I have a green idea. Lets give MCPs discounts on Technet Plus Direct (because it's download only). Then increase the discount with every certification obtained (to a maximum of course).
Annoyed_MCP
· 6 months ago
I actually predict use of the certificates—both paper and digital—to fade away.
I can just going into the medical specialist's office and feeling reassured with their expertise when I see their degrees in medicine slideshowing across a digital frame on the wall.
Perhaps future graduation ceremonies will be reduced to the college President twittering you an URL instead of giving you your degree.
Mom will be so proud!
Annoyed_MCP
· 6 months ago
Oh and ... carbon footprint of mailing out certificates and wallet cards versus carbon footprint of driving a bus across America to TechED?!?
Maigrey
· 6 months ago
Since my question wasn't answered on the other thread ill try again: this virtual business card stuff will beginn early August according to Sarah. I will finish my mcse & mcitp certification on July 30th. Will there still be a chance to order the welcome kit including the "old" wallet cards? I don't care about the shipping costs. I don't want half my certifications as wallet cards and the rest in digital form. Regards, Maigrey
pg
· 6 months ago
Trivialization... It's all about costs. Why don't you reduce the useless advertisement booklets? Why don't you reduce the cost of the exam? With digital certificates Fedex will not knock our doors Shame
me
· 6 months ago
1. Those digital cards with avatars looks like Mickey Mouse thing. Do you really think one would like to show it to human resources people during interview? I wouldn't.
2. You should show us new "benefits" first before discontinuing old ones that were "promised" when we have started learning and certifying process (which is longer than one month!).
3. I know that there aren't chances such big company can change decisions easily. Please let us pay for wallet cards as you let us pay for books and BOX software.
4. It is time to make MCPStore available in Europe. With current shipping prices I bet no one outside US orders in MCPStore.
5. Don't forget about Vista don't make same mistakes again. Listen to your customers - don't you see that almost everyone here is angry. I know you have done survey about it, but there were Vista surveys also...
Rob Hagman
· 6 months ago
I have some remarks about the actual certificates:
First of all, on all the certificates the signature is from Steve Ballmer, even on the older ones (NT4 era), Besides this being just wrong, this also means the digital certificate doesn’t match the printed one I already have, so I can’t use it to give out as a copy.
Second: The design is great when professionally printed, but doesn’t really work when printed on a (Color or B/W) laser printer; especially the yellow on the MCTS cert is ugly (to my personal taste) also, some of the bigger fonts (like in my name) look ragged and some of the smaller font looks faded, would it be possible to have a redesign with digital use and laser printing in mind? Or at least have a better resolution/density for the fonts?
Third, more a technical problem, the XPS version of the zip downloads as an empty file (0 kb)
Fourth, I my case there is actually a cert missing.
Rob.
Kevin
· 6 months ago
OK, I'll say it. I like the digital certificates. Especially since you still have the option of ordering paper certificates if you need them. Of course, any time I have needed to present my certificate to an employer they have told me to scan it and email it to them. Go figure.
One thing that I am very interested in seeing is the virtual wallet cards. All I have seen so far is a fairly simple, whimsical "purple-eyes" version. I would like to see what a realistic, professional sample would look like and how it works. If more people could see that then they might be less worked up about the old wallet cards going away.
Chris S.
· 6 months ago
Again, Kudos to MSL for taking the lead. It always amazes me how afraid people are of change. Proving your skills on the job is a much better testament to your knowledge than any certificate or card.
Ken Rosen (Microsoft)
· 6 months ago
Wayne: Love the idea, we'll look into it.
Annoyed_MCP: With due respect, I thnk the time to check out a medical specialist is long before you walk into their office (and paper isn't any more difficult to forge and is a lot harder to verify). And yeah the bus tour had a pretty big carbon footprint... but it's a bit apples-and-oranges, don't you think? I drive a Civic hybrid 'cause I want to have as small as carbon footprint as possible, and I don't need a big car--but my wife drives a mini-van, because we need to cart around the kids and their posse. Having one hybrid and one gas guzzler is better than not having any hybrid at all.
Maigrey: No, the wallet cards are going away, and we will not be offering physical shipments after June 30th.
PG: Maybe we're not decreasing the cost of the exam, but after 8 years, we're still not raising it. Pretty good record of controlling your cost as well as ours, don't you think?
Me: 1) The "mickey mouse" look is just from Sarah's anime-type picture. But your card can look as professional as you want. 2) I take your point, but it's very hard for us to get that far out in front, as some folks take years to finish their certifications. The way we honestly look at it: we're still providing the benefits, just in a different form. 3) No plans to offer the wallet cards, even at cost--the cards aren't recyclable. 4) You are absolutely right--and Sarah's working on it! 5) Totally hear you. But I'm sure you also understand that a handful of blog comments do not equal community consensus. We'll do our satisfaction survey again in the fall, and we'll see where we are.
Rob: Follow up with us in e-mail re: your problems with the certificates and downloads, and we'll investigate. As for the signature, the paper certificates going forward will all have Steve's signature too. I understand they won't match your originals, but it frankly doesn't make sense for us to continue to issue credentials signed by a guy who no longer works here. :-) I think Steve's signature will convey the authenticity that your employers and clients will be looking for!
Ken
Peter Read
· 6 months ago
Ken - just a short follow up on your response to Rob....
Surely it would be trivial to say "anything up to x date was signed by Bill, anything on or after was signed by Steve", in order to ensure consistency in legacy certificates. (i.e. playing devil's advocate does it make sense to issue credentials signed by a guy claiming to be CEO who possibly wasn't at the date on the document? ;) )
Exasperated MCP
· 6 months ago
So, as this is an environmental issue, and nothing to do with penny pinching, the cost of MCP exams will be reduced by the amount saved?
Ordering the paper certificates will be essential; I can't just walk into an interview and show the HR manager something I printed myself. Well, I can, but they won't be too impressed - likewise if I give them the URL for my "Web 2" certificate/card/transcript.
Finally, official transcripts may be the official record of achievement, but in the real world, it's physical certificates that impress hiring managers.
Wayne Anderson
· 6 months ago
I think the green reason is still bunk, honestly and the line of reasoning that if we were trying to go green, we wouldnt do digital certificates is a logical fallacy.
That being aside, so long as I can still pay to get a paper one, I can deal with the changes.
Taken in view of the totality of the program changes in the last two years, you still have to question the green argument and the way this move fits in with a more general trend.
Ken Rosen (Microsoft)
· 6 months ago
Peter: I take your point--but I don't think that's a possible scenario. (You'd have to go back pretty far to get to a certification from when Bill was our CEO, and none of those certificates are available at all in *any* form today.) So Steve it is.
Exasperated MCP: We are very happy to have found a way to control our costs while 1) helping to preserve the environment and 2) not raising our exam prices. Price cuts are not likely :-) As for hiring managers preferring forgeable paper to valiadated digital credentials... I'll take your word for it based on your own personal experience. But I gotta tell you, at our company, whether you came to an interview with a paper or digital diploma or certification, we're going to check it out. Paper would not placate or impress us one bit, and I suspect many other companies feel the same way. (Comments anyone?)
Wayne: the reasoning was if we *weren't* trying to go green, we wouldn't do digital certificates. That might make more sense, I hope. What are the other program changes you refer to?
me
· 6 months ago
Please stop using ecology as an excuse. You don't care about environment. You don't have any prove that servers are more green friendly than plastic wallet cards, and papers certs! The most funny thing in whole this discussion is your "eco" preference of paper over plastic. You might be surprised but production of plastic makes less impact on environment than paper, same is with recycling of both materials.
So again please don't say anything about ecology anymore. Check how much pollution is done by your cars each year and compare this to all MCP wallet cards ever released. You could be surprised again.
