by Mark Sklarow, Executive Director, IECA

The typical student in the United States is awake for about 16 hours a day. School, including getting there and back, and the occasional after school activity, accounts for nearly half of those hours. The balance is meant for family, meals, volunteer commitments, part-time jobs, community sports leagues, church or synagogue, leisure reading and homework.

If that seems like a lot to squeeze into just eight waking hours a day, consider the following: adolescents are spending seven and a half of those hours connected to electronic media! This according to a new study released by the Kaiser Family Foundation. The explosion of multi-purpose cell phones (cameras, game-playing devices, Facebook interfaces), among other developments in the past decade, has dramatically increased such activities. Harry Potter and Twilight aside, these increases have come at the expense of leisure reading.

According to the Kaiser study, adolescents between the ages of eight and 18 average four and a half hours of television-watching daily and an additional two and a half hours listening to music. Of course unlike when we were teens, listening to music meant being holed up in our rooms with the stereo cranked up, today’s music listening often accompanies other activities like chores, reading, and homework.

Another two hours are dedicated to cell phones: text messaging now occupies nearly an hour and a half of each day, while talking on those phones just a half hour. Video games played either on their phone or on the computer accounts for over an hour a day, and at-home, non-school related computing another hour and a half.

Do the math: that amounts to 13 ½ hours, squeezed into less than eight hours thanks to multi-tasking that comes so easily to teenagers today. Back to that image of yourself as a teen, lying on your bed, eyes closed listening to albums through the headphones your parents made you wear rather than disturb the entire house. Today that scene—ear buds plugged into a phone, listening to music while texting friends, catching up on Facebook while finishing math homework. Don’t ask me how it’s possible…I still can’t concentrate on the reporter’s words while trying to read a chyron as it scrolls “breaking news” across the bottom of the TV screen.

I am not sure what message this really brings. I suspect I’m just the latest in 2,000 years worth of older folks worrying about how the newest generation can possibly keep up with the pace of life. But I do hope that college students (medical students in whose care I’ll someday be) are really able to learn their stuff, complete their assignments and retain everything, while connected to so many for so long in so many ways, while they meet the demands of schooling.

by Dodge Johnson, President-Nominee, IECA (Pennsylvania)

I have to say that Mark and I took on a lot of challenges – and that we had a great time gnawing on them.

Our seminar leaders asked us to set an “audacious” goal. So after looking at the member survey, we said, “Okay, why not reshape the world so that families making educational choices ask not whether they should work with an educational consultant but ask instead which IECA consultant would best meet their needs.” I’m sorry to have to tell you that we didn’t get it all done, But we made a pretty good stab at it.

Fortunately, we have Diane’s momentum to build on and her insistence that we plan our future instead of just letting it happen. So we brainstormed about how we might bring our goal to pass. Here are some of our ideas. Members will no doubt have a lot more.

How we can turn our powerful new social networking tools into a megaphone for IECA?

Could alliances with other groups produce not only new friends but also new benefits? For example, schools value how we match clients. That’s why TABS put on their website a search engine where families looking for a school can choose an IECA consultant.

Could advisory boards drawn from colleges/schools/programs suggest how we might establish relationships they’d most like to have with us, get the most out of visits with them, present candidates in ways they find most helpful?

Could we grow more opportunities for consultants to present themselves and IECA to the world – and offer ways to help them make good presentations even more effective.

I’m discovering how important it is for each of us actively to champion IECA as the “gold standard” while championing ourselves. Because the best way to get the world to ask the right question is already to have planted the right answer in their minds.

All this was just brainstorming, of course. The board will decide how we’ll build on our strategic plan and what steps we’ll take to bring us closer to big goals. But I’m excited by the prospect of thinking audaciously.

by Mark Sklarow, Executive Director, IECA

I admit to being a person who is rarely satisfied with the way things are. I believe in the need to change and that includes both personal change and actions to ensure that the Independent Educational Consultants Association continues to move forward, developing new approaches, new programs and new initiatives so that we are always meeting member needs. Allow me to illustrate using just one example. Following an IECA Summer Training Institute in Claremont, California, I sat down with Sue DePra and Steve Antonoff to review the participant evaluations. They were off the charts with virtually every attendee giving the Summer Institute nearly perfect scores, and comments from most attendees that it was among the best training sessions they had ever attended. The three of us then spent the next two hours re-writing the curriculum, developing new interactive elements, implementing ‘labs’ and strengthening the program further. The result was taking a great training program and making it remarkable.

