ICA Community Bulletin

Dear Bronwyn,
what an exciting time! I will graduate in September and I really enjoyed learning and growing with ICA. Your ideas to provide more network opportunities are great; I do admire your work and recommended ICA already to a couple of people interested in coaching; when I listened to your idea to change the name to “Lobii” (correct??) I was not so sure, however, if I like the name and if I can associate the meaning you have explained around it. To be honest, Academy sounds more professional to me than “Lobii” or “Lobby”; there is a more casual connotation; my clients also very much like professional approaches and my first thought was, would it be not better to create the “lobby” site as a sub-site of the current ICA? Especially with ICA expanding into more and more countries I think it is important to keep in mind that English might not be the mother tongue of your clients and therefore ambiguity of meaning should be kept to a minimum (this is including myself, a native German working with Japanese executives and traveling between Germany, Japan and the US); so I truly prefer to have the name “ICA” on my graduation certificate; also, “lobby” can have a negative connotation as a power group (lobbyism) and I am sure this is not what you want; surely you want to be powerful but in a positive way. Bottomline is: I support your move forward and the intentions you have, however, I am not in favour of the name (as I interpreted it when listening to it for the first time); I would be happy to exchange more information with you. lots of greetings, Iris

I am all for collaboration, but collaboration within the professionals to share best practices. Most of us spent a large amount of money with ICA to become professional coaches with the intention of charging for our services. What you are describing sounds to me like you will be competing with us for services provided to our clients. This was not disclosed to us when we signed up. If it is true you will now be charging for coaching services to the public after taking our money by advertising we could be professional coaches, then I feel like this is a conflict of interest on the part of ICA.

Well done! I am looking forward to this great community sharing even more with the world.

Hi Bronwyn,
Like so many others I have strong concerns about the name change and about what feels like a watering down of what ICA is. I would not have signed up with Lobii either and I do not want to have to tell people that I graduated from Lobii. I agree with the above suggestions that Lobii be a sister organization with it’s own activities and branding. In addition, in reference to Deah’s email I have equally strong concerns about the possibility of eliminating the written exam. A large part of why I signed up with ICA is because it seemed academically sound and not gimmicky. Lobii, on the other hand, sounds like nothing but gimmick. I urge you to reconsider these proposals and to maintain the professionalism and hard won reputation of ICA as a coach training institution.

Regards,
Kristin

Dear Bonwyn

I am very disappointed and concerned. I researched training programs for 2 years before paying my hard earned money to ICA. I can appreciate your vision, however, my initial reaction includes the feeling of being a bit “chaeted”.
I had to give up a lot in order to pay the tution for my training. It was important to me to receive the necessary credentialing that ICA offers in order to be a professionally trained life coach. I would have never signed up to a school named “Lobii”. It is a made up name. A name I would not choose to be associated with. Just as we were taought to develop a choching model that would protray the coaching process, so should the school have a name that describes it’s training program. ICA does just that, Lobii does the opposite in my opinion. It does not explain a thing.

Again, I chose ICA after months of research. I love the fact that it has such a diverse community. I am pleased with the instructors and the teachings offered. I don’t think it would be fair to include clients, friends, or anyone elese interested in the “Coach Training Program”. I feel that should be available to those who wish to pursue professional coach training. We all know that there will be regulations placed on the coaching industry. It is vital to me to receive training that I can be proud of.

As mentioned above, it’s a great idea to add to ICA. Please reconsider your vision and the importance of a good education to the community you already have. A community that was told they would receive a diploma after meeting all of the graduation requirements from the “INTERNATIONAL COACH ACADEMY”. Why the changes? I don’t understand why students will no longer be responsibile for a written exam. I think it is an important ingrediant to the understand of our training.

I am confident with your passion and vision you can come up with a name or keep the one we are so proud to be associated with, and a series of programs that would meet the needs of coaches, clients, and the like. But in fairness, I feel you must first be true to the students you already have.

I am also concered about the future changes to the program. I hope you do not intend to change the graduation requirements. We were sold on the fact that they were ALL necessary in order to be professionally trained as coaches.

Please hear the comments made here today!

Sincerely,

Bridgette Oberski

Dear ICA team,

I am Elke Van Hooreweghe, ICA student since August 2008 and I plan on graduating in September.

I want to let you know that I am very pleased with the program and the multiple ways of assessment. I did choose this program because it’s so ‘academic’ and at the same time ‘hands on’. I want to request to keep the written exam.

The new name doesn’t ring well to me. In Belgium and most European countries, there is some apprehension around ‘getting a degree/certificate with a purely ‘online’ education. However, up until now, ICA met all the high standards of credibility! I am proud to be graduating from ICA and I want to request the name of International Coach Academy to be on my certificate. I do agree that ‘Academy’ sounds better that ‘Lobbii’ for reasons of credibility towards clients and towards colleagues of other helping professions.

Moreover, when I mentioned the name to friends and family (without ANY warning or introduction, just by the way, what do you think of the new name of my school?) not one of them liked it or found it an added value.

Could you please reconsider?

Thank you very much,

Elke

I too must agree with the other students that have commented. The name of International Coaching Academy explains exactly why I joined ICA. It is a coaching school. That is why I am here. All along the coaching journey I have been told that developing a Niche is important. As you specify and fine tune your ideal client, you attract the right clients to your front door. Now as I ponder the new changes I have to ask if the net is being cast on a much broader audience? The new “ICA” seems a bit muddy to me.

The talk of community at one point in time, represented our coaching community-fellow students and graduates of ICA. Now when you mention community I see that it means anyone, everyone interested in a skill set. Although I can see a place for the above community I also have to say that I agree with others that it should be a separate arm of ICA. What brought us to ICA was the coaching curriculum. We as coaches are capable of teaching our clients techniques and sharing with them the wealth of information we have learned from ICA by being their coach. Isn’t that the point of the school in the first place?

I disagree with ICA reaching out to “the community” and including non-coaching program “students” in with those that have paid for the certificate program. It would be like grouping those who want an AA degree in with those that want their Masters degree. Overall I must say that the very defined fine tuned aspects of ICA that originally sold me on it as a awesome unique coaching school now seem muddled, unclear and very vague.

I do appreciate the need for change and I also know that to please every single student at ICA would be a challenge beyond measure- however I would really like to ask if the current changes you are proposing seek to benefit your current audience more or a potential future audience. In other words are the changes geared toward ICA students and those that are currently your customers or are they geared toward those that have yet to sign up. I would hate to see one category outweigh the other as both are equally important for the future success of ICA.

As far as change is concerned, people are more apt to go with change when they feel they have a say in the changes taking place. Perhaps a poll of some kind regarding different names would be a good idea. Again you can’t please everyone-but the current ICA student body is also the largest and most enthusiastic advertising arm that ICA currently has. It would be sad if the majority of ICA students lost their enthusiasm and simply stopped mentioning the program all together.

I deeply appreciate the ability to voice the above thoughts and concerns and do so only with the best of intentions.
Thank you-
Jenny Vanhoff

http://www.shinealive.com

I live in Florida and would love to be a student buddy.