Ken Rosen (Microsoft)
· 6 months ago
Me: You're right--I don't have any proof that our digital solution is more green-friendly than is paper and plastic... but I believe it nonetheless.
Given the volume of certificates and wallet cards (which are of the non-recyclable plastic type) we produce each year, plus the packaging around them, plus the shipping, I believe that the digital application is better.
I'd seriously like a referral to a tool to calculate the impact, though, if you know of one.
me
· 6 months ago
According to VMware one virtual server means 4 (four!) Tons (1000kg!) of CO2 emission less EACH YEAR!
I don't know what kind of plastic is used in wallet cards - for making 1kg of plastic about 6kg of CO2 are emitted.
As long as you have MCPStore and as long as you will be shipping paper certs on demand you can not count packaging and transport impact.
Annoyed_MCP
· 6 months ago
"So what certification do you have?"
"I have an MCITP"
"What's that?"
"Sorta like an MCSE"
"Is it from Microsoft"
"Yes"
"Oh, so you have one of those wallet cards with the hologram on it from Microsoft? Our last sysadmin had one of those. That's how I knew she was certified."
"Oh no, Microsoft isn't doing that anymore. But I've got this website address that you can visit if you want to"
"So you took some exams so that you'd have the ability to point at a pretty picture on a website that says "congratulations you are a certified professional"?"
At what point is it worth sacrificing any of the value of a certification (and the certificates and wallets are a real and tangible part of that value) on the altar of being green?
The wallet card especially impressed people in interviews. Impressed people I worked with and impressed people that I didn't work with. Part of the whole point of certification is to impress people. If you aren't impressing people or you are lessening the amount that people are impressed - you are devaluing the certification.
Isn't the whole point of this blog about increasing the value of certification?
me
· 6 months ago
"I can show you my MCP Card with MCP Achievements"
"And what is that?"
"It is something like your son Xbox Live Achievements Card but MCP cards have cooler avatars."
Please reconsider everything again:
1.) Digital cards aren't greener than plastic ones. Paper isn't greener than plastic. Whole MCP environment footprint is quite small compared to anything else.
2.) You might make a lot of damage to MCP program with "Xbox"/"Mickey Mouse" digital cards.
3.) You have failed with vista and MCTS/MCITP recognition and I am sure there were surveys about MCITP and Vista :) The program is still called MCP but MCTS aren’t real MCPs – another thing hard to understand for HR people. I have seen that even MCP IT people use “MCSE or equivalent name” not “MCITP or older equivalent” to name “high level” ITPro specialists.
4.) I know that surveys were made with current MCPs. The question is: have you asked any Human Resources people and people without MCP that are preparing or thinking about getting first exam? I have taken this survey but if I recall correctly the questions were asked indirectly. There weren’t question like: “Would you like to lose paper certificates for free, and wallet cards at all, and get digital wallet card with really cool and colorful logo instead.”
5.) If you are going to keep paper certs on demand then you could keep plastic cards also. It won't affect environment. Just optimize whole process make fair price with fair shipping globally. How about using Microsoft Tag technology, and redesigning certs and wallet cards, this could lead to slow transformation from plastic/paper to digital certs/cards. You should show us digital wallet cards first, start with some beta program before discontinuing current benefits. Maybe Digital Wallet Cards aren’t that bad but so far I see it as punishment and another thing that is decreasing value of MCP certs. Cert and wallet cards should be like money bills – would you trust in customized dollars with avatars of owner? 6.) Announcement one month before discontinuing benefit is really short time. I hope you won’t do that with old exams that I would like to pass (yes old MCP/MCSE exams that have and will have real value on the market!)
7.) I know it is really late for such change in terms of corporate decision process but our reception should warn you! Remember MCPs are as important if not more than your business partners. If MS thinks MCPs are good source of direct income then you are totally wrong here. While you make income from MCP program the main idea should be maximizing income from other departments by making MCP program attractive for newcomers, for people learning and addicting to new MS technology. Current MCPs are walking and talking MS advertisements and they(we) pay for it You should respect that especially with growing open source community and decreasing windows market share. 8.) So far you are lucky that most of those 2mln MCPs don’t know about upcoming change If/When most of them realize it you will see huge amount of anger thrown on you.
MSLearningContinuesToGoDownhil
· 6 months ago
Someone else raised an excellent point - when we actually do receive a package in our ever-decreasing benefits, the largest piece is a big stupid advertisement for Dynamics. I know the response is going to be "we have no control over that", but again, it flies in the face of the green argument. Your hearts might be in the right place, but why even bother playing this game anymore? Eventually all we will get for certifying is a link to web site that says we're certified. Let's just do that now and get if over with.
MCP
· 6 months ago
Hello and thanks for the answer. However, there are still many questions not answered. Let's see them:
1) ABOUT THE ANSWER: We did that, MCP—both formally through surveys and informally through this blog. One thing I’ll caution: don’t assume that a string of negative comments on the blog constitutes a bad reception. With over 2 million MCPs out there, any change make is likely to upset some percentage of the community, and we’d likely hear from some of them here. That said—we certainly are watching and listening and absolutely will pay very close attention to our customer satisfaction reports. We’re hoping that you guys will like the digital credentials as you start to use them.
MY REPLY: I really don't remember about any survey questioning about the removal of physical kits. Indeed, I remember that the PIN is one item that every certified professional that I know really wish to have one. If there was a survey, can you please tell us the date that it was sent, so I can search in my e-mails?
1) ABOUT THE ANSWER: We do—not to mention the packaging and shipping impacts—but even if we didn’t: every bit helps. Everyone needs to start making whatever positive impact they can, because it adds up.
MY REPLY: Still without numbers. If you really want to prove that this will be a great help to the environment, please share these numbers.
3) COST QUESTION: There is a question that still you don't answer. Ken said about the eight years without change of the price, but hey: you're in America. Dollar don't lose value so easy. Go to other countries, like LATAM and Europe, where Dollar value changes fast.
4) WALLET CARDS: Well, here I thing it's just a problem of logic. If someone pass a MCTS exam for the first time, he will reveice the card. If he passes another MCTS exam, well, you should only send the certificate and the letter. There is no reason to send a card again. With this, it would be a great saving of plastic and cost, don't you think?
I really understand your goal, really. Your action is good, but there are things that should never go to digital. For example, contracts, certificates, payments, etc. What can I if a system lose its information about my payments? How I will prove that I paid them?
I remember when PDF came out: "Oh, it's the end of printers...". How is it now? Don't we still have printers? Of course we REDUCED the use of paper, but it will never exterminate the use of it.
And by the way: the BETA idea was really great! Do a test and see how many professionals will stay with the online certificate and how many of them will request (as it is today).
MCP
· 6 months ago
Oh, I almost forgot:
But I gotta tell you, at our company, whether you came to an interview with a paper or digital diploma or certification, we’re going to check it out. Paper would not placate or impress us one bit, and I suspect many other companies feel the same way. (Comments anyone?)
ANSWER: You're kidding? You're desvirtualizating the value of a certification! When you say that you're MCP, the way that they look to us change, really. They start to see us as great professionals.
We all know about many professionals who achieved a job because of the certification. And, certification is, in essence, a certificate.
This is personal marketing. Students, professionals and managers shine their eyes when tehy see our certificates and wallet cards.
Well, maybe Harvard or MIT will stop print certificates because of the green movement. Don't you think? ;-)
Another thing that no one is concerning about: since everything will be online, the chances of fake sites/certificates/cards increase, don't you agree?
And Chris S., when Microsoft annouced that exams will have practical questions, does any MCP blamed about? It's not a resistante of changing; it's a question of WHAT they're changing.
One more: where are the BENEFITS for the clients? With certificate/card/shipping the value is X. Without these benefits, the value will be X minus...
