Time for a trip down memory lane…
Back in the day, 2012 to be exact, I was working with Market Motive, a training company that delivered digital marketing courses. The courses awarded completion certificates… but so did our competitors. And because those certificates weren’t nonpartisan, they didn’t necessarily garner the recognition from employers that any of our learners deserved.
While there were loads of existing independent standards organizations for other industries, like the PMP for project managers, there wasn’t one for digital marketers.
So one of our founders gathered together a board of thought leaders and influential authors in the digital marketing arena, and established an independent organization called OMCP: Online Marketing Certified Professional.
In the beginning, I was tasked with building the very first site for OMCP with, as founder Michael Stebbins says, “a $5 budget and a two-day deadline.”
Well, it wasn’t that bad. But it was close.
Working with Michael and our advisors, I helped establish the look and feel of the site — even designing the logo — along with the voice of the organization. I wrote the entire site, top to bottom, including the first draft of the Code of Ethics. And I’m happy to say much of that content is still on the site.
Since then, OMCP has grown in ways I never imagined. They’ve published a Book Of Knowledge (BOK), adopted a proper proctoring system, expanded their Board and Standards Committees, and fundamentally changed the way the entire digital marketing industry measures and rewards expertise. To date, more than 1000 universities, colleges, and training providers teach to OMCP standards, and OMCP has tested and certified over 70,000 marketers and counting.
So what’s the news?
I’m excited to share that OMCP has now been acquired by the National Institute for Social Media (NISM). The acquisition will give OMCP the resources to “expand its certification exams, training services, and member benefits using practices already established by NISM.”
I haven’t been involved with OMCP for many years, but I couldn’t be more proud to have been there in the beginning, helping cast the die for what has become a valuable and influential industry organization.
See the Press Release below for all the info.
William Street Creative 