Adobe Photographers directory
Submitted by Matthias Taugwalder on Mon, 2009-05-18 18:35.
What is the current submission process to the Adobe Photographers directory?
Is the corresponding information provided on our website enough? Do we have to complete it (e.g. questions that are asked from Adobe, etc)?
How many of our members are subscribed?
How do we deal with entries of members that are not longer a members of IVRPA?
Re: Adobe Photographers directory
Submitted by Jan van der Woning on Tue, 2009-05-19 23:31.When I took over the presidency of Mike he had only 1 key for the membership of the Adobe Photographers Directory. Because he gave me only little information about the rules to accept someone, I send a message to Kathy Waite of the Adobe DI Community Programs to ask for new keys and the rules and she send me a message back. (see below) It seems that all that time Mike interpreted the rules and granted the keys to the people that wanted to enter, to his words about 100. There seems to be only 82 subscriptions inside the Directory, of which 38 !! are no member (anymore) and 4 of them do not even exist at all in our database! I have made a list made of them. I did not really checked if the others are really professionals , as I am sure some are not. But I do not want spent time to the past only to the future.
We need to send a nice letter to the non members of that list and ask if they will rejoin and that they will be removed from the Directory when they decide to not be a member of our Association anymore.
We need a small “jury” to check the members answers and decide about them joining the Directory according to the rules of Adobe. In the meantime I have granted 3 members to join right after I got the keys and one just yesterday, as mostly they are very eager to get into the directory. They were all professionals. Here follows the text of the emails I got:
Hi Jan
Congratulations on your new role. You should have some codes fro the APD from Michael. If not, I can get you more.
Although Adobe doesn’t endorse members listed in the Adobe Photographers Directory, it is important to uphold a high-quality standard for all members listed in the directory. Association members must meet three of the following criteria:
• Work sample reviewed/approved by peers, jury, or association Board
• Work has won awards in association photography contests
• Major source of earned income for at least the past three years has been derived from photography
• Be sponsored by two members of the association
• Most complete specified education/certificate programs offered by a professional photography association
• Completion of an apprenticeship, accredited photography education program or Master of Photography program
Then about members that are expired
Hi Jan,
Here are some APD codes for IVRPA.
About removing the member—you need to send him an email telling him that he will be removed from the Adobe Photographers Directory, unless he renews his IRVPA membership. If he hasn’t renewed in 30 days, forward me your email to him and I’ll have him removed.
In the website we need to publish the requirements to apply for the Directory. With it we need a kind of form that members can fill in to apply. That will be send to the jury, that will grant or reject the application, with a nice text to accompany
Jan van der Woning, President
List of non members
Submitted by Jan van der Woning on Tue, 2009-05-19 23:39.This is a list of non members subscribed to the Adobe list under our name. I think it is not defendable towards our paying members that not paying members are on that list using our name. They need to get a nice renewal email and if they decide not to join, to be removed from the Directory. It is one of our assets so we need to act.
I also have the list in Word where you can immediately link to their profile on our website, so no need to do all my work over again,
J@N, President IVRPA
Christopher Blake
Michel Briere
JonasCarlson
VRteam
David Goldwasser
Richard Gosler
Torsten Gripp
Robert Harshman
Stefan Irvine
StephenJakub
Vitality
Ian Kerr
Peter Krone
Jens Look
Gary Mackender
Peter McCready
Fabrizio M. Nannini
James Neiss
Zef Nikolla
Gary OBrien
John Paulson
Michael Perry
alex pitt
Frank van der Pol
Roberto Gianni Portolese
Laurie Price
Vincèn PUJOL
Kai Schlender
Virtual Tours N...
Peter Stephens
Deena Steward
Ryan Stoney
Dan Taylor
George Thompson
David Wagner
Dean Weaver
Bart Wilson
Altus Imaging
Re: List of non members
Submitted by Matthias Taugwalder on Wed, 2009-05-20 06:55.Hi Jan, thanks for the update.
Btw. there is also a strange guy from Switzerland subscribed, who climbs mountains ;)
Re: List of non members
Submitted by Carlos Chegado on Sun, 2009-08-30 12:11.What should we do to those that aren't IVRPA members anymore but still listed in the Adobe Photographers Directory under IVRPA?