Oh, and once more thing: the card problem is LOGISTIC: every MCTS receives one card. If MS starts to control this better, sending only one for each new completed carrer, they will reduce the amount of cards.
Ken Rosen (Microsoft)
· 6 months ago
Just posted a top-level article addressing many of the most recent comments, but let me answer a few more here:
1) The Dynamics marketing piece is gone along with the rest of the welcome kit.
2)Our surveys include questions that allow us to gauge the perceived value of individual benefits and weigh them against the overall value of the certification, and we use that info to make future benefit decsions. We tend not to ask specific questions like "how satisfied would you be if we charged you a shipping and handling fee for certificates" because that's the kind of question that pretty much everyone would answer the same way, regardless of how much it actually colored their perceptions of the overall program.
3) MCP, I don't understand the point you're making about cost, or the question. Can you please explain? As to the benefits--I think it's truly "x-plus," not "x-minus." You'll have certificates and cards the same as you did before--but your new cards can include your photograph and can verify your credentials (your wallet card can't do that); and your certificates will be available as soon as we receive your test results.
MSLearningContinuesToGoDownhil
· 6 months ago
"You’ll have certificates and cards the same as you did before" - c'mon Ken, you're better than that! We won't have certificates like we did before. We'll either have to pay an additional fee for them, or we'll have to print them out - and they will never look as good as the real thing.
The sad thing is, you honestly believe that this is a good thing. I'm afraid the Lutz' arrogance is flowing downhill and that the entire organization feels that it knows whats best for its customers no matter how many of us tell you you're flat wrong.
me
· 6 months ago
Ken Rosen: you have asked about tool to calculate the impact. Well MS tools was linked in previous post by Sarah Grant http://www.microsoft.com/environment/ . Maybe you and your coworkers should check that site? You can check how much pollution is done by one server. Are you still going to sell this decision about wallet cards as a green one? Please tell as how many servers you will need (at least one and that means according to MS tools almost 5 tons of CO2!) and how many TONS of plastic wallet card do you ship each year. If it is less than one TON* then you have failed with "going green" I would call it going greedy:)
* I have said it several times one kg of plastic means up to 6kg of CO2 emission.
grrrrrr
· 6 months ago
who made this form, they're a crap developer. Its wiped my whole comment because I didn't enter an email address.
Maybe you should lay that fool off instead of all the folk that work to bring us our shiney hard worked for certs (on glossy paper).
Muhammad Imran
· 6 months ago
i too want to get paper certificates..
james
· 6 months ago
Trying to fool? If you have soft copy of certificates than you can print 100s or 1000s (modified/pirated)copy of that. Will it "GOooooinG Greeeen"? Thats why people says MS means Ctrl+Alt+Del="GOooooinG to Hell". If realy want "Going Green" think carefully before you............!
Matt
· 6 months ago
I assume the cost of testing is reduced due to your corresponding drop in costs? No? So we won't be seeing any rate increases on tests for 3 year? No guarantee there either eh? You are taking away a nice benefit to people who bother getting your certifications to save some coin. It's obvious and transparent.
Keep messing with your certified professionals. It am positive this sort of stupid short sighted decision making will surely result in good outcomes in the future. Whoever proposed this idea should go the way of the Bud Light guy in the commercial who suggested saving money by getting rid of bud light at meetings. Out the window.
Matt
· 6 months ago
Getting off my soapbox: I could simply say that Microsoft is committed to helping preserve the environment and often does so at a cost, but instead let me just pose a question: if all we wanted to do was cut our costs—or even if that was our most important goal—wouldn’t it have made more sense for us to forego the digital solution altogether and just start charging the shipping and handling fees for the paper certificates?
By investing money in both the infrastructure for the digital certificates and for the ongoing hosting and download costs, we hope to encourage you to stop ordering the paper and rely on the digital certificate instead.
-------
Are you kidding me? So you considered just dropping electronic access to the certificates?
Look, you've got to run a respectable certification program. You are running a business certification program. This isn't suppose to be the equal of a GED.
If I told you I was running your University and that your degree would cost you 5.99 in shipping and processing after you shelled out all that money to get "certified" how would you take that? My MCSE in testing fees cost me $875 dollars in testing fees. Inside of that you should have made MORE then enough to support hosting electronically my certification and printing on glossy paper a certificate and printing a card. The rationale being used here is beyond illogical.
You do realize your are talking to IT PROFESSIONALS YOU CERTIFIED RIGHT? How many people here to do honestly think don't have a pretty solid idea that your costs to do this are nominal at best? Your talking shared hosting of services and developers time you already have to pay for to build and manage the MCP portal. Revision and update costs are normal and figured in to the budget. You wouldn't leave a site looking 5 years old. Your arguments are incredible Bull.... I don't mean to vent at you but have the decency to treat people with respect. Be honest and truthful and you might not catch this sort of flak.
If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck its probably a duck. You know what I am saying? I smell rotten eggs.
Whatever, I guess I'll just focus on my Cisco certifications and ignore any further Microsoft Certifications. At least they take there professionals and there program seriously.
Denis
· 6 months ago
I just learn to know about this just right now. We were not informed before. I think this is totally UNACCEPTABLE. We already spend a lot in the progress of the certification. How can we still need to pay more for a cert? I really dont care for anything else in the welcome kit. I just need the cerificate for my future employer. So MS can only ship the cerificate for free which also helps the environment. I think this is not a green issue, but just a money issue, where MS earns even more money for the change. If MS is going this way, I will consider not to go for further MS exam in the future.
Ioannis Tsouvalas
· 6 months ago
It’s not easy being green “ Certainly not, and if there were no cost incentives, no one would go green unless obliged by certain legislations, like in many countries. Handing out a certification for someone that has spent days and months preparing for it, is a part of the process that every institution is using to accredit the hard work of anyone towards their certification. Its definitely not easy being green, but it seems as Microsoft is easily going green in dollars. “On a deeply personal level, MSLGTGD, I’m thrilled that companies have found a reason that they can use to justify “going green.” Personally, I’d love it if they made the decision purely out of civic and social responsibility, and kidding aside I do certainly realize why you’re irked, but hey, whatever saves the environment is fine by me.” By this sentence you justify the reasons that Microsoft is moving towards a payable certificate. You know that a great amount of people won’t be able, or just deny to pay for their certificate, so a great amount of paper won’t be used, hence let’s call it green, its fine by you right? “Getting off my soapbox: I could simply say that Microsoft is committed to helping preserve the environment and often does so at a cost, but instead let me just pose a question: if all we wanted to do was cut our costs—or even if that was our most important goal—wouldn’t it have made more sense for us to forego the digital solution altogether and just start charging the shipping and handling fees for the paper certificates?” The “often does so at a cost” is purely based on legislation that you cannot go around anyway. “wouldn’t it have made more sense for us to forego the digital solution altogether and just start charging the shipping and handling fees for the paper certificates” You see the end results with a so called transitional stage were, you call it green and suggest the free version. If you just moved directly on saying “pay for it”, the reaction would be massive. A riot would arise against Microsoft and the treatment of those people that really are the heart of what Microsoft is today, their professionals. “By investing money in both the infrastructure for the digital certificates and for the ongoing hosting and download costs, we hope to encourage you to stop ordering the paper and rely on the digital certificate instead.” With all due respect, I’m trying to be polite and have a fruitful discussion here, is this a statement of truth and honesty? Do you suggest that our IQ is that low to go for that? What costs are you talking about? Are you telling us that the costs for maintaining the website for the “so called” digital certificate is greater than sending the actual certificate? You want to encourage us for using digital certificates, why don’t you encourage our employers and governments, and when they do go for it, all around the world, I would be the first one to rip them all off and recycle them “Again, financially it would have made a lot more sense to skip the digital solution altogether—but we sincerely want you to stop ordering paper, even if it means it costs us money in the process.” Now this is an honest question: Did you wake up one day, read through the posts, and thought you should jot in this answer as well? No, it wouldn’t make sense financially, because