idqcert.iaidq.org

Wow, that was an experience! It’s Monday morning and I am now sitting airside at RDU waiting to start my journey back to the UK. I now have energy and brain capacity available to blog.

Let’s talk about the mechanics of the workshop first.The IAIDQ has hired Castle Worldwide to guide us through the process of developing the Certification Process. The workshops took place at their headquarters in Morrisville NC over Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Our facilitator was Dr Scott Bublitz an organisational psychologist who does about one of these exercises every month for organisations seeking to develop a certification process. The success of the weekend owes much to his facilitation skills. As a group we were extremely passionate (probably the most passionate that Scott has ever seen). We worked some 30 hours over three days.

Information Quality professionals need to be driven and stubborn in order to overcome the huge inertia there is in most organisations—people can see there is a problem but are often unwilling to address it. As a result our exchanges were vigorous but always well-mannered. As a Brit I was impressed by the general courtesy expressed and by the use of good meeting and debating skills; fostered, I suppose, by involvement in high school debating societies.

It was interesting that the female members of the group tended to act to resolve conflict and heightened emotions. Brenda has a whistle that would stop rutting moose in their tracks and Liz D has a steely determination that we should succeed. Here’s her mantra, delivered late on Saturday afternoon when we getting bogged down .

From IAIDQ LTA Workshop

When work was over we partied quite hard too. A Texas Steakhouse was a new experience for me and I was puzzled by the need for two forks. Some of us made two visits to Carmen’s Cuban Café. This was notable for three things: the food, which was excellent; Walid’s faux pas in asking innocently for a Cuban cigar and the round of Jack Daniels given to us by the proprietor, who looked like a teak-built gangster.

Ok, time to board now, speak to you all later.

The IAIDQ is holding a three day workshop in Raleigh North Carolina (3rd to 5th October 2008). The purpose of the workshop is to identify the domains, tasks, skills and knowledge areas of an IQ professional.  The results of the workshop will be used to develop the certification exam questions and certification program provided by the IAIDQ.

The IAIDQ has contracted with CASTLE Worldwide, Inc., a company that specializes in the development, validation and administration of professional certifications, to work collaboratively in establishing an IAIDQ-sponsored IQ professional certification.

The participants in the workshop are:

• Brenda Maas
• Christian Walenta
• Danette McGilvray
• Elizabeth Davis
• Elizabeth Pierce
• Jeff Monica
• Jeff Pettit
• John Talburt
• Keith Underdown
• Lwanga Yonke
• Walid el Abed

They are all acknowledged experts in the field and from various backgrounds and countries, including the UK, Switzerland as well as the States.

I am Keith Underdown from the UK. I will blog on the process. Obviously at the moment we need to keep our findings under wraps but I hope the blog will give an insight into the community we are developing and the progress of the process.