Carlos Chegado
IVRPA Director
www.carloschegado.com
Re: List of non members
Submitted by GDonaldBain on Sun, 2009-08-30 19:33.Cerification was (theoretically) based on their qualifications, which will not have changed. So we can't just reverse our action based on their membership status.
Any repectable professional certification requires either periodic re-qualification (rare) or a regular program of continuing education (in a past career I administered these in fields such as nursing, paralegals, accounting,and criminal justice). But that is beyond the means of the IVRPA, and frankly the field we work in is not sufficiently well-defined and recognized for that sort of formality.
My personal feeling is that IVRPA/Adobe certification is a farce. Mike saw it as a "goody bag" item, to be handed out uncritically as a membership benefit. To revoke certification based on membership would be confirming that view. I think we should either think the whole certification issue through carefully and make a plan to do it right, or quietly back away.
G. Donald Bain
Bain Digital Graphics
Re: List of non members
Submitted by Aldo Hoeben on Tue, 2009-09-01 08:47.It's up to Adobe, isn't it? Are they happy with a one-time "certification" from a professional association, or do they require periodic certification? AFAIK, its the former.
Re: Adobe Photographers directory
Submitted by Carlos Chegado on Wed, 2009-05-20 10:14.Jan,
I have this proposal:
We should update IVRPA membership page where now says:
Adobe Photographers Directory
Adobe recognises the IVRPA as an association consisting of many talented professionals. Professional member photographers are eligible to be listed on the Adobe Photographers Directory website through their membership in IVRPA.
With something like this:
Adobe Photographers Directory
Adobe recognizes the IVRPA as an association consisting of many talented professionals. Professional member photographers are eligible to be listed on the Adobe Photographers Directory website through their membership in IVRPA if they meet certain criteria(insert link to criteria page), IVRPA members can apply for listing on the Adobe Photographers Directory here(insert link to special form just for that purpose).
I don't think we need to setup another committee just for that. IVRPA members wishing to apply would fill that form and the result is sent to the BoD. BoD members will review the application and in the next regular chat session will vote. If 4 BoD members approve it then it will pass and the member is inserted in the Adobe Photographers Directory.
This way, we setup a procedure that will work without much hassle now and in future years.
Carlos Chegado
IVRPA Director
www.carloschegado.com
Re: Adobe Photographers directory
Submitted by GDonaldBain on Wed, 2009-05-20 18:39.Not another chat agenda item, please!
How about some sort of poll mechanism, where all BoD members are sent the info, then log into the poll and vote. When it reaches the magic number it is approved. An application could be approved quickly, or slowly, or not at all.
Mike had this set up as an automatic benefit of membership, just ask and you get it. I don't think the Adobe rules were taken seriously. In the long run this might backfire on us, if the customer base realized it was a worthless recommendation.
G. Donald Bain
Bain Digital Graphics
Re: Adobe Photographers directory
Submitted by Carlos Chegado on Wed, 2009-05-20 19:05.Hi Don,
Thanks, you made me change my mind about this!
I agree with you that the Adobe Photographers Directory is not such an important issue that we need to spend much time thinking over.
Why are we going to spend such time and effort for such a small thing?
Unless I see some hard evidence that Adobe enforces such rules, we should use this the same way Mike did, as an automatic benefit of the membership.
Who cares anyway?
If we where notified that our members aren't upholding the quality Adobe supposedly wants, then we might give this some consideration, otherwise, it may backfire on us.
We are having a hard time keeping our members, let's not make it easy for them to leave!
Carlos Chegado
IVRPA Director
www.carloschegado.com
Re: Adobe Photographers directory
Submitted by GDonaldBain on Wed, 2009-05-20 19:17.Carlos,
I may have changed your mind, but we are not in agreement.
If we (the IVRPA) wish to be seen as the leading organization representing VR photography we need to have standards, and take them seriously. Giving out the Adobe certification automatically is not the way to do this. We need to do it right, if we are going to do it at all.
How about recruiting a committee of members, people with established reputation in the field, to review applications and pass judgement? We keep talking about getting more member involvement, here is an opportunity.
G. Donald Bain
Bain Digital Graphics
Re: Adobe Photographers directory
Submitted by Carlos Chegado on Wed, 2009-05-20 21:32.Don,
I think this is a classic case of double talk (not you, but Adobe inc.)
Check their terms of service:
http://www.photographersdirectory.adobe.com/terms.aspx?&country=int&lang...
