'We have found that salaries for all categories of certified Lotus professionals are higher than Microsoft' - Linda Kennedy, Senior Manager, Certification and Channel Programs, Lotus Education

With close to 150,000 vendor certifications in 1998-99, this country is now ranked second to the US in terms of sheer turnout of ‘ready to use’ computer professionals. Amongst the vendors who top the list of turnouts are Microsoft, Lotus, Oracle, Novell, IBM, Sun, Baan, SAP, Cisco, Intel and a few others. To enhance the development of the Lotus certification program in the country, Linda Kennedy managing the worldwide certification and channel programs from Cambridge, USA, recently signed on New Delhi based Edutech Informatics, adding a possible 100 more outlets to the certification program. Kennedy has been in the training business for twenty years and associated with Lotus education for a long time, interspersed with a break at Ziff Communications. She has a Master’s degree in education from Boston University. Excerpts of the discussion around certifications and technology changes in the education and learning business.

Quite a few software and hardware vendors have implemented an education certification program. What has prompted this drive for certification?

Novell was the first to do that and it is really to ensure that there are quality technical professionals out there. The success of selling Lotus products is very much dependent on people with the requisite skills to implement the product. We also want them to exploit the power of Notes which can happen when skilled people work both as our business partners and in our corporations.



Who benefits more from this certification drive. Is it the employer or the employee?

It is both. For the individual–it certainly gives more confidence, more respect with peers, it can help them get promoted and actually get hired in the first place. So that is very important. From the company perspective–it improves the productivity of the staff and reduces downtime.



What are the important trends reported in annual surveys conducted by Sylvan
Prometric?

One that I found interesting was that for some time there was a bit of a backlash on certification. There was a perception on the part of the company that if they hired someone in their organization, got them trained, got them certified, that person would not stay–they would look for another job. Actually the survey that Sylvan did and this was also reinforced by a survey we did , showed that the reverse was actually true. The employee was more likely to stay if the company invested in their certification. It was only 9%, that was more likely to leave after they received the certification. Most employees begin to feel that the company values them and invests in them. That was the most interesting finding for me.



How would you categorize your certification courses?

The main paths we have are system administration and application development. And within that somebody can achieve principal status and may focus more on programming because we have Java script. The first level–Certified Lotus Professional (CLP) is the premier one. This certification level requires the candidate to take three exams. We do have an entry level certification called Certified Lotus Specialists. That was introduced in the market in order to attract more people to our program. 



In what formats are certification courses available?

Let me explain. The content we develop is being delivered worldwide in a course book through instructor led training. We also have that content available in different formats. We have partnered with a company doing computer based training and have certification courses in this area. Additionally, we are going to put our technical content into Learning Space . So a candidate who wants to achieve a certification has a number of different options.



What about certification on Learning Space and other Lotus products?

That is actually something we are talking about. Primarily, our certifications are on Notes and Domino. For extension products–we have a product called Domino doc. We are creating a certification exam for Domino doc. Learning space is another product.



We have been hearing about mentoring and collaboration to enhance training effectiveness from Lotus for quite some time. But there is little evidence of this being adopted by training vendors. Do you see this trend actually happening in the future?

We do see it happening. One of our partners CBT Systems, for example, is doing that with a product called Scholars.com. We are also looking at other ways to do that and that is something emerging out of our headquarters education group. Imagine going to a three-day class for Domino design fundamentals, and wanting to continue learning, extending it beyond the classroom and having an opportunity to get additional support from the instructor, at the end of the class. Or, maybe even from other students in the class. We have got the technology that can achieve this–we just need to work that through.



Is the training industry being affected with the change of instructional technologies?

CBT Systems has traditionally put their courses on CDROM and now they have moved those to the internet. So everybody is doing that. Sometimes I think we lose sight of print because a lot of people will still get their learning from books. And that is available with us. It is just a personal preference of how you like to learn.

There is a whole new segment of IT training, developing because of the multitude of choices available. You have got different media, different messages and people are saying ‘How do we make sense out of this, how do we pick the right one.’ So we are getting customers who are coming forward and saying, help us design an education strategy that optimizes the mix of TBT, instructor-led-training, printed material and whatever else there may be. 

I mentioned we are putting our technical courses in Learning Space. I think in ’96 you probably had a total Notes population just higher than a million. Now heading towards 54 million you already have a platform and Learning Space sits nicely on top of that.

How does internet learning compare with class room training?

It is interesting. For some people it actually enhances the learning because they get it in smaller chunks. If I attend a class, by the end of the third day I am overloaded. I may be sitting in the class but how much am I absorbing? It is an individual preference and we have found that for a large percentage of people, retention is better if they get their learning in smaller chunks and then get to practice what they have learnt. We take a course that was delivered in three days in the classroom and deliver it over a couple of weeks in Learning Space. They are not doing it in eight hours a day, they are doing it in a couple of hours, in the evening which has actually enhanced the learning for that person.



How do the salaries of Lotus certified professionals compare with other certified professionals, for example Microsoft’s?

Microsoft and Oracle to the best of my knowledge have only done annual surveys in the US market. So I cannot say anything about India. In the US market we have found that salaries for all categories of Lotus professionals are higher than Microsoft professionals. The starting salaries and the salaries that someone could expect with the CLP credential after they have been in their job for a while–in both cases, if you compare what the CLP candidate is earning to Microsoft–they are earning higher salaries. We do not necessarily try to get into comparisons. We do not see our certification as competing with Microsoft because ours is around groupware or messaging. They do not have a certification on Exchange. So the fact that they have certification in NT is great. A candidate acquiring certification in NT and then adding the Notes and Domino certification–that is a valuable credential for someone. It is the same way with Novell. We do not see them as competitors, they are complementary.



In India, the model you have adopted for training and education is to build a community of franchises. Is this being followed by Lotus elsewhere in the world?

I certainly think this is a model we would want to apply elsewhere. The uniqueness of the Indian market, the focus on education and acquiring a certification is what makes this possible in India. We would explore this in other markets–China is one that comes to mind.

Arun Shankar 

in New Delhi