IABC Media Relations Commons

Sometimes, we all know that effective media relations means getting your story out first.

When Ned Lundquist, ABC, joined IABC’s international accreditation council in mid-2004 as director of marketing, he set ambitious goals. He wanted to put a process in place by which IABC would end up with 2006 accredited business communicators by the end of 2006.

At the time, we had about 640 accredited members in an association of between 12,000 and 13,000 members.

Ned’s logic was simple. If every current ABC found one person to be accredited for each of those two years, and if those candidates successfully completed the process, we would easily achieve that goal.

So he talked it up. And we supported him.

At our council meeting in Seattle in February, 2005, when I was still vice-chair, I told Ned that we would be unable to achieve his goal. We operate as a volunteer-driven peer review process. Between February, 2005, and December, 2006, we would need our volunteers to grade approximately 2,600 portfolios (two per candidate) and 3,900 exams (each exam is sent to three evaluators).

To which Ned replied: “It may not happen, but at least I can say that I tried.”

Yesterday, I received an e-mail from Toronto-based blogger Brian Kilgore, who writes BAK’s Report:

Ned, do I remember a plan by the IABC accrediation (sic) people, i.e. Ned, to have 2006 accredited members by 2006? Seems to me I qwrote (sic) about this a couple of years ago, thiking (sic) it would be a real challenge.

Well, it’s 2006.

As of the annual meeting in Vancouver, can either of you tell me how many IABC members there are, and of these, how many are accredited?

In Seattle, I told Ned I will continue to support him. And I do.

We will not achieve Ned’s ambitious goals. But he (and the other members of IABC’s international accreditation council) have been extremely successful.

Last year, we had a record number of applications for accreditation. In fact, for the first time in history, we had a surplus of revenue over expenses (most of the council’s income comes from application fees).

We now have 754 accredited members in an association of 13,549 business communicators. We have a long way to go, but we’re headed in the right direction.

Yesterday, Gail Pickard, ABC, and I conducted an accreditation information session at IABC’s international conference. We optimistically expected 20 or 30 people to show. We were overwhelmed when more than 190 people arrived.

It’s the first time I’ve ever talked about accreditation to a standing-room-only crowd.

So thank you, Ned and other members of council, for your work in growing the only internationally-consistent designation in public relations, business communication and organizational communication.

And thank you, Brian, for providing the opportunity to tell our story.

Eric Bergman, ABC, APR, MC
Chair, IABC International
Accreditation Council

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 6th, 2006 at 3:29 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.