MITEC at IBEX 2008

Council Members Staff the MITEC Booth at IBEX 2008

How can we retain our ability to effectively service our customers at non servicing dealers???

Hello to all….. And thank you for allowing me to join this networking community. I, like many other technicians in this industry have found myself in a dilemma. Since 2001 I have been a certified Volvo Penta technician. I have worked on all aspects of marine propulsion and I believe in the Volvo Penta product. I believe in everything the company stands for, from its commitment to quality….. To safety….to the customer….. And to the environment. I just love the product and could talk all day about it, but unfortunately, I found once I left the Volvo Penta servicing dealer, I also left behind my ability to effectively service my new customers. Even though I find myself at a marina ten times as big as the last one I was at, and with the ability to meet and exceed any customer’s expectations in the care and commitment they receive, there is a territory issue. understandingly so…….and I admire the way they shot me down a half dozen times or so just trying to get my foot in the door as a servicing dealer. It didn’t matter to them how much money this new marina would spend or the training and time they would invest in learning the new product…….. but what about me as an individual…… what about the time I spent learning the product, reading the service bulletins…. what about the time Volvo Penta invested in me and all my training, it’s just not right. We as technicians should be treated like the product and included in the organizations core values, not just be thrown out when we leave a servicing dealer……….and what about when the customer isn’t satisfied with having to bring it to a servicing dealer???? Maybe they don’t want to be “just another work order for some warranty work”. People out there…. the boaters that keep us in business….. Refer to us as “my mechanic”…… I feel a very personal connection to these customers. We treat them with respect and they develop a certain “trust” level where they respect and value our opinion. We need to develop a way to keep the technicians informed and up to date with the ever changing marine industry. A tool like Volvo Pentas “partner network” is invaluable to the technicians in the industry….. And should be at our hands when we need it. Not taken away when we leave the dealership. It should come as a benefit to having completed training and staying current. I would be more than happy to put my own hard earned green backs on the table to continue learning the product and staying up to date. Let’s face it……. if I can keep my customers satisfied with the Volvo Penta product….. They just might buy another one……. why wouldn’t the organization want to keep us helping them sell product???? The least the orginazition could do is offer a program where we could stay up to date on our own through e learning or the ability to attend classes at our own expense. Please , if anyone out there is listening…… dont let us as, the technicians, long time supporters and devoted followers of the industry leaders go to waste. some of us out here have already made this a life long career choice. lets help build a better future for those to come. Anyone else out there feel my pain???

Marine Trades Skills Assessment

Hello. Does anyone have a Marine Trades Skills Assessment they are willing to share? Thanks!

Women and Technology

I’ve seen a number of interesting articles lately about women and technology, with a great on-going discussion taking place on the “Girly Geekdom” website, which includes a link to a New York Times article about how and why women are leaving technology careers for other fields, where they receive better treatment.

I can’t help but wonder how much of this is going on in hands-on technology, too. As we noted at COMITT, we are not a very “diverse” group. What can we do to change that?

"Are You Taking Advantage of Web 2.0?"

Thought some of you might enjoy reading David Pogue’s column on Web 2.0 from today’s New York Times “Circuits” feature. It will remind you of some of the things Hilary Mason told us at COMITT:

Are You Taking Advantage of Web 2.0?
By DAVID POGUE

At a conference for the public-relations industry a couple weeks ago, I was asked to speak about Web 2.0—those interactive Web sites where we, the public, supply the material (Facebook, MySpace, Craigslist, eBay, YouTube, Flickr, TripAdvisor, and so on, not to mention blogs, podcasts and amateur video).

Before my talk, though, an emcee warmed up the audience with an exercise. He pointed out the wireless laptops on every table in the ballroom, and explained that anything typed on them would appear on huge screens. Using this instant-feedback mechanism, he posed P.R.-related questions to the attendees and commented on the responses as they appeared on the big screens.

One of them was: “Why isn’t your company (or client) taking advantage of Web 2.0?”

The audience loved that one; within seconds, there were 132 responses on the screen in a huge, scrolling list. “Not enough money.” “Don’t understand it.” “No technical resources.” “Not enough manpower.” “No visible return on investment.” “Fear of ridicule.” “Fear of slander.” “Fear of permanence.” “Fear of the public running amok.”

The fears are rational enough: over and over again, we’ve all seen blog comments devolve into juvenile, offensive bickering, backstabbing and grandstanding.

Even during my early blogging days, The Times’s blogs didn’t have comments. And yet, as several of my own readers wrote: Without comments, a blog is not a blog at all. It’s just a Web page—Web 1.0.

The solution, of course, was moderation. A couple of years ago, The Times opened up my blog to comments, and the results have been spectacular. The quality of discussion on Pogue’s Posts is just astonishing. An assistant and I moderate the comments (which sometimes run into the hundreds for a single post), removing comments containing spam or obscenities. But otherwise, we approve every single comment. And the humor, wisdom and good nature on display is just amazing. If you compared these comments with the unmoderated ones on, say, YouTube, you would assume these were forums patronized by completely different species.

Another example: When Microsoft was developing Windows Vista, it actually permitted its programmers to blog about their progress. There was a security blog, a Windows Media blog, a Shell blog (about the actual user interface), and so on.

They were absolutely fascinating. They were glimpses into a faceless corporate world the public had never been offered before. Here were discussions of the process, the feedback, the features that were under consideration.

