WORKFORCE 3ONE

TRANSCRIPT OF WEBINAR

Competency Model Clearinghouse:
Build a Model & Career Lattice/Ladder Tools

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2008

Transcript by:
Federal News Service
Washington, D.C.

OPERATOR:  My name is Laquita (ph) and I will be your conference operator today.  At this time I would like to welcome everyone to the Career Ladder/Lattices New Tools for Talent Development webinar.  All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise.  If you should need assistance during the call, please press star then zero and an operator will come back online to assist you.  Thank you.

And Mr. Gary Gonzalez, sir, you may begin your conference. 

GARY GONZALEZ:  Thank you, Laquita.  Again, my name is Gary Gonzalez.  I'm going to be handling all technical issues associated with our webinar today, hopefully of which there will be very few.  Before I turn things over to Pam Frugoli I have just a few things I want to go over with you.  If you haven't attended a Workforce3One webinar before, I want to go over the layout of the webinar room as it appears on your monitor.  There's going to be about four areas I want to draw your attention to.

The first is the presentation slide area.  This is where the main visual component will appear for you and it'll be the main focus of your attention throughout today's session.  Now, to the top left of your monitor you'll notice an attendee list.  It just displays a list of everyone who's logged into the webinar with you, which appears to be about 230 people right now. 

Directly beneath that attendee list there is a chat feature which you can use at any point throughout today's session to submit any questions or comments directly to the speakers.  And since there are so many people attending today's session, we muted the phone lines.  It's going to be a one-way conference call.  Basically what that means is you're going to be able to hear the speakers but we're not going to be able to hear you, due to the number of attendees logging into the webinar today.  So again, we're going to rely on that chat feature to solicit your questions and comments throughout the webinar.

Now, you'll notice to the top left of your screen there is a meeting menu.  If you click that meeting menu dropdown you'll notice that there is a full screen option that you can select at any point.  We are going to be having quite a number of graphics or images associated with today's content so if any of those images or graphics appear too small, click that full screen option and that will help to increase the size of the webinar room.  Also, if you're able, you can also increase or decrease the resolution on your monitor and that will also increase the resolution -- or increase the size of the webinar room as it appears for you. 

Now a bit more about that chat feature and how to use it.  You'll notice that there is a white horizontal text field at the bottom of that chat window.  So just mouse over, left click in that area, type any question or comment that you might have and then you click the arrow button at the right to submit.  I just want to let you know anything you submit via that chat is only viewable by the presenters.  Other participants won't see anything you submit.  So again, at any point if you have any questions or comments, use that chat.  We'll be monitoring those questions as they come in, placing them in a queue and then addressing those questions at the end of today's session.

Now, if you haven't done so already I'm going to ask that you let us know just a bit about yourself, some general information such as who you are, your name; your organization; where you might be located in the country, such as your city, your state, or even your region; and how many people, if any, are attending this session with you.  So just take a second to type that information in.

And while you're doing that I just want to let you know we are recording the webinar.  We're going to be making the recording available within the next two business days.  It'll be posted to Workforce3One and the quickest way to access the recording is just to log into your Workforce3One account.  You'll be taken to your My Events page and from there you'll just right click the View Resources link to the right of the session title to access not only the recording but the transcript as well, along with the PowerPoint. 

I made the PowerPoint available before we began the session today in the file share window which I minimized.  It's gone away.  You'll notice in that chat window there's a direct link to the PowerPoint which you can download at any point.

All right.  With that I want to turn things over to our moderator, Pam Frugoli, the O*NET lead at the Employment and Training Administration.  Take it away, Pam.

PAM FRUGOLI:  Thank you, Gary.  And I'll be doing some introduction but I also at this time want to introduce Laura Putnam who was a member of our technical team that helped to design the tools we're going to be demonstrating for you today.  And I'll turn it over to Laura in just a moment.

So before we get to the tools I want to provide a little context for those of you who may not be familiar with the Employment and Training Administration's Competency Initiative overview.  And then we'll actually walk you through two new tools on our Competency Model Clearinghouse, ones that allow you to build and customize an industry competency model and the tool that allows you to build a career ladder/lattice.

Okay.  The whole development of this project and these tools came out of a series of investments -- grants that ETA has made to promote training in targeted high-demand industries in community-based training and for talent development for regional economies.  And as part of that process ETA met with leaders from various industry sectors and talked about their workforce needs and what some of the solutions might be and industry competency models actually came up as one of those solutions.  Business and industry employers felt like they needed a better way to communicate what their real skill needs were in terms of an industry.  We often have a lot of information about occupation, and in fact O*NET -- the Occupational Information Network -- is one of those sources, but we often don't have that much from an industry perspective. 

So ETA committed to supporting this effort in several ways.  We wanted to promote the development of such models and then convene industry to help us revise and validate those models.  So ETA has done the initial research and pulled things together from curricula, skill standards, certifications and so forth; then we have met with multiple not just industry partners but also people from education and the workforce system to validate these models.  And then finally, we want to serve as a broker of this information, and I will be showing you one of the ways we're doing that, delivering that information. 