you would end up having no certifications whatsoever. If you want us to stop using paper, provide ms press books online free of charge (like someone else posted). Count the volume of paper used for the ms press books, and the volume of paper used for those 50gramms or so of the thin envelope you sent for every certification. The amount of envelopest hat would ever be received by any individual, will never reach the weight of a single book. “This truly is one of those places where we try to balance our civic responsibility with our customer wishes. We know that many of you do need/want paper certificates for various reasons, so we want to keep them available. But frankly, we also believe that if they were free, many of you would order them just because, well, they’re free. (Not throwing stones—I tend to do that, too. If a company offers me something for free, who am I to refuse?) By passing along the shipping and handling charge, we’re frankly hoping that you guys think twice before ordering a certificate. And yes, we save a lot of money this way too—no sense denying that—but again, not as much as we’d save by forgoing the digital option altogether.” Now we covered the civic responsibility so I will react as if this statement was never made. What do you mean by free? Do you have any idea of my much time and money has anyone of us invested in this procedure? Do you call this free? Was the certification free? Training maybe? Books? We are talking about a single envelope, with which most of us can already see that has high cost savings, from packaging (the cheapest you could get without destroying its contents during handling) to delivery that takes up to six weeks to deliver (It would probably take less time to me to walk there and get it myself). “And yes, we save a lot of money this way too—no sense denying that—but again, not as much as we’d save by forgoing the digital option altogether” I think we’ve answered that before. The digital option by itself wouldn’t stand a chance, your own finance department wouldn’t let you go for it, because they’d know the effects of that action. “This one’s easier to address, because 1) unlike the certificates, the wallet cards are not recyclable, making them even less friendly to the environment and 2) the new digital wallet cards offer true new features that the plastic cards cannot match—like automatic and up-to-date click-to-verify credentials. I really think you guys will like them.” I suggest that you let credit card companies worry for the plastic they produce, and make an effort to convince them to use digital cards, or whatever you want to call them. When they do, when the world is ready to charge out of a pda or something, that is the time I will gladly be part of the digital so called green era. “As for printed books and boxed software, I can’t speak to that—but I imagine over the coming months and years, other businesses in the company will be addressing our CEO’s call to action in their own ways. We decided not to wait any longer.” Let’s just not use PCs either; it’s a great hazard for the world already. If it is a green incentive, you should go for the greener options like books, not the greener options dollar-wise as in the certificates. “We did that, MCP—both formally through surveys and informally through this blog. One thing I’ll caution: don’t assume that a string of negative comments on the blog constitutes a bad reception. With over 2 million MCPs out there, any change make is likely to upset some percentage of the community, and we’d likely hear from some of them here. That said—we certainly are watching and listening and absolutely will pay very close attention to our customer satisfaction reports. We’re hoping that you guys will like the digital credentials as you start to use them.” MCP’s you are well aware of, that are busy people, that care about making their living, and doing their job right. Most of them are not able to go through invitations, or even mcp newsflash. The matter of fact that posts are being populated as we speak is a great percentage of the active part of the mcp group; The one’s that care and want to be a part of it. Not even half of them would ever have the chance to read it in time. Do not hide behind statistics, you know it wasn’t right to begin with, don’t use a broad and sometimes irrelevant mailing to obtain important information that affects the lives of the mcps and most importantly the well being of the company we are working for, meaning Microsoft. “MCP followed by asking how much of an impact we really have with this move—do we really generate that much paper? We do—not to mention the packaging and shipping impacts—but even if we didn’t: every bit helps. Everyone needs to start making whatever positive impact they can, because it adds up.” There are zillions of bits and pieces you can put together that would end up trillions times less environmental impact than the one of sending an envelope. Honestly, how do you go to sleep at night? Is lying an integral part of your life? Does it have to be one,? Just like SA on open value license agreement, at least there you get important services back. What do you really get out of it? “You know what, Simon—I agree completely, and I actually fought this decision initially on this very reason alone. Here’s what flipped me: first, the obvious environmental benefit; second, the digital wallet cards, which I truly believe will quickly become the standard way that MCPs identify and prove their credentials. I actually predict use of the certificates—both paper and digital—to fade away. (Time will tell whether I’m right, of course). On-line access is so ubiquitous these days that there’s really no reason to accept a physical copy as proof of certification—insist on seeing the digital credential to truly verify one’s status. With the digital cards, employers will find it easier than ever before to identify official and genuine credentials.” Dear Ken, have you ever thought about politics? It seems to me that you have all the necessary prerequisites to be there, especially on your way of writing. If you’d agreed with the idea of lowering the level of the certification, by not sending the envelopes, you wouldn’t be here trying to convince as otherwise. Please, oh please don’t talk about environmental issues. You said it, we know it it’s about the money. I agree with the digital certificates only if the world was ready to accept it. What is the benefit to the environment if I print it myself and what if you print for me? I tell you what, I will print it once on a quick print to see how it would look, then I will print it again on full ink. Then based on the end result I would even go ahead and print it on a glossy paper. Finally, because, I really worked hard for it, I would drive down the road to the printing shop and ask for the best possible printout, and possibly get two or three copies (office, parents living room, home office (hall of fame)) Dear Ken, none of this is personal and I admire your effort. Please be honest to yourself, and then to anybody else. If when you look yourself at the mirror, you believe you’ve done the right thing, good for you, but don’t expect anyone else to support you. Best Reagards IT
me
· 6 months ago
Ioannis Tsouvalas: Check this, they are serious about ecology:)
If i knew all this will end like this I wouldn't focus on MS technology. Waste of time and money.
Corey Ruffer
· 5 months ago
Oh thats right....my printer was more energy efficient...and the shipping company that hauled my paper to my door uses solar paneled trucks. How much energy was consumed in the PR effort? I have to remind myself that Microsoft is located in a liberal state that believes this political garbage. Oh I should suggest to customers to pirate ms software...think of the paper we could save!
Jeffrey
· 5 months ago
I have been an MCP since 1996. I have seen the Microsoft certification programs change over the years. I think I am jousting at windmills, but let me make some different comments.
First, for those people who want paper certificates (such as I do), you are not saving anything in terms of carbon or paper. The certificate still needs to be printed, and for those MCPs, you are simply passing the cost to those people - either by making them print the certificates themselves, or by charging a fee to print and ship it from Microsoft. So only if people do not print out certificates at all is there an environmental savings, and while I am sure that some (perhaps a majority of) people will not print out their certificates, you have no way to really quantify the total. Therefore, this "green" initiative does not have as large an effect as Microsoft may claim.
Second, by changing the program as you have, you have changed the automatic nature. As described, people have to request a certifcate, or have to download a certificate; they have have to initiate the action of obtaining a certificate. Before, it was always automatic, with no action required on the part of an MCP - obtain a certification, automatically receive a certificate. Therefore, there is a finite loss of value in the overall MCP experience (due to the opportunity costs associated with having to request a certificate, and to print it out, or request a certificate from Microsoft plus the real financial cost of the handling fee).
I think a better solution to handle this would be (and you could still do this) to make the program fully digital, and announce to MCPs that they could go to the website, and sign up, either at the time of earning a certification or permanently (permanently being at Microsoft's discretion to end the initiative) to automatically receive a physical certificate for a certification (or every certification) at no cost (as you used to do). That would be the best way to gauge the desire, and actually would be the best for the MCP progam (in my opinion), although not for Microsoft corporately. If large number of MCPs sign up for physical certificates, it would show that Microsoft made the wrong decision. If few numbers of MCPs sign up for physical certificates, then the impact to Microsoft is small, and you could afford to continue to send out physical certificates at no cost to MCPs.
