Wim, this goes back to the education and marketing. Somehow, we've got to get out the message that the skills to fix up an old Wurlitzer spinet are worth 2 to 3 times what universities want to pay for high level concert and rebuilding skills, and at some point this reality will need to be addressed if universities aren't getting the skill level of applicants for their piano technician job openings. Jeff Jeff It all comes down to what's important for a university. There are some schools that have recognized the importance of having a skilled technician, or two, on staff, to do that. But for a lot of schools, keeping the pianos at maximum performance level just isn't important enough for them to pay more than the minimum, much less provide a budget for replacement parts. I agree that the PTG needs to be much more pro-active to let schools know about the importance of hiring qualified technicians, and how much they should be paid. We need to do that by sending our information to them on a regular basis. Just like in the private sector, an effective method of getting customers is with what is called the "7 hit rule". A customer needs to be informed about a product or service 7 times before that customer takes action. In other words, the PTG can't just send out a brochure once, and expect all the music schools to instantly start hiring. We need to send out this information twice a year for 3 or 4 years before we can expect for that information finally starts to sink in. The other place where this information needs to be distributed is in the professional music magazines. I am a member of the ACDA (American Choral Director's Association). There is also the AGO, MENC, etc, not to mention the professional organizations for all the other instruments, and magazines like Downbeat. These magazines are read by college and university professors and students. I'm not talking about putting ads in these magazines that we pay for, or if we're lucky to get the ads for free through a reciprocal agreements. What we (someone) needs to do is write articles about the importance of maintaining instruments, etc., and the importance of hiring, and paying, qualified technicians. I just recently wrote an article for the ACDA Journal on the importance of choral directors setting up appointments. I was told it might take a year for it to appear in print. This is how the PTG can do a much better job of educating the people who use our services the most. Perhaps we can members who belong to these various professional organization to write, or at least submit these articles. This is where The PTG need to spend more of our marketing energy and money. Wim -----Original Message----- From: Jeff Tanner <tannertuner at bellsouth.net> To: caut <caut at ptg.org> Sent: Sat, May 15, 2010 9:24 am Subject: Re: [CAUT] Professional Development Wim, this goes back to the education and marketing. Somehow, we've got to get out the message that the skills to fix up an old Wurlitzer spinet are worth 2 to 3 times what universities want to pay for high level concert and rebuilding skills, and at some point this reality will need to be addressed if universities aren't getting the skill level of applicants for their piano technician job openings. Jeff Wim writes: Not to put a damper on your idea, which does sound like a great idea, but..... what will it do for the individual technician other than self satisfaction? No matter how much training we get, even if we can put another couple of letters behind our name, or knowing that we have taken a couple of courses and perhaps scored well on a couple of tests, getting the aditional credentials will not make much difference in our income, much less have an impact on school administrators or our customers. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut.php/attachments/20100515/730abe85/attachment.htm>
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