The SDA National Certification Committee’s purpose is to administer and oversee SDA’s certification program: Certified Design Firm Administrator (CDFA).  The CDFA is the industry standard in evaluating and promoting A/E/C business professionals. The committee is tasked with advancing the CDFA program, conveying its value, maintaining and updating the test resource guide, and ensuring compliance with the CEU requirements for all CDFAs. 

Our current committee members are:

Co-Chairs:

• Nikki Pierce, CDFA, LEED BD+C, Clark Nexsen, Member-at-Large
• Nancy DeLoatch, CDFA, Wendel, Atlanta Chapter

Members:

• Jessica Berlier, CDFA, Gensler, Member-at-Large
• Drucilla Brookshire, CDFA, CCCA, Retired, Member-at-Large
• Deborah Gill, CPA, FSDA, Profit by Design, Hampton Roads Chapter
• Vincent Lafitte, CDFA, Steven & Wilkens, Atlanta Chapter
• Pat Leyden, CDFA, Retired, New York Chapter       
• Stacy Rowland, CDFA, Berger Partnership, Seattle Chapter
• Annette Scott, CDFA, Clark Nexsen, Member-at-Large
• Kurt Wong, CDFA, Studio Meng Strazzara, Seattle Chapter

ExCom Liaison:

• Anne McNeely, CDFA, Fentress Architects, Denver Chapter

 Why Should Someone Pursue Certification?

• The CDFA is a symbol of professional achievement
• The CDFA signifies your commitment to the design profession and continued proficiency in administration within the A/E/C field
• Validation of expertise in A/E/C firm administration
• Enhanced self-confidence and self-esteem
• Enhanced marketability and ability to compete in the job market
• Increased personal and professional recognition and respect
• Increased opportunities for upward mobility
• Increased level of competency to manage an A/E/C firm office
• A sense of empowerment, accomplishment, and pride
  

What Does the Certification Committee Do?

• Maintain, edit, and update the Resource Guide--laws, policies, technology, etc. all change constantly and quickly; the Resource Guide needs to be an accurate and up-to-date source of information for the design firm professional
• Attend monthly conference calls to discuss ongoing tasks
• Update the exam so applicants are being tested on the most current material
• Create, update, and maintain relevant study materials for CDFA candidates
• Create content to promote the CDFA program and encourage people to apply
• Oversee audit process to confirm compliance with the required 18 hours of CEUs
• Oversee the CDFA testing
• Answer questions from exam applicants on the CDFA-yoU forum
• And the fun part: presenting new CDFAs with their CDFA pin at EDSymposium!
  

How Do You Get Certified?

Look for more information on the SDA website under Certification or ask around in your chapter. 

How Do You Get Involved?

If you’re already certified, perhaps now is the time to mentoring someone else through the process of certification, or start a study group in your chapter or firm.  Consider joining the Certification committee to help others obtain their certification. Contact Nancy DeLoatch, CDFA or Nikki Pierce, CDFA for more information.

"It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently."

-- warren buffett

Before the age of social media, you and your firm’s reputation was crafted largely through word of mouth communication and print media. Those who wanted to get the word out about their work attended events, networked and pitched themselves to writers who were the gatekeepers to media. Building a reputation took time.

Fast forward to today. Google, social media platforms, online forums and other digital channels provide a vast array of digital real estate to contain things to be said about your firm and its work. Clients and other parties can sculpt an organization or firm’s reputation by providing comments, feedback and testimonials online. Building a reputation can happen faster than ever before. Unfortunately, damage to a reputation can also happen with record speed.

What is “reputation management”? 

Reputation management is the process of monitoring, influencing or managing your online search results to shape and influence how a person, organization or business is perceived online. You will often see it referred to as “online reputation management” or ORM. Offline reputation management is what is usually known as public relations. 

Reputation monitoring is one piece of the larger field of online reputation management. Reputation monitoring is knowing or listening to what’s being “said” about your firm online. 

Why monitor your firm’s reputation?

According to a Nielsen report, 92% of people trust recommendations from friends and family. After suggestions from friends and family, 88% of consumers trust online reviews (what is said about a company online) as much as they trust recommendations from personal contacts. Managing and maintaining that positive reputation is just good business.

Especially for firms whose market share is private sector or reputation driven, monitoring the conversation around the firm and its brand can be a strategy to improve the bottom line, increase the number of project inquiries and ultimately improve the number of commissions secured. 

Monitoring online mentions allows a firm to listen for negative feedback and respond quickly. It can also find positive mentions or a mention of a firm project or quote from a firm member. You can maximize the good coverage by sharing across your own media channels and even thanking the author blogger creating a connection for perhaps future mentions that the firm can acknowledge, 

What else to monitor?

In addition to tracking a company’s brand, there are other strategic items that are worth considering. Here are some other items to consider tracking:

1. Think beyond the brand name. Moving beyond firm name, consider any acronym, nickname or shortened form. You may want to track mentions related to key members of the firm or staff. Insider tip, if a partner’s name is pretty common, put the name in quotes and then add the term architect. That way it will pull items that have the name and architect mentioned somewhere. 
2. Track names important to the firm. This could include VIP clients or business development of future VIP clients. Consider adding their names or businesses. This can be a good way to stay informed of what is going on in your client’s world. Again this can work both ways allowing you to congratulate them, get market research about them or get an early inkling of market changes.
3. Follow inspiration. Monitor firms that inspire you. Notice what blogs and news outlets are covering them and reverse engineer the process if you want them to say the same about you. You can use alerts for your competitors or even your firm’s role models to stay abreast of what’s working, what’s not and what’s hot. Tony Robbins says “success leaves clues” and this is one tool to discover those tools so your firm can model the successes.
4. Watch keywords. Using your firm’s keywords is another way to get value. As said in number 1 above, make the effort niche this term or you will flood your daily inbox. For example “school design” may be too broad, but “net zero energy” “school design” could hit a sweet spot. Additionally, by setting up alerts around your firm’s keywords, you can monitor key conversations across the web where your firm might want to position itself as a thought leader in such conversations. 
5. Detect trends. By tracking key terms within our industry, you can watch for trends and changes. 
6. Discover new outlets for PR. By following your inspiration and watching keywords, you can discover which outlets, writers, and bloggers are covering your market.
7. Learn about new potential clients or projects. When keywords include a project type, you may discover announcements of future plans for new projects.  

How to Monitor Using Google Alerts 

It’s been around for ages, but many firms still don’t know about the power of using Google Alerts or forgot to harness it. 

Google Alerts is a free change detection and notification service. When you set up an alert, anytime Google’s magic bots detect one of your terms, it alerts you by email or RSS feed. While a Google Alert is not perfect, it is a valuable and free starting point.

How to set up a Google Alert:

• Log into a Google account. 

If you have access to more than one, strategically choose the one you use. For example, an alert to marketing@yourfirm won’t bother you when you get that big raise to ceo@yourfirm. But one sent to your personal business or personal non-business account will leave a void for the firm, or follow you.

• Go to Google.com/alerts.
• Enter the words, names, or brand you want to follow In the blue box at the top of the page. Below the box, Google will show you an “Alert preview” of the type of items that might be tracked with that word or phrase when you get the word or phrase you want.

TIP: Use operators to tweak search results to those most relevant to you. You can use a hyphen (-) before a word to exclude it from the search, a tilde (~) before a word to return synonyms or similar terms, or quotation marks (“) for an exact match. 

• Go to “Show options”. There you can edit
  • how often you want the alert sent,
  • what sources you want searched,
  • languages,
  • region, and
  • number of results
• Click “Create Alert”

Going beyond the basics.

Above, I shared Google Alerts as a free, basic way to monitor that will “push” the information to you. I said basic because Google Alerts is limited. It primarily tracks sources that Google indexes like web news and blogs. 

If you want to track social platforms as well, you will need to look at an additional service. Depending on your firm’s marketing budget you may want to look into a more robust platform. For an easy to follow spreadsheet that compares 19 monitoring services, see this chart by Alfred Lua from Buffer. Besides costs, pay special attention to the platforms supported. If you are going to pay for the monitoring make sure it’s covering the platforms that apply to your firm. 

Next steps.

If you don’t have any Google Alerts set up, go now and set up your first. Track mentions of your firm or even yourself.

Are you already using Google Alerts? Share with us how you use them in the comment box below!

Liz Harris, FSDA, is the Firm Administrator for Kevin Harris Architect in Baton Rouge, LA.

She is the Co-Chair of the SDA National Public Relations Committee for the 2020-2021 Term.

The application period for SDA Fellows is now open and ends October 31.  We recently interviewed our Fellows about the process and the designation. In Part 1, our Fellows identified four different ways the FSDA designation advanced their careers and life path.  

Fellowship provides a path forward. With many SDA members comprising the entirety of the firm's back office, or part of a small team, it can often feel like a dead end.   SDA Fellow Deborah Gill, noted that for those members, Fellowship provides a path forward. “Firms are small; they’ve reached the highest position attainable; it’s easy to just stay in the same position,” says Gill. “Following the path to Fellow gives senior members motivation and inspiration to take on a new challenge.” Plus, there’s the added mystique, “personally, even though I’m at the end of my career, I believe it adds a ‘je ne sais quoi’ to my signature as a consultant.”

Fellow gives credibility and recognition. Operating in support roles, SDA members often struggle to be seen as the critical team members they are. As Fellow Liz Harris notes, “the concept of “Fellow” or fellowship status is well known and well regarded in the A/E/C industry. Industry insiders immediately “get” that being a Fellow signifies a special recognition of ability, achievement, and leadership. It’s a designation that opens doors and reduces barriers”. 

Debra Ellis agrees, “One member in my firm that did not recognize all my prior accomplishments (National President, CDFA, being on the State Licensing Board) but when I became a Fellow, he was very impressed and began to see me in a new light.”

Sabrina Heard noted that while FSDA is a professional milestone in SDA, “it is a bigger status symbol in our community. It tells everyone that we know what we are talking about.” 

Fellow allows you to reflect upon your professional growth. It’s no secret that SDA members are busier than ever, responding to new and never before known business challenges. With all that time rowing the boat, there’s often little left for navigating and taking in the view. “While completing the application, I was able to see my professional accomplishments,” said Debra Ellis. “It gives you the view to see you still have room for growth in your career.”  

Harris added “You get a rare chance to see a snapshot of your life, work, and volunteer journey. That photo may bring you satisfaction and joy, helping you see and articulate just how far you’ve come. It may even reflect a small detail upon which you’d like to improve. Either way, the exercise will help you understand your progress, articulate your value, and focus on opportunities for improvement.”

Fellow offers a way to stay involved and give back. Giving back and staying engaged as you mature along your work-life journey, is shown to be beneficial to you and the larger community.  “I think it’s important to share your wealth of knowledge with members and the industry. It’s fulfilling to play a role to advance the next generation of leaders in our firms and organization,” said Stephanie Kirschner.

Stay tuned! In Part 2, we’ll share how to supercharge your career path with the power of the FSDA application. And, you don’t need to be ready to apply to reap the benefits.

Ready or not, download the application today and see what is needed to advance your career.  Learn more here.

Special thanks to Judy Beebe, FSDA, for conducting the survey and to all of our Fellows for their responses to make this two-part series possible.