While there may be some "green" to this effort, I have to agree that I believe the real reason was cost (or profit), and that "green" is only a secondary benefit. That is not to disparage "green", but again, the benefits are not so great as it may first appear, depending on how many MCPs have certificates printed, either by Microsoft, or themselves. (And if an MCP has to print a certificate more than once to have it print correctly, he is now using more resources than Microsoft normally would.)
One question - does Microsoft print the certificates itself, or is this outsourced? That could also explain the desire to eliminate this benefit.
umapathy
· 5 months ago
I do have some points here. I checked on online downloadable certificates first of all they didn't appear properly at all with my favourite sumatrapdf reader ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumatra_PDF) I personally don't like bloated Adobe acrobat. Then I tried foxit reader worked but I found my certificated signed by Balmer in reality my originals were signed by Bill Gates. I do not have any objections on Balmer signinig the new certificates but I do want to have the exactly as the original if balmer signed the certificates then same goes with the digital downloadable certificates. Otherwise people might think that we are producing the fake certificates in the interview. Micrsoft certificates are well respected in the interview I appreciate if Microsoft look in to this as soon as possible. Appreciate if Microsoft can continue to offer free certificates if not atleast some one else to order the certificates for the students who do no own a credit card atleast in the developing countries. I have been an MCP since 2003 and I only had a credit card from last year (i.e. 2008) October. This is not just the case with me but with many in the developing countries.
Ken Rosen
· 5 months ago
Umapathy: Sorry the certificates don't work well with Sumatra--we only support Adobe Acrobat (and the .XPS format, fo course).
As for the signature, yes we do realize that Bill Gates signed your original certificates. However, when issuing new certificates--either paper or digital--we've decided to use the signature of our current CEO Steve Ballmer. If a potential hiring manager questions the authenticity of your certificate, feel free to use the transcript sharing tool (and soon, your virtual business card) to prove your credentials.
The credit card issue is one we'd like to see addressed soon, and I will ask our Arvato for an update on that.
Andreea P
· 4 months ago
I took the certification exam and I can't download my certificate. I wrote to my Regional Service Center but, of course, I got no answer. So, what should I do?
Andrew N
· 4 months ago
I think the whole green angle has been twisted out of context.
In a typical week most people would have hundreds if not thousands of paper based products pass through their workplace and home. Out of thoes most have no real significance and some at least were a waste of (old growth) trees and energy. On the other hand some paper products may be seen as "green" since they replaced a packaging that was more damaging to the enviroment - the most graphic example is that of a dolphin that might have died from some plastic bottle packaging but now is safe thanks to paper based packaging.
Getting back to MCP certifications - these are important acheivements of study and hard work for the people who sit these exams and also Microsoft who design them. They ARE worthy of a little bit of paper and not just any paper but recycled/plantation sourced paper produced by companies who are using ecologicaly sound practices.
Furthermore a physical paper based cert can be displayed on a wall with zero use of energy - I hate to think how bad for the enviroment it would be if everyone who receives their digital cert sets up a plasma screen on the wall and a PC to scroll their certs 24/7.
What is greenest: a pot plant that requires water, light and fertilizer, a plastic pot plant that requires no resources, a "digital pot plant" or no pot plant. Now think about if it would be a good idea to clear land (a plantation) that was being used to grow tree's for various products to make way for a datacentre, power station and computer manufacturing facility.
BTW I am not against a download option I just would like to see a free "green" paper option for the people who want it and will value it and would also like to see Microsoft supporting companies that make paper in a way that is responsible rather than the usual story of companies who are producing ecoloicaly sound products go out of business as they are being undercut but companies who do the wrong thing.
Stefan
· 2 months ago
I just hate you Microsoft! Cert's as a Download, Wallet Card now as a damn Paint Image. MCITP:SE is me last MS course!! Bye
rod
· 1 month ago
This is just a stupid idea.... can you do a mass survey or something so that we can opt-in for the prints back ?
All Comments
I can just going into the medical specialist's office and feeling reassured with their expertise when I see their degrees in medicine slideshowing across a digital frame on the wall.
Perhaps future graduation ceremonies will be reduced to the college President twittering you an URL instead of giving you your degree.
Mom will be so proud!
Regards, Maigrey
It's all about costs. Why don't you reduce the useless advertisement booklets? Why don't you reduce the cost of the exam? With digital certificates Fedex will not knock our doors
Shame
2. You should show us new "benefits" first before discontinuing old ones that were "promised" when we have started learning and certifying process (which is longer than one month!).
3. I know that there aren't chances such big company can change decisions easily. Please let us pay for wallet cards as you let us pay for books and BOX software.
4. It is time to make MCPStore available in Europe. With current shipping prices I bet no one outside US orders in MCPStore.
5. Don't forget about Vista don't make same mistakes again. Listen to your customers - don't you see that almost everyone here is angry. I know you have done survey about it, but there were Vista surveys also...
First of all, on all the certificates the signature is from Steve Ballmer, even on the older ones (NT4 era),
Besides this being just wrong, this also means the digital certificate doesn’t match the printed one I already have, so I can’t use it to give out as a copy.
Second: The design is great when professionally printed, but doesn’t really work when printed on a (Color or B/W) laser printer; especially the yellow on the MCTS cert is ugly (to my personal taste) also, some of the bigger fonts (like in my name) look ragged and some of the smaller font looks faded, would it be possible to have a redesign with digital use and laser printing in mind? Or at least have a better resolution/density for the fonts?
Third, more a technical problem, the XPS version of the zip downloads as an empty file (0 kb)
Fourth, I my case there is actually a cert missing.
Rob.
One thing that I am very interested in seeing is the virtual wallet cards. All I have seen so far is a fairly simple, whimsical "purple-eyes" version. I would like to see what a realistic, professional sample would look like and how it works. If more people could see that then they might be less worked up about the old wallet cards going away.
Annoyed_MCP: With due respect, I thnk the time to check out a medical specialist is long before you walk into their office (and paper isn't any more difficult to forge and is a lot harder to verify). And yeah the bus tour had a pretty big carbon footprint... but it's a bit apples-and-oranges, don't you think? I drive a Civic hybrid 'cause I want to have as small as carbon footprint as possible, and I don't need a big car--but my wife drives a mini-van, because we need to cart around the kids and their posse. Having one hybrid and one gas guzzler is better than not having any hybrid at all.
Maigrey: No, the wallet cards are going away, and we will not be offering physical shipments after June 30th.
PG: Maybe we're not decreasing the cost of the exam, but after 8 years, we're still not raising it. Pretty good record of controlling your cost as well as ours, don't you think?
Me: 1) The "mickey mouse" look is just from Sarah's anime-type picture. But your card can look as professional as you want. 2) I take your point, but it's very hard for us to get that far out in front, as some folks take years to finish their certifications. The way we honestly look at it: we're still providing the benefits, just in a different form. 3) No plans to offer the wallet cards, even at cost--the cards aren't recyclable. 4) You are absolutely right--and Sarah's working on it! 5) Totally hear you. But I'm sure you also understand that a handful of blog comments do not equal community consensus. We'll do our satisfaction survey again in the fall, and we'll see where we are.
Rob: Follow up with us in e-mail re: your problems with the certificates and downloads, and we'll investigate. As for the signature, the paper certificates going forward will all have Steve's signature too. I understand they won't match your originals, but it frankly doesn't make sense for us to continue to issue credentials signed by a guy who no longer works here. :-) I think Steve's signature will convey the authenticity that your employers and clients will be looking for!
Ken
Surely it would be trivial to say "anything up to x date was signed by Bill, anything on or after was signed by Steve", in order to ensure consistency in legacy certificates. (i.e. playing devil's advocate does it make sense to issue credentials signed by a guy claiming to be CEO who possibly wasn't at the date on the document? ;) )
Ordering the paper certificates will be essential; I can't just walk into an interview and show the HR manager something I printed myself. Well, I can, but they won't be too impressed - likewise if I give them the URL for my "Web 2" certificate/card/transcript.