But I also want to emphasize what are the uses of competency models besides the initial goal of just getting the word out about what industry skill needs are?  You can also use them to develop curricula and training models.  You can check the content of an overall program; not just the curriculum for a course, but the sequence and scope of courses in a program.  You can use it to develop position descriptions and hiring criteria.  For example, we often find that very large companies actually develop competency models internally.  But there may be small or medium-sized firms in the same industry that don't have the financial or human resources to do that work and having a competency model that is shared nationally can help such firms. 

There are other uses I want to talk about to lead into the uses that we've developed today is that you can also use competency models as the foundation for career ladders and lattices which can help people to see where they can start in a career and then how they can build up over time to make more money, pursue different interests, and that's what we will be showing you.  And we think that the competency models serve as a great foundation and starting point for building those.

So this screen shows you the Competency Model Clearinghouse.  This is a Web portal within careeronestop.org, which I hope many of you are familiar with, and if you're not you can see that the URL for the Web site is at the bottom of your screen.  And actually, where the arrows are up above, where it says "more resources," there's a dropdown menu there.  So if you went just to careeronestop.org and clicked the dropdown, you would see Competency Model Clearinghouse as one of the options.  And when you hit "go" it would take you to this home page.

So there are several things in the main screen here.  One is the technical assistance guide on developing and using competency models.  But you'll see the circled portion there says "find resources" and it names some of the types of resources.  But if you click on that, you actually get to a screen which is a searchable database of resources.  All of the things that we have looked at in developing the industry competency models are in this database, and even more -- things that we've subsequently learned about. 

And so you're able to search it by keyword at the top.  You can browse by the industry.  And you'll see, for example, it says there "advanced manufacturing," there are 177 competency-based resources in the database related to advanced manufacturing.  You can also search by the O*NET job families because some of the materials are occupation related.  And finally, at the bottom it says "browse by resource type;" you can actually look for apprenticeship work process schedules, you can look for specific career lattices, certifications, existing competency models and so forth.  So we think is also -- a lot of these things exist elsewhere but we've pulled them together here saying that these all support industry competency models. 

Next, back on the home page for the clearinghouse, you can access the models -- the industry models -- that are posted to date.  If you click on that you'll see that there are six models.  There's -- you go to a page that has a dropdown menu.  So currently we have advanced manufacturing; financial services; retail; hospitality, hotel and lodging; energy generation, transmission and distribution; and information technology was just completed and released on site on October 3rd.  In addition, we have other models that are underway.  We're in the validation stages working with industry partners on aerospace; transportation, distribution and logistics; and heavy highway civil construction, to name a few. 

Just to give you an idea of what one of the models looks like, here is the advanced manufacturing competency model.  And as you can see, we actually have named some of the main partners we worked with:  NAM -- the National Association of Manufacturers -- and NACFAM -- the National Council for Advanced Manufacturing.  And we brought in together a lot of people from across the country, some of whom are members of these associations.  So you can see not only is the model here -- and actually, if we were live you could see that you can mouse over the boxes -- the competency blocks in the model -- and get more detail.  You can also get all of the detail behind it and download it in a document form.

We link to the ETA press release, a press release from NAM, a paper on addressing workers' challenges in advanced manufacturing, and also we provide links to the career cluster documentation.  So we are aligning this effort with the efforts by the career and technical education community to develop and promote career clusters. 

Just to give you a little idea of a competency model, because we're going to be sort of using one as we go through the tool, it actually consists of nine tiers organized sort of in a pyramid.  And the three tiers at the bottom are the foundational tiers.  Personal effectiveness competencies, which are gained primarily -- almost in early stages of life in the home, the family, the community. 

Academic competencies, which are sort of like the prerequisites.  It doesn't mean that there's no academic learning at other tiers; it's just that these are sort of the prerequisites you have to have gotten in K through 12 or some postsecondary that will allow you to acquire the subsequent competencies. 

Then there are workplace competencies which sort of build on the other two but relate more to the application of competencies in a work setting.  For example, there's often interpersonal effectiveness -- or interpersonal skills at the level of personal effectiveness and then there's teamwork at the level of workplace competency, which is just a slightly -- it builds on this skill but in a work setting you often cannot select the people that you're going to interact with so you have to have different skills to work on a team. 

Now, tiers six through nine we showed as occupation related.  Sorry, I skipped the industry tiers.  The two middle tiers are industry-related.  So tier four is industry-wide technical competencies.  So, for example, that would be for all of advanced manufacturing. 

Then tier five are industry sector technical competencies.  So for example, if you were doing auto manufacturing you could build a tier five on that.  And then the top tiers, six through nine, in the blue are occupation-related. 

And because we do have information on competency profiles through O*NET, we've never actually built out the tiers for occupations here.  But as we were working particularly with the career and technical education people and with others, we have seen the importance of career ladders and how well that related to industry competency models.  And so that's why we came up with the idea of developing this tool to build a career ladder or lattice on top of the first five tiers and that's what we're going to show you. 

Now, you may be wondering what I mean by the term "career ladder or lattice."  On the left hand we have a sample career ladder from healthcare, and it's a ladder because it goes