regular" Membership is our main (not necessarily
"P"rofessional) membership category, instead of assuming that all CIPS
members are in varying degrees of professionalism and structure
membership categories around that notion. I think we are slowly moving
towards that vision with the new governance model, where we will have
"P" professional members, "P" pre-professional members (Candidate
Members), ''p" Student Member (and put these people on the path of the
"P"), Associate Member etc. The shift in member categories (vs.
assigning privileges to a "Regular" member) from "p" to "P" is
something that will need to happen at some point to better position
the organization to fulfill its mission.

The change to new national membership categories would require a by-
law change.

What I believe is equally important is the diversification of the
I.S.P. Is the I.S.P. really a one type fits all of designation or
should there be a distinction between someone from a four year bacc.
program (or equivalent) and someone from a community college (or
equivalent). I believe that BCS has made that distinction with the
introduction of the CITP. You can now be a Member of the BCS (college
level or equivalent) or a CITP (the Gold Standard - bacc. level or
equivalent). We don't have a gold standard within CIPS. Our gold
standard is the I.S.P. and from a marketing perspective I believe that
there is some significant changes that could be made to not only more
clearly make that distinction, but also present a broader appeal to
the various market segments.

[Len Inkster ISP, MBCS, CITP, MIAPP, MIISP]

Gina/Pat,

I am responding to both as I feel you have both made valid points, and
I want to expand on then, as I beleive this is a way in which we can
make a positive change to the way CIPS is viewed as a professional
organisation.

There are categories of memberships at present, but they are exclusive
categories. In order to appeal to a wider audience, and be inclusive
to all, the membership categories offered by CIPS need to identify the
relationship the individual has with CIPS and the IS profession in
general.

The categories I suggested are not set in stone, but to discuss them
further, I will re-iterate my suggestions here, and explain why I made
them, as opposed to what is available now.

Student (SCIPS) - This is obvious by it's title, but is relevant,
because at some point in time we are all students. The distinction I
would make with this catagory is that it is a student that is
preparing to enter the IS profession for the first time, not a Student
who has already been in the profession (like me). Their needs of the
organisation are very much different from those that are already
ensconsed in the profession. Also their finances are different. In
order to reach out to these individuals we need to offer them
something other than the "Professionalism" mantra. This is our raison
d'etre, but not necessarily theirs. So we need to bring them into the
fold, to then expalin why it should run hand-in-hand with their other
goals in life, like getting an education, getting a job, paying for
the beer etc. The access to the CIPS web-sites needs to be tasilored
to their needs as well, they do not need access to all the mundane day-
to-day operations of CIPS, as it will be a real turn-off, but the CPD
stuff is essential to help them. I am digressing into what we would
offer this category so I'll get back on target.

Associate Member (ACIPS) - There are a whole heap of people out there
that are working with IT but are not necesarily in the IS profession
itself. They are unlikely to ever meet the requirements of the BoK in
their current position of employment, but are interested in the thing
we are. These people may eventually move into the IS profession and
acquire the skills that meet the Membership status. By allowing early
introduction to CIPS will show them the benefits of being a member.
It is easier to keep members than to find new ones if you run a tight
ship.

Corporate Member - This is aimed solely at the organisation that has
an IT department, big or small. This allows the company to raise the
profile of their organisation by ensuring their IT staff have an
objective bar that can be used as an industry measure to advocate the
Organisations Professionalism.

Member (MCIPS) - This is as it is at present

Certified Member (MCIPS-ISP) - This is where we need a lot of effort
to try to reduce the huge Scope this "Gold standard" covers. We
really need to be able to stream this into sub-section to align with
the skills the holder has. This will make the ISP more atractive to
hold, as it will neatly identify the skills of the holder, but also
will make it more valuable to the prospective employer, as it will
more clearly define the capabilites of the individual holder. We
could, for example, stream it along the lines we are discussing here
in Ontario, such as:

Programming (ISP-Prog)
Business Analysis (ISP-BA)
Networking (ISP-Net)
Operations (ISP-Ops)
Systems Analysis (ISP-SysA)
Architecture (ISP-Arch)
Complete Professional (ISP-CP)

In all of this, the infrastrcuture needs to be in place to support the
marketing and advocacy of these changes, as well as the resources to
allow individuals to move from one level to the next and record their
CPD efforts online to reduce the effort in certification/re-
certification.

I recognise these are a lot of changes, and they all seem to be needed
at once, but these are problems that have built up over years of
pontification, and prognostication, neither of which has fixed
anything. I think now is the time to reduce the amount of air power
in CIPS, and put pen to paper and vote to change things for the
better, both for our members, and the organisations that look (or
should look) towards us to be the standard bearer for IS
Professionalism here in Canada.

We all keep saying the same things, why don't we put these "things"
into action? I say, there's no time like the present.

Comments?

