Dear Andrew, please bring back the Certified Instructor Program

An open letter to Autodesk CEO

Dear Andrew,

Few years ago, I was undergoing a change of career: I was shifting from what I did before (architectural and interior design, with a particular stress on quality control and construction site management) to BIM coordination and management.

As soon as I got on board with the BIM Revolution, two things happened in rapid sequence:

• I realized that Revit was the best production tool for the scale and kind of architecture I was dealing with and for the level of rigour and accuracy I had to aim for;
• I understood that training others was going to be a crucial part of my job.

I always liked teaching: I had previous experiences in teaching technical drawing and history of art and I’ve always thought you learned more by teaching than by studying. But I didn’t feel like stepping up and proclaiming myself a Revit Trainer: there were programmes and badges and an exam and it all looked very interesting. At the time, the exam to become an Autodesk Certified Instructor was a three-days workshop and I was so lucky as to be close to the only Training Center in Italy which was entitled to host this kind of exams. The center was Forma Mentis, the guy was Luigi Santapaga.

It was kind of expensive(ish) and you got overloaded with a ton of beautiful material about teaching to adults.

If this year I am holding an Autodesk University class about training techniques and the importance of devising a compelling activity even when teaching the process, it’s partially thanks to that program.

Nowadays I teach a lot, students and professionals alike. I also attend lots of workshops and sometime it strikes me how bad things can go when the instructor doesn’t follow the Lecture – Demo – Activity cycle in a religious way.

This is why I was sad to understand that the Certified Instructor badge (and exam) has been discontinued and replaced with the Approved Instructor badge. For those who are not familiar with this, an Certified Instructor (ACI for short) was a guy who had the Certified Professional badge and passed the three-days exam. An Approved Instructor used to be “just” a guy with the Certified Professional badge who is teaching at an Autodesk Training Center (ATC for short).

I partially understand this decision. By giving an ATC more power, you delegate quality control and are sure that Instructors are kept an eye on, programmes are aligned with your general policy for training and so on.

On the other hand, I miss the kind of knowledge and the networking opportunity I was given while undergoing the Certified Instructor program.

Therefore I have a proposal to save the proverbial goat and cabbage.

This is how it used to be: you needed to have the Certified Professional and you became an Approved Instructor if you worked in a Training Center or you could be a Certified Instructor and hold your own courses.

This is how it might work: a three-step program in which you have to achieve the Certified Professional and then, provided you work in a Training Center (therefore being an Approved Instructor) you can try the Certified Instructor exam.

Since these guys already have an employer (the Training Center), you might also think to have less locations for the workshop: people might be willing to travel more, since somebody might be paying for this.

So here it is, my plea and proposal to bring the ACI program back.

Thanks, and see you in Vegas.

Chiara