Finally, official transcripts may be the official record of achievement, but in the real world, it's physical certificates that impress hiring managers.
That being aside, so long as I can still pay to get a paper one, I can deal with the changes.
Taken in view of the totality of the program changes in the last two years, you still have to question the green argument and the way this move fits in with a more general trend.
Exasperated MCP: We are very happy to have found a way to control our costs while 1) helping to preserve the environment and 2) not raising our exam prices. Price cuts are not likely :-) As for hiring managers preferring forgeable paper to valiadated digital credentials... I'll take your word for it based on your own personal experience. But I gotta tell you, at our company, whether you came to an interview with a paper or digital diploma or certification, we're going to check it out. Paper would not placate or impress us one bit, and I suspect many other companies feel the same way. (Comments anyone?)
Wayne: the reasoning was if we *weren't* trying to go green, we wouldn't do digital certificates. That might make more sense, I hope. What are the other program changes you refer to?
So again please don't say anything about ecology anymore. Check how much pollution is done by your cars each year and compare this to all MCP wallet cards ever released. You could be surprised again.
Given the volume of certificates and wallet cards (which are of the non-recyclable plastic type) we produce each year, plus the packaging around them, plus the shipping, I believe that the digital application is better.
I'd seriously like a referral to a tool to calculate the impact, though, if you know of one.
I don't know what kind of plastic is used in wallet cards - for making 1kg of plastic about 6kg of CO2 are emitted.
As long as you have MCPStore and as long as you will be shipping paper certs on demand you can not count packaging and transport impact.
"I have an MCITP"
"What's that?"
"Sorta like an MCSE"
"Is it from Microsoft"
"Yes"
"Oh, so you have one of those wallet cards with the hologram on it from Microsoft? Our last sysadmin had one of those. That's how I knew she was certified."
"Oh no, Microsoft isn't doing that anymore. But I've got this website address that you can visit if you want to"
"So you took some exams so that you'd have the ability to point at a pretty picture on a website that says "congratulations you are a certified professional"?"
At what point is it worth sacrificing any of the value of a certification (and the certificates and wallets are a real and tangible part of that value) on the altar of being green?
The wallet card especially impressed people in interviews. Impressed people I worked with and impressed people that I didn't work with. Part of the whole point of certification is to impress people. If you aren't impressing people or you are lessening the amount that people are impressed - you are devaluing the certification.
Isn't the whole point of this blog about increasing the value of certification?
"And what is that?"
"It is something like your son Xbox Live Achievements Card but MCP cards have cooler avatars."
Please reconsider everything again:
1.) Digital cards aren't greener than plastic ones. Paper isn't greener than plastic. Whole MCP environment footprint is quite small compared to anything else.
2.) You might make a lot of damage to MCP program with "Xbox"/"Mickey Mouse" digital cards.
3.) You have failed with vista and MCTS/MCITP recognition and I am sure there were surveys about MCITP and Vista :) The program is still called MCP but MCTS aren’t real MCPs – another thing hard to understand for HR people. I have seen that even MCP IT people use “MCSE or equivalent name” not “MCITP or older equivalent” to name “high level” ITPro specialists.
4.) I know that surveys were made with current MCPs. The question is: have you asked any Human Resources people and people without MCP that are preparing or thinking about getting first exam? I have taken this survey but if I recall correctly the questions were asked indirectly. There weren’t question like: “Would you like to lose paper certificates for free, and wallet cards at all, and get digital wallet card with really cool and colorful logo instead.”
5.) If you are going to keep paper certs on demand then you could keep plastic cards also. It won't affect environment. Just optimize whole process make fair price with fair shipping globally. How about using Microsoft Tag technology, and redesigning certs and wallet cards, this could lead to slow transformation from plastic/paper to digital certs/cards. You should show us digital wallet cards first, start with some beta program before discontinuing current benefits. Maybe Digital Wallet Cards aren’t that bad but so far I see it as punishment and another thing that is decreasing value of MCP certs. Cert and wallet cards should be like money bills – would you trust in customized dollars with avatars of owner?
6.) Announcement one month before discontinuing benefit is really short time. I hope you won’t do that with old exams that I would like to pass (yes old MCP/MCSE exams that have and will have real value on the market!)
7.) I know it is really late for such change in terms of corporate decision process but our reception should warn you! Remember MCPs are as important if not more than your business partners. If MS thinks MCPs are good source of direct income then you are totally wrong here. While you make income from MCP program the main idea should be maximizing income from other departments by making MCP program attractive for newcomers, for people learning and addicting to new MS technology. Current MCPs are walking and talking MS advertisements and they(we) pay for it You should respect that especially with growing open source community and decreasing windows market share.
8.) So far you are lucky that most of those 2mln MCPs don’t know about upcoming change If/When most of them realize it you will see huge amount of anger thrown on you.
1) ABOUT THE ANSWER: We did that, MCP—both formally through surveys and informally through this blog. One thing I’ll caution: don’t assume that a string of negative comments on the blog constitutes a bad reception. With over 2 million MCPs out there, any change make is likely to upset some percentage of the community, and we’d likely hear from some of them here. That said—we certainly are watching and listening and absolutely will pay very close attention to our customer satisfaction reports. We’re hoping that you guys will like the digital credentials as you start to use them.
MY REPLY: I really don't remember about any survey questioning about the removal of physical kits. Indeed, I remember that the PIN is one item that every certified professional that I know really wish to have one. If there was a survey, can you please tell us the date that it was sent, so I can search in my e-mails?
1) ABOUT THE ANSWER: We do—not to mention the packaging and shipping impacts—but even if we didn’t: every bit helps. Everyone needs to start making whatever positive impact they can, because it adds up.
MY REPLY: Still without numbers. If you really want to prove that this will be a great help to the environment, please share these numbers.
3) COST QUESTION: There is a question that still you don't answer. Ken said about the eight years without change of the price, but hey: you're in America. Dollar don't lose value so easy. Go to other countries, like LATAM and Europe, where Dollar value changes fast.
4) WALLET CARDS: Well, here I thing it's just a problem of logic. If someone pass a MCTS exam for the first time, he will reveice the card. If he passes another MCTS exam, well, you should only send the certificate and the letter. There is no reason to send a card again. With this, it would be a great saving of plastic and cost, don't you think?
I really understand your goal, really. Your action is good, but there are things that should never go to digital. For example, contracts, certificates, payments, etc. What can I if a system lose its information about my payments? How I will prove that I paid them?
I remember when PDF came out: "Oh, it's the end of printers...". How is it now? Don't we still have printers? Of course we REDUCED the use of paper, but it will never exterminate the use of it.
And by the way: the BETA idea was really great! Do a test and see how many professionals will stay with the online certificate and how many of them will request (as it is today).
But I gotta tell you, at our company, whether you came to an interview with a paper or digital diploma or certification, we’re going to check it out. Paper would not placate or impress us one bit, and I suspect many other companies feel the same way. (Comments anyone?)
ANSWER: You're kidding? You're desvirtualizating the value of a certification! When you say that you're MCP, the way that they look to us change, really. They start to see us as great professionals.
We all know about many professionals who achieved a job because of the certification. And, certification is, in essence, a certificate.
This is personal marketing. Students, professionals and managers shine their eyes when tehy see our certificates and wallet cards.
Well, maybe Harvard or MIT will stop print certificates because of the green movement. Don't you think? ;-)
Another thing that no one is concerning about: since everything will be online, the chances of fake sites/certificates/cards increase, don't you agree?
And Chris S., when Microsoft annouced that exams will have practical questions, does any MCP blamed about? It's not a resistante of changing; it's a question of WHAT they're changing.
