Wisconsin Society of Certified Public Managers®

By Mark Evans, CPM; President
morpho6@tds.net

The Wisconsin Society of Certified Public Managers® (WSCPM) has had a number of things going on so far this year. Before we give you our brief society news, we want to let you know Susan Paddock and Robbi Dreifuerst and the Wisconsin CPM Program  have moved their office to new digs in the new University of Wisconsin Welcome Center located at 21 N. Park Street in Madison. We wish them the very best in their new home!

We welcomed a new CPM graduating class into the ongoing service for the citizens of Wisconsin. This newest class graduated in Janesville on Friday February 13, 2009. Welcome!

At our March 5 WSCPM Board meeting, we tested an online conference tool, Elluminate. On February 24, I emailed other CPM society presidents access instructions and an invitation to participate in our society meeting. Aside from the testing process, the objective of the exercise was for each society to describe one thing they had done in 2008 or planned to do in 2009 which they believed was educational or of special interest to their membership. Melissa Collier from Mississippi joined us via chat mode and described two things they have done. They scheduled quarterly Lunch-n-Learn sessions in various locations around the Jackson area. Participants earn one hour of elective credit toward the CPM program. The first of these brown bag presentations garnered positive feedback. They will also stage an annual government employee appreciation award banquet. It was great having Melissa join us! Happi Hansen from Utah tried to participate, but for unknown technical reasons, she could not see our web site. It’s possible something at her location was blocking site access. (Hence… the word, “testing.”)  Anyhow, what Melissa saw from her remote location and what others would have seen is depicted below.

Elluminate is an online video conferencing tool. Remote users, equipped with a webcam and microphone. can see and hear us and we can see and hear them. Those who don’t have the webcam and microphone have chat in a text box. If you would like to get a sense of what our meeting was like, check out the link below:
https://sas.elluminate.com/p.jnlp?psid=2009-03-05.0750.M.AFAF3CBC1C30AA142A74C1C92BC2D5.vcr

We plan to try this again, likely within our state membership at our June 2009 meeting and then nationally during our annual meeting in October. Our October meeting will be in Green Bay at one of Jeff Roemer’s fire houses. We’ll share information at the Florida conference and maybe you can join us virtually in Green Bay!

© Copyright 2009, American Association of Certified Public Managers®