Now as I reflect back on 2009, I feel great about the excellent work of staff, Board and committee leadership, and volunteer members who combined to make it a great year. We advanced dramatically in our efforts to use social networking to promote IECA and the profession, and to improve communications. We initiated new program in learning disabilities and adopted our new Standards of Excellence. We implemented significant changes during our conference: from Speed Meetings to Conference Central and from point/counterpoint sessions to master classes. Participation among colleges has never been higher, and despite the economic downturn our membership is up, conference participation is up, and our training workshops were larger than ever.

But as I look ahead, I know what I want to achieve in the coming year for IECA and for my own work as Executive Director: to take IECA from a great organization to a remarkable one. Looking at the success of America’s most lauded associations, I hope we use their example to become an exceptional force for our members. To become ‘remarkable,’ I think Board, staff and volunteers need to meet these expectations:

• Member Service—we exist as an association for one reason: to meet the needs of our membership. That commitment to member service should always be the top priority.

• Align all services, conferences, and activities with IECA’s mission. That mission, unchanged in 30 years, is to help professional consultants to serve the interests of students and families in their educational decision-making.

• Seek feedback and input from members and our related constituencies. In the next several weeks, members will be asked to complete a strategic planning survey and a survey from the Education & Training Committee. These will set our priorities over the next several years. We have now begun to involve schools, colleges, and programs in conference planning and regularly seek their advice on programming.

• Be willing to fail. As we look to be innovative, creative, and dynamic, we must be willing to accept that success require risk-taking and that means we will fail from time to time. Such failure is inevitable and will lead to new successes.

• A nimble, flexible, national office that is able to meet changes in the marketplace and ensure that such changes are quickly and capably brought to our members to help them succeed in their own work.

• Building alliances with not-for-profit and for-profit companies, institutions, and organizations that will help us further our mission and better serve clients and students.

I look forward to hearing ideas from our members, colleagues, and families on how we can best serve each to make 2010 and IECA remarkable in the year ahead. Join us in this effort: volunteer, get involved in committees, affinity groups, or other efforts, and above all, offer your ideas on what IECA should be doing.

by Mark Sklarow, Executive Director, IECA

Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend an “Executive Forum” of two dozen association CEOs.  While it was a diverse collection based on both size and professional representation, education groups dominated.Being invited to participate provided me with a wonderful opportunity to speak with leaders of groups with whom we share an interest in education and adolescents. Among others, I had the opportunity to discuss possible collaboration with the executive director of the National Association for Gifted Children and began a dialogue with the CEO of the National Association of School Psychologists, among others.  A hat tip to Marriott for sponsoring the gathering.

Among other things I learned during the day, I was most excited by how far in front of other groups we have been in embracing social media. This blog, our Facebook page, our formal training during conferences and our 1:1 tutorials put us well ahead of other groups who are just now moving into this area or who are ensnared in Board policy debates. Diane Geller (president of the Independent Educational Consultants Association) recently noted that IECA’s successes have come in part because of our nimbleness and agility.

Throughout the day we explored topics ranging from legal changes, cost-saving moves and revenue generation. However, it was the presentation on social media that seemed to engage the attendees the most.

I learned that in the association world, at least 94% of members who join in social media, do so as “lurkers.”  They may read or casually observe, but they do so without actively participating. Here too, IECA has broken the mold as hundreds of our members have created their own Facebook professional pages, written for our blog, or posted comments. Nationally, fewer than 5% of organization members get so involved. My goal is to increase that by 5-10 times the participation rate…particularly as we look for new opportunities for our affinity groups, committees, an IECA wiki and more.

As I mentioned at the membership breakfast in Charlotte last month, we do not expect everyone in IECA to follow and participate in every avenue we’ve created. Rather, our goal is to create opportunities so that every member is able to find the one or two communication tools that works best for their needs and interests.

Of course as CEOs, we also explored the new legal world that social media has created and we will need to look at regulations to ensure we meet federal laws, including anti-trust legislation.

I look forward to continued discussions with the other educational groups with whom I spent the day. Opportunities for webinars, educational sharing, and more are to be explored in the coming weeks. I hope that one benefit of IECA membership is our ability to interact with the educational organizations headquartered here in the DC area and around the country.

by Sarah Brachman, Manager of Communications, IECA

In Conference Central at the Charlotte conference, I offered training on social networking for members who wanted assistance. I wasn’t sure what to expect—there’s a lot going on at conferences and I knew that attendees would be busy attending sessions, visiting vendors, attending the fair/swap, and networking with colleagues, so I was afraid I wouldn’t find many people to help. As it turned out, I needn’t have worried about being bored. After the first round of breakout sessions (and after Mark urged attendees to stop by the social networking help desk), I was swamped! Attendees had questions from setting up a Facebook page, deciding between a Facebook page and a Fan page, starting a blog, importing their blog into Facebook, linking their Web site to their ‘tweets’ and their Facebook page, how to keep their client ‘friends’ private, how to send photos from their iPhone to their Facebook page, and how to use their Blackberry (that one stumped me). Long-time professional members and new associate members came by; some twenty-somethings and some more seasoned. Everyone had different social networking questions, and I loved the challenge. I also thoroughly enjoyed getting to know all who stopped by. I talk to or e-mail many of you throughout the year, but sitting down with members and working through these technology issues really brought out their personalities.