Len

[Adam Cole]

I like your thinking Len and you make some good arguements. However I see a
couple of obstacles:
1. I assume there are bylaw considerations. Not that this is a reason for
not proceeding - just probably means it would require more effort than a
quick fix.
2. There are so many things we should be doing. From a simple cost/benefit
perspective this would fall relatively low on my list. Your cycles are so
much more valuable on the web presence for example.

Having said this, maybe we can work within the confines of the existing
structure to bring about some of your suggestions without the overhead of a
wholesale change.

I am sure your primary interest is to introduce subclasses of the ISP, which
I support. But in this case I think we need to prepare by agreeing on the
subclasses (I tend towards segmentation by business area), required
expertise, knowledge material and exam material,...

Adam

---------------------------------
Adam Cole, B.Math, I.S.P., PMP
Manager - SPS Applications & Development
McKesson Canada SPS
(416) 429-6172 x191
ac...@phase4health.com

[hchat...@urbanmarket.com]

I find "retired" to be a huge misnomer (I can't figure out now how I
ever managed to spent 8-10 hours per day working for someone
else ;-). After 42 years working in IT - I find myself working in a
category that doesn't seem to fit the main stream.

- I still teach - Online primarily (XML, XSLT, XSL-FO and hopefully
UBL if Canada ever gets on the ball with this)
- I still consult - but these opportunities seem to be dwindling -
companies prefer some lower level programmer they can hire for less
than $400 day... who know language xxx ... rather than some very
experienced individual at a higher rate.
- I still research - my first foray into Artificial Intelligence was a
paper accepted into the Worldcomp 06 conference in Las Vegas.
- I use my talents now in multimedia promotions - my first promotional
DVD was 1 or 4 selected from across Canada to win the CTV "Wake up a
Winner Contest". Rewriting web sites to move them from proprietary
status to W3C standard is great fun. Putting together promotional
material for a town like Perth is also quite a challenge.

The yearly cost is something I would prefer to use to upgrade my toys
- especially in multi-media. I could give up my membership and ISP -
but after all these years it seems a shame merely to toss it all
away... and after all, when I add up what I am doing I still
qualify... but it seems to be totally outside the "mainstream".

If there were a lower cost option for those who find themselves out of
the mainline IT stream (like me)[and hence the revenue stream has been
significantly reduced] and with significant years of IT experience -
that might be useful to me.

Just some thought off the top of my head.

Cheers....Hugh

President, CyberSpace Industries 2000 Inc.
Multimedia Promotions
XML Training and Consulting
http://cyberspace-industries-2000.com

Treat yourself to Perth Ontario - http://shop-heritage-perth.com

[Robert Fabian]

Hugh

I'm in the same boat. Well, not quite an identical boat, but similar ...

I describe myself as semi-retired, but I'm still "active" in the field.
For me, "retired" doesn't cut it on several levels. I'm still quite
happy to receive pay for my professional services - I'm just not as
"hungry" as I used to be. But I'm not "retired", i.e. completely out of
the market. And calling myself "retired", as CIPS uses the term, means
that I no longer work at maintaining my professional status. That's not
true, so there's a second reason why "retired" doesn't fit. BUT, my
professional fee revenue stream is dramatically reduced. My compromise
is to describe myself as "unemployed". That gets me a discounted
membership fee, but still requires that I maintain my professional
standing.

I much prefer how I get treated by the IEEE. The sum of my age and
number of years in the IEEE qualify me for the "senior" category. The
fee I pay compares in percentage discount to what I pay as an
"unemployed" CIPS member, but the "senior" title feels so much more
appropriate. I've been pushing this point for the past couple years with
CIPS. There seems to be general acceptance of the value of a designation
similar to the IEEE's "senior". It just hasn't made it to the top of the
priority stack. Maybe if you push, and I continue pushing, we can get
some action this year. It's about time.

Thanks for raising the point.

Bob Fabian

--
Robert Fabian -- rob...@fabian.ca -- 416-769-1885 -- www.fabian.ca

[Stephen Ibaraki]

[Bob says: There seems to be general acceptance of the value of a

designation similar to the IEEE's "senior". It just hasn't made it to the
top of the priority stack. Maybe if you push, and I continue pushing, we can

get some action this year. It's about time.]
Mary Jean, can you add to the executive agenda, the idea of an "Emeritus"
category for CIPS?

Best regards,
Stephen

----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert Fabian" <rob...@fabian.ca>
To: <cips-o...@googlegroups.com>; "Mary Jean Kucerak" <m...@cips.ca>;
"Stephen Ibaraki" <stephen...@shaw.ca>; "Adam Cole"
<AC...@phase4health.com>
Sent: Wednesday, August 15, 2007 6:09 AM
Subject: Re: Discussion on membership-categories

[Len Inkster ISP, MBCS, CITP, MIAPP, MIISP]

I like the sound of that Stephen, "ISP Emeritus", hmm, has a nice
ring to it.