One more: where are the BENEFITS for the clients? With certificate/card/shipping the value is X. Without these benefits, the value will be X minus...
Oh, and once more thing: the card problem is LOGISTIC: every MCTS receives one card. If MS starts to control this better, sending only one for each new completed carrer, they will reduce the amount of cards.
1) The Dynamics marketing piece is gone along with the rest of the welcome kit.
2)Our surveys include questions that allow us to gauge the perceived value of individual benefits and weigh them against the overall value of the certification, and we use that info to make future benefit decsions. We tend not to ask specific questions like "how satisfied would you be if we charged you a shipping and handling fee for certificates" because that's the kind of question that pretty much everyone would answer the same way, regardless of how much it actually colored their perceptions of the overall program.
3) MCP, I don't understand the point you're making about cost, or the question. Can you please explain? As to the benefits--I think it's truly "x-plus," not "x-minus." You'll have certificates and cards the same as you did before--but your new cards can include your photograph and can verify your credentials (your wallet card can't do that); and your certificates will be available as soon as we receive your test results.
The sad thing is, you honestly believe that this is a good thing. I'm afraid the Lutz' arrogance is flowing downhill and that the entire organization feels that it knows whats best for its customers no matter how many of us tell you you're flat wrong.
* I have said it several times one kg of plastic means up to 6kg of CO2 emission.
Maybe you should lay that fool off instead of all the folk that work to bring us our shiney hard worked for certs (on glossy paper).
If realy want "Going Green" think carefully before you............!
Keep messing with your certified professionals. It am positive this sort of stupid short sighted decision making will surely result in good outcomes in the future. Whoever proposed this idea should go the way of the Bud Light guy in the commercial who suggested saving money by getting rid of bud light at meetings. Out the window.
By investing money in both the infrastructure for the digital certificates and for the ongoing hosting and download costs, we hope to encourage you to stop ordering the paper and rely on the digital certificate instead.
-------
Are you kidding me? So you considered just dropping electronic access to the certificates?
Look, you've got to run a respectable certification program. You are running a business certification program. This isn't suppose to be the equal of a GED.
If I told you I was running your University and that your degree would cost you 5.99 in shipping and processing after you shelled out all that money to get "certified" how would you take that? My MCSE in testing fees cost me $875 dollars in testing fees. Inside of that you should have made MORE then enough to support hosting electronically my certification and printing on glossy paper a certificate and printing a card. The rationale being used here is beyond illogical.
You do realize your are talking to IT PROFESSIONALS YOU CERTIFIED RIGHT? How many people here to do honestly think don't have a pretty solid idea that your costs to do this are nominal at best? Your talking shared hosting of services and developers time you already have to pay for to build and manage the MCP portal. Revision and update costs are normal and figured in to the budget. You wouldn't leave a site looking 5 years old. Your arguments are incredible Bull.... I don't mean to vent at you but have the decency to treat people with respect. Be honest and truthful and you might not catch this sort of flak.
If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck its probably a duck. You know what I am saying? I smell rotten eggs.
Whatever, I guess I'll just focus on my Cisco certifications and ignore any further Microsoft Certifications. At least they take there professionals and there program seriously.
Certainly not, and if there were no cost incentives, no one would go green unless obliged by certain legislations, like in many countries. Handing out a certification for someone that has spent days and months preparing for it, is a part of the process that every institution is using to accredit the hard work of anyone towards their certification. Its definitely not easy being green, but it seems as Microsoft is easily going green in dollars.
“On a deeply personal level, MSLGTGD, I’m thrilled that companies have found a reason that they can use to justify “going green.” Personally, I’d love it if they made the decision purely out of civic and social responsibility, and kidding aside I do certainly realize why you’re irked, but hey, whatever saves the environment is fine by me.”
By this sentence you justify the reasons that Microsoft is moving towards a payable certificate. You know that a great amount of people won’t be able, or just deny to pay for their certificate, so a great amount of paper won’t be used, hence let’s call it green, its fine by you right?
“Getting off my soapbox: I could simply say that Microsoft is committed to helping preserve the environment and often does so at a cost, but instead let me just pose a question: if all we wanted to do was cut our costs—or even if that was our most important goal—wouldn’t it have made more sense for us to forego the digital solution altogether and just start charging the shipping and handling fees for the paper certificates?”
The “often does so at a cost” is purely based on legislation that you cannot go around anyway.
“wouldn’t it have made more sense for us to forego the digital solution altogether and just start charging the shipping and handling fees for the paper certificates”
You see the end results with a so called transitional stage were, you call it green and suggest the free version. If you just moved directly on saying “pay for it”, the reaction would be massive. A riot would arise against Microsoft and the treatment of those people that really are the heart of what Microsoft is today, their professionals.
“By investing money in both the infrastructure for the digital certificates and for the ongoing hosting and download costs, we hope to encourage you to stop ordering the paper and rely on the digital certificate instead.”
With all due respect, I’m trying to be polite and have a fruitful discussion here, is this a statement of truth and honesty? Do you suggest that our IQ is that low to go for that? What costs are you talking about? Are you telling us that the costs for maintaining the website for the “so called” digital certificate is greater than sending the actual certificate?
You want to encourage us for using digital certificates, why don’t you encourage our employers and governments, and when they do go for it, all around the world, I would be the first one to rip them all off and recycle them
“Again, financially it would have made a lot more sense to skip the digital solution altogether—but we sincerely want you to stop ordering paper, even if it means it costs us money in the process.”
Now this is an honest question: Did you wake up one day, read through the posts, and thought you should jot in this answer as well? No, it wouldn’t make sense financially, because you would end up having no certifications whatsoever. If you want us to stop using paper, provide ms press books online free of charge (like someone else posted). Count the volume of paper used for the ms press books, and the volume of paper used for those 50gramms or so of the thin envelope you sent for every certification. The amount of envelopest hat would ever be received by any individual, will never reach the weight of a single book.
“This truly is one of those places where we try to balance our civic responsibility with our customer wishes. We know that many of you do need/want paper certificates for various reasons, so we want to keep them available. But frankly, we also believe that if they were free, many of you would order them just because, well, they’re free. (Not throwing stones—I tend to do that, too. If a company offers me something for free, who am I to refuse?) By passing along the shipping and handling charge, we’re frankly hoping that you guys think twice before ordering a certificate. And yes, we save a lot of money this way too—no sense denying that—but again, not as much as we’d save by forgoing the digital option altogether.”
Now we covered the civic responsibility so I will react as if this statement was never made. What do you mean by free? Do you have any idea of my much time and money has anyone of us invested in this procedure? Do you call this free? Was the certification free? Training maybe? Books?
We are talking about a single envelope, with which most of us can already see that has high cost savings, from packaging (the cheapest you could get without destroying its contents during handling) to delivery that takes up to six weeks to deliver (It would probably take less time to me to walk there and get it myself).
“And yes, we save a lot of money this way too—no sense denying that—but again, not as much as we’d save by forgoing the digital option altogether”
I think we’ve answered that before. The digital option by itself wouldn’t stand a chance, your own finance department wouldn’t let you go for it, because they’d know the effects of that action.
“This one’s easier to address, because 1) unlike the certificates, the wallet cards are not recyclable, making them even less friendly to the environment and 2) the new digital wallet cards offer true new features that the plastic cards cannot match—like automatic and up-to-date click-to-verify credentials. I really think you guys will like them.”
I suggest that you let credit card companies worry for the plastic they produce, and make an effort to convince them to use digital cards, or whatever you want to call them. When they do, when the world is ready to charge out of a pda or something, that is the time I will gladly be part of the digital so called green era.
“As for printed books and boxed software, I can’t speak to that—but I imagine over the coming months and years, other businesses in the company will be addressing our CEO’s call to action in their own ways. We decided not to wait any longer.”