Since returning to the office, I have been following up with several of you to answer questions I didn’t have time to during the conference, or didn’t have the answer to. And I’ve been visiting the Facebook pages of those I helped to see how they’re coming along. I made sure that everyone I met became a ‘fan’ of the IECA Facebook page to encourage more of you to follow the conversations on our page, and I hope that you will all check this page at least one a day and post your comments. I also encouraged everyone to post photos of campus tours on their Facebook pages, and include some information about the schools they visited as a way to communicate with clients and also to show that you are visiting schools and can share this valuable information with clients. A great example of this is at Stephanie Klein Wassink’s Fan page. I just helped Stephanie just set up her Fan page, and within the hour she had uploaded photos from the tours she attended earlier in the week. Check out her page, and become a fan.

So after working with the 30+ attendees at the social networking help desk I’ll admit I was a bit tired, but I actually felt more invigorated by everyone’s enthusiasm and excitement over learning something new and (hopefully) overcoming some technology fears.

For those of you who have already e-mailed or called me with more questions, keep ‘em coming; for those of you who weren’t able to meet with me, contact me here at the office and I’ll work with you over the phone or through e-mail. I look forward to de-mystifying social networking for those of you who have a healthy fear of technology, to those who want to learn more, and for anyone who just doesn’t have time to figure it all out.

Find me on Facebook! www.facebook.com/sarahbrachman.ieca

by Mark Sklarow, Executive Director, IECA from the IECA Conference in NC

I am blogging live from the Speed Meetings, one of the pre-conference events here in Charlotte, NC. The speed meetings allow schools and consultants to hold a series of brief (7 minute) one-to-one meetings. Held back-to-back through the morning, the meetings will allow schools to meet or re-aquaint themselves with about 20 consultants.

On the surface, seven minutes does not seem like a lot of time, but so far the event seems to be going extremely well! Consultants have time to “discover” a new school, and schools have enough time to explain their philosophy, major initiatives, and create sufficient interest that may lead to follow-up conversations or campus visits. IECA Professional member May Peach just told me that the seven minutes was “perfect” for getting basic information and establishing a good contact.

We are well aware that this is a new initiative and school representatives and consultants alike have been asked to provide feedback over the course of the morning. So, far all are enthusiastic. As an added bonus, AdmissionsQuest is interviewing school representatives and will be posting video to IECA networking sites (see links below) so those not attending the sessions will gain some knowledge and sense of the event.

Links to IECA Networking sites:

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/IECA.IndependentEducationalConsultantsAssn
Blog: http://www.iecaonline.com/blog/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/ieca (#IECAconference)
Photos: http://www.flickr.com/groups/IECA
Video: http://www.youtube.com/user/IECAonline)

by Mark Sklarow, Executive Director, IECA, from the National Conference in NC

Here we are on the eve of the 2009 Fall Conference. Even before we officially open the gathering at 1:00 pm on Wednesday, we will have completed visits to more than 15 campuses by over 140 consultants, 130 attendees will have taken part in pre-conference seminars on financial aid, LD assessments, and customer service. About 60 participants will have joined in the first-ever IECA speed meetings and several groups, including Strategic Planning, Executive Board and the AICEP Board will have met.

Sound like a lot, considering the conference will not have been officially opened? Well, there’s more: 35 vendors will have been engaging arrivals in “Conference Central”;  Our IECA team will be providing information on a number of new member services and offering one-to-one assistance with social media;  AdmissionsQuest, in coordination with IECA, will have already begun its webcasting, blogging, tweeting, and more. All this after the staff prepared for months, and created what became more than 100 cases (!) of materials to be used in the days to come.

And how about more—all still in pre-conference mode! Some 140 IECA members will have attended an early arrivals dinner at Johnson & Wales University. There, all aspects of the program, from menu design, to food prep, to serving, to demonstration were created by culinary students. Other events, hosted by our Outreach Committee, invited very early arrivals to gather together for meals.

If that sounds exhausting consider that once we open the conference, more than 115 speakers and presenters will take part, including some international leaders in education theory. There will be 275 colleges and schools represented in our Thursday fair and another 215 programs for adolescents in our Friday Swap. New affinity groups representing tech-savvy members and international consultants will join our ever-expanding pool of meetings, gatherings and events.