Particularly this neat part:
Adobe is not responsible for examining or evaluating, and does not warrant, any Photographer Content or the offerings of any of the Photographers or their photography services.
I have searched the Directory and found nothing closely related to the terms Jan received (if anyone can find them please help me).
If Adobe wants to be serious about this, then it has to publicly display the conditions for anyone to be a member of this directory.
If we decide to refuse our members to be in this directory based on some criteria that is not endorsed by Adobe, then we will looking like the bad boys blocking our members from participating on this directory.
I am all forward to enforce the mentioned criteria if this is posted explicitly on the Adobe Photographers Directory.
But that is not the case, the only mentioned criteria is to be a member of one of the associations listed there, including the IVRPA!
Unless the mentioned criteria is on the Adobe Photographers Directory we will just look bad and it will backfire on us for sure.
Carlos Chegado
IVRPA Director
www.carloschegado.com
Re: Adobe Photographers directory
Submitted by Jan van der Woning on Wed, 2009-05-20 22:42.Thank you for your comments but I think the following.
Lets keep it simple but do not do it sloppy.
Adobe has given me the criteria to which we have to judge the members. They do not do the judging, we are responsible. Every organization like Adobe will get him self clear from consequensis when someone chooses a photographer from the list. Specially in the States the lawyers are happy to sue you for the sligthest thing.
So I want to suggest the following. To make it not to heavy and to secure a certain quality I think we need not to accept everyone that applies like in the past. Two of the BoD can do the judgement, at least I can see if someone is a pro, alone by looking at his website and see his work and clients. So I would like to do the judgement and I would like to have someone that is looking with me if someone is a pro. This is the main requirement to be in the Directorie, Professional and professionaliy is repeatedly mentioned and how do you judge if someone is a pro. By looking at the criteria they gave me. I did not invent them myself! Thats the way they want to asure that a professional organization like ours is judging the professionals and qualify them.
Look here what they say about it, for me its clear.
What is the benefit of the Adobe Photographers Directory?
The Adobe Photographers Directory allows designers, art directors and image buyers a consolidated global and searchable directory of professional photographers by specialty. The directory gives them a consolidated place to search for photographers that are qualified members of photography associations around the world. For photographers it gives them exposure to users of Adobe industry standard design software. These users have access to the images that represent a photographer's skill and specialty directly from the Creative Suite 2 and Photoshop CS2 via Adobe Bridge.
How do I join the directory?
In order to ensure that the photographers listed in the Adobe Photographers Directory are professional photographers, Adobe will be initially working with professional photography associations in North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. The Adobe Photographers Directory membership will be initially limited to the members of participating professional photographer associations. Adobe will be adding support for additional organizations as new associations are identified and relationships are developed.
Members want a quick judgement, I have judged 4 untill now and 2 already asked the next day, do you know if I can join? If we make it clear on the website and we ask them to fill in the form this can be done in one or max 2 days. Then we do not have a risk as Don remarked that it will backfire on us and we assure ourself that the professional quality is keptand it will be not to heavy and time costing.
Adobe does look at the profile themselves as well and I would not risk to be expelled from the list by some sloppy judgement.
J@N, President IVRPA
Re: Adobe Photographers directory
Submitted by GDonaldBain on Thu, 2009-05-21 03:06.Carlos,
I remember the conditions that Jan mentioned, we could pick which ones we chose to use. We even had a short multiple-choice test for basic VR knowledge, written by Scott Highton.
Simply being a member is not enough, unless the qualifications for membership are equivalent to the conditions for the Adobe listing. I believe that Mike ran the whole thing from the beginning, and you have probably noticed that he was not very detail oriented. Doing things with the least effort and the least thought was his style.
Jan,
I have no doubt that you, and many other of our professional members, can tell right away if someone is qualified or not. But for one person to make that judgement is risky, it can be seen as arbitrary or influenced by personal relations. It would be much better to have a committee of three or more, and a consistent and clearly stated set of standards.
The danger is not about getting sued, it is the loss of credibility and status the organization would suffer is this blew up in our faces. That could either be from someone who hired an "IVRPA/Adobe certified" photographer then found them to be incompetent, or from a photographer that we denied who decided to challenge it publicly. Either way, it would be a PR mess we should avoid.
G. Donald Bain
Bain Digital Graphics