Let’s just not use PCs either; it’s a great hazard for the world already. If it is a green incentive, you should go for the greener options like books, not the greener options dollar-wise as in the certificates.
“We did that, MCP—both formally through surveys and informally through this blog. One thing I’ll caution: don’t assume that a string of negative comments on the blog constitutes a bad reception. With over 2 million MCPs out there, any change make is likely to upset some percentage of the community, and we’d likely hear from some of them here. That said—we certainly are watching and listening and absolutely will pay very close attention to our customer satisfaction reports. We’re hoping that you guys will like the digital credentials as you start to use them.”
MCP’s you are well aware of, that are busy people, that care about making their living, and doing their job right. Most of them are not able to go through invitations, or even mcp newsflash. The matter of fact that posts are being populated as we speak is a great percentage of the active part of the mcp group; The one’s that care and want to be a part of it. Not even half of them would ever have the chance to read it in time. Do not hide behind statistics, you know it wasn’t right to begin with, don’t use a broad and sometimes irrelevant mailing to obtain important information that affects the lives of the mcps and most importantly the well being of the company we are working for, meaning Microsoft.
“MCP followed by asking how much of an impact we really have with this move—do we really generate that much paper?
We do—not to mention the packaging and shipping impacts—but even if we didn’t: every bit helps. Everyone needs to start making whatever positive impact they can, because it adds up.”
There are zillions of bits and pieces you can put together that would end up trillions times less environmental impact than the one of sending an envelope. Honestly, how do you go to sleep at night? Is lying an integral part of your life? Does it have to be one,? Just like SA on open value license agreement, at least there you get important services back. What do you really get out of it?
“You know what, Simon—I agree completely, and I actually fought this decision initially on this very reason alone. Here’s what flipped me: first, the obvious environmental benefit; second, the digital wallet cards, which I truly believe will quickly become the standard way that MCPs identify and prove their credentials. I actually predict use of the certificates—both paper and digital—to fade away. (Time will tell whether I’m right, of course). On-line access is so ubiquitous these days that there’s really no reason to accept a physical copy as proof of certification—insist on seeing the digital credential to truly verify one’s status. With the digital cards, employers will find it easier than ever before to identify official and genuine credentials.”
Dear Ken, have you ever thought about politics? It seems to me that you have all the necessary prerequisites to be there, especially on your way of writing. If you’d agreed with the idea of lowering the level of the certification, by not sending the envelopes, you wouldn’t be here trying to convince as otherwise. Please, oh please don’t talk about environmental issues. You said it, we know it it’s about the money.
I agree with the digital certificates only if the world was ready to accept it. What is the benefit to the environment if I print it myself and what if you print for me? I tell you what, I will print it once on a quick print to see how it would look, then I will print it again on full ink. Then based on the end result I would even go ahead and print it on a glossy paper. Finally, because, I really worked hard for it, I would drive down the road to the printing shop and ask for the best possible printout, and possibly get two or three copies (office, parents living room, home office (hall of fame))
Dear Ken, none of this is personal and I admire your effort. Please be honest to yourself, and then to anybody else. If when you look yourself at the mirror, you believe you’ve done the right thing, good for you, but don’t expect anyone else to support you.
Best Reagards
IT
Check this, they are serious about ecology:)
http://borntolearn.mslearn.net/2009/05/welcome-...
EPIC FAIL
If i knew all this will end like this I wouldn't focus on MS technology. Waste of time and money.
How much energy was consumed in the PR effort? I have to remind myself that Microsoft is located in a liberal state that believes this political garbage. Oh I should suggest to customers to pirate ms software...think of the paper we could save!
First, for those people who want paper certificates (such as I do), you are not saving anything in terms of carbon or paper. The certificate still needs to be printed, and for those MCPs, you are simply passing the cost to those people - either by making them print the certificates themselves, or by charging a fee to print and ship it from Microsoft. So only if people do not print out certificates at all is there an environmental savings, and while I am sure that some (perhaps a majority of) people will not print out their certificates, you have no way to really quantify the total. Therefore, this "green" initiative does not have as large an effect as Microsoft may claim.
Second, by changing the program as you have, you have changed the automatic nature. As described, people have to request a certifcate, or have to download a certificate; they have have to initiate the action of obtaining a certificate. Before, it was always automatic, with no action required on the part of an MCP - obtain a certification, automatically receive a certificate. Therefore, there is a finite loss of value in the overall MCP experience (due to the opportunity costs associated with having to request a certificate, and to print it out, or request a certificate from Microsoft plus the real financial cost of the handling fee).
I think a better solution to handle this would be (and you could still do this) to make the program fully digital, and announce to MCPs that they could go to the website, and sign up, either at the time of earning a certification or permanently (permanently being at Microsoft's discretion to end the initiative) to automatically receive a physical certificate for a certification (or every certification) at no cost (as you used to do). That would be the best way to gauge the desire, and actually would be the best for the MCP progam (in my opinion), although not for Microsoft corporately. If large number of MCPs sign up for physical certificates, it would show that Microsoft made the wrong decision. If few numbers of MCPs sign up for physical certificates, then the impact to Microsoft is small, and you could afford to continue to send out physical certificates at no cost to MCPs.
While there may be some "green" to this effort, I have to agree that I believe the real reason was cost (or profit), and that "green" is only a secondary benefit. That is not to disparage "green", but again, the benefits are not so great as it may first appear, depending on how many MCPs have certificates printed, either by Microsoft, or themselves. (And if an MCP has to print a certificate more than once to have it print correctly, he is now using more resources than Microsoft normally would.)
One question - does Microsoft print the certificates itself, or is this outsourced? That could also explain the desire to eliminate this benefit.
Appreciate if Microsoft can continue to offer free certificates if not atleast some one else to order the certificates for the students who do no own a credit card atleast in the developing countries. I have been an MCP since 2003 and I only had a credit card from last year (i.e. 2008) October. This is not just the case with me but with many in the developing countries.
As for the signature, yes we do realize that Bill Gates signed your original certificates. However, when issuing new certificates--either paper or digital--we've decided to use the signature of our current CEO Steve Ballmer. If a potential hiring manager questions the authenticity of your certificate, feel free to use the transcript sharing tool (and soon, your virtual business card) to prove your credentials.
The credit card issue is one we'd like to see addressed soon, and I will ask our Arvato for an update on that.
answer. So, what should I do?
In a typical week most people would have hundreds if not thousands of paper based products pass through their workplace and home. Out of thoes most have no real significance and some at least were a waste of (old growth) trees and energy. On the other hand some paper products may be seen as "green" since they replaced a packaging that was more damaging to the enviroment - the most graphic example is that of a dolphin that might have died from some plastic bottle packaging but now is safe thanks to paper based packaging.
Getting back to MCP certifications - these are important acheivements of study and hard work for the people who sit these exams and also Microsoft who design them. They ARE worthy of a little bit of paper and not just any paper but recycled/plantation sourced paper produced by companies who are using ecologicaly sound practices.
Furthermore a physical paper based cert can be displayed on a wall with zero use of energy - I hate to think how bad for the enviroment it would be if everyone who receives their digital cert sets up a plasma screen on the wall and a PC to scroll their certs 24/7.
What is greenest: a pot plant that requires water, light and fertilizer, a plastic pot plant that requires no resources, a "digital pot plant" or no pot plant. Now think about if it would be a good idea to clear land (a plantation) that was being used to grow tree's for various products to make way for a datacentre, power station and computer manufacturing facility.
BTW I am not against a download option I just would like to see a free "green" paper option for the people who want it and will value it and would also like to see Microsoft supporting companies that make paper in a way that is responsible rather than the usual story of companies who are producing ecoloicaly sound products go out of business as they are being undercut but companies who do the wrong thing.
can you do a mass survey or something so that we can opt-in for the prints back ?