Well over 1,100 attendees will take part in the conference and we hope each leaves with a personal sense that it was of great value to them. Putting on such a conference takes enormous effort, starting with our North and South Carolina members who served on the local host committee, our Board and Committee leaders who jumped in to help plan and execute, the consultants and schools who decided to take a chance on the Speeds Meetings or showcases, and the hundreds who signed up to be part of our first end-of-conference Master Class.

Yet much of the effort falls on the IECA staff. Most national organizations would have a staff of 4 – 8 working exclusively on such a conference. For us, it’s everyone in every department joining in to make it work. IECA has the best staff of any small association in the country. They work together to accomplish far more than organizations three or four times the size. Those in NC this week will see what they’ve accomplished. Be sure to thank them!

Have a great conference!

IECA’s group page on Facebook

by Sarah Brachman, Manager of Communications, IECA

Are you on Facebook yet? You should be simply because it’s an easy (and free!) way to market your practice, it can help you communicate with your colleagues, and it’s another way to stay connected to IECA members, schools, and programs. Once you have set up your Facebook page, join IECA’s group page where you will find recent news from IECA, discussions, national news articles featuring member consultants, and updates from schools and programs. Working with Facebook is fairly simple, and we can help you learn how to use it.

Here are four things to include on your Facebook page:
1. Under your photo (definitely include a photo), in the box “Write something about yourself,” add the name of your business and its Web address (include http:// to make it a live link)

2. In this same box, add information about your practice “specializing in school, college, and therapeutic consulting to help families with their educational decisions” for example.

3. On your “wall,” mention any campus tours that you have recently participated in, and include photos if you can. Let readers know what you have been doing to keep current.

4. Are you writing a blog? Add a link to your blog under your Web address, and add the actual blog feed to your page so every time you post a blog it shows up on your wall.

Do you want to keep your ‘friends’ list private so no one can see who your friends are?
You can create separate friends lists—for example, personal and professional. Then you can add different friends to different lists and edit their security settings. As you receive friend requests you can decide which group you want them in. It’s also helpful if you only want to share videos or photos with certain people. And you can send messages to these groups from the main friends page. To create a separate friends list, follow these steps:

• Go to your ‘Friends’ listing at the top left of the page.
• At the top of the page, click on ‘create new list.’
• Select all of your colleagues, for example, name this list ‘colleagues’ and select ‘create list.’
• At the top right of the page click on ‘Settings’ > ‘Privacy settings’ > ‘Profile.’
• Under ‘Profile,’ click on the ‘Friends’ drop down menu and choose ‘Customize.’
• At the bottom of this window under ‘Except these people’ type in the name of the list you just created (‘colleagues’).

Now the people on this list will not be able to see your list of friends. You can do the same for your Wall postings if you don’t want your colleagues to see what other friends post (just select the ‘Wall Posts’ drop down menu), and you can also restrict who sees your videos and photos.

Want to Hide Status Updates for Certain Friends?
It’s simple. Just hover over the status update of the friend you want to hide. The ‘hide’ button will appear on the right, and when you click it, it will say ‘hide [friend's name].’ Now that friend’s status updates won’t appear on your news feed, they won’t know it, and they will still remain on your friends list.

If you have Facebook tricks and tips you’d like others to know about, feel free to share them here!

by Mark Sklarow, Executive Director, IECA

(from Toronto, at the ASAE Convention)

No topic has been more discussed, debated, praised, and disparaged than the role of social media in the work of associations here at the national convention of association executives.

There are two questions that dominate.  “Do we need to do this?” is raised often by my colleagues who hear a resounding chorus of “yes” from their peers. The other question “WHY are we doing this social networking?” is raised by many more who have established blogs, wikis and LinkedIn groups. Unlike the single word answer to the first question, this one is greeted with everything from blank stares to mutterings about ROI (return on investment), to membership recruitment, to shrugged shoulders.

My answer is different:  Engagement.

IECA’s hope is to fully engage each and every member in the life of the association. We want every Independent Educational Consultant to know what the staff is doing, and planning. We hope the social media efforts we’ve undertaken, including Facebook, this blog, and much more to come, means our members can go further than hearing from us and understanding what we’re working on.

Rather we expect this to be a two-way dialogue: members suggesting ideas, new ways of doing things, offering their opinion, telling us what we’re doing well, and not so well. Our colleagues from schools, colleges and programs can post things to our Facebook page and get an immediate response from our members.

We invite you to join us as we seek to create a dynamic, engaged community of educational placement professionals.