I still laugh when I think of one completely tongue-in-cheek post called “Features that didn’t make the cut.” “We have taken flack in the past for Minesweeper and its use of mines,” wrote the slap-happy Microsoftie. (In that standard Windows game, you click a grid, trying to avoid finding the mine hidden under one of the squares.) “Although we don’t have land mines in the USA, in many countries they are experienced in daily life, and are not something to make light of in a video game.”

The proposal for Vista, he wrote, was therefore to replace Minesweeper with Mimesweeper, where the goal is to click grid squares without uncovering Marcel Marceau.

Ultimately, though, this idea was dropped from Vista—because “Although we don’t have mimes in the USA, in many countries they are experienced in daily life, and are not something to make light of in a video game.”

Now then. We all know, intellectually, that no matter what image a corporation tries to project, it’s made up of ordinary people with personalities, insecurities and lives. But because the marketing and P.R. teams work so hard to scrub, control and package a company’s image, the public ordinarily sees none of that human side.

When a company embraces the possibilities of Web 2.0, though, it makes contact with its public in a more casual, less sanitized way that, as a result, is accepted with much less cynicism. Web 2.0 offers a direct, more trusted line of communications than anything that came before it.

It’s not just blogging, either. It could be podcasts. Or videos. (One blender company has quintupled its sales by posting hilarious amateur videos at WillItBlend.com.) Permit the public to make mash-ups using your company’s characters, logos, music or products. Let’s have some more inside looks: at your product design cycles, your focus groups, your rejected designs, your employee cubicle videos.

Yes, you’ll have to moderate this stuff. Yes, it means spending money with no immediately visible return on investment. Yes, it’s more work for everyone.

But you’ll gain trust, goodwill and positive attention. You’ll put a human face on your company. And you’ll learn stuff about your customers that you wouldn’t have discovered any other way.

Marine Industry Career Ladder

Interested in helping us devise a marine-industry career ladder? Go to http://marinelear.ning.com/groups/careerladder to join the group! Or click on the link to “Groups” above.

Coast Guard to hire more marine safety personnel

part of ongoing effort to enhance marine safety mission effectiveness

MITEC’s Projects

Current & Upcoming Projects

• Career-awareness web site promoting the marine trades, as well as workforce development information
• Catalog of marine industry technical training programs, primarily for the U.S. and Canada.
• Industry-wide technical skills analysis
• COMITT (Conference on Marine Industry Technical Training)
• Industry-wide needs analysis

Long-term Projects

• Exploration of establishing an accreditation program, as well as a workforce certification program
• Implement Learning Management System
• Scholarship programs

MITEC’s Mission

The mission of the Marine Industry Training & Education Council (MITEC) is to facilitate the development and sustained availability of a technically skilled and proficient workforce for the marine industry through education, training and professional development.

The supporting mission of the Council is to promote public awareness of technical workforce career opportunities in the marine industry. The missions will be realized in part by:

• Producing and disseminating technical workforce public information education and career awareness materials for multiple media outlets.
• Serving as the coordinating entity for those industry and educational organizations desiring to participate in this voluntary, consensus-based program.
• Coordinating, managing and disseminating an annual catalog of all known marine industry technical education and training currently being offered in North America.
• Establishing and managing an internationally recognized technical workforce continuing education and training program that recognizes and awards educational credits to persons participating in the program.
• Establishing, coordinating and maintaining an automated, electronic database management system to provide essential educational record keeping, certificate production and transcripts for technical workforce personnel who volunteer to participate in the program
• Administering the program with the administrative service support of ABYC or any other entity or staff the Council determines best meets its needs.

MITEC’s Core Values

MITEC’s Core Values

Serve Industry Needs
We value and recognize the needs of all groups within the industry we support and strive to provide solutions to address the shortage of workforce technicians for all our constituencies. As we develop solutions it is crucial that we achieve industry support and cooperation. We commit to promoting a sense of pride and professionalism in being a technician and working within the marine industry.

Leadership & Collaboration – Industry and community
We will strive to lead rather than follow and to become a primary “information resource” for the marine industry and our target publics. We will set the example for engagement and sharing amongst ourselves and with other organizations. We are dedicated to relationship building and fostering partnerships essential to our success.

Long-term commitment
We are optimistic and committed by our collective desire to improve and sustain the industry’s workforce. We will be accountable for the established mission, goals and initiatives and we seek to demonstrate through action a measurable impact. This is a sustained long-term commitment.

Transparency, Credibility and Integrity
As a Council, we value honesty and participation and operate within an open and inclusive process. We endeavor to maintain the highest standards of excellence in all we pursue, and build consensus in favor of our decisions. We can and will strive to accomplish our mission.

Dedication to Learning & Knowledge Retention and Application
We operate under the philosophy that there is a need for lifelong learning and understand the importance of retaining core knowledge and skill sets within our industry. We strive to communicate that there is a clear path to career growth that can be attained through education, training, professional development and hard work – not only for industry but also for the community. As a Council, we must also watch, review, analyze, collaborate with and learn from other industries and organizations as part of a continual improvement process.

Proactive & Accurate Communication
We recognize that it is extremely important that the Council communicates to its working committee members and to industry constituents regularly and in a timely and effective manner on several levels. We value the ability to involve stakeholders in our projects and ensure that we will maintain a free and steady flow of information to our internal and external constituencies, while establishing a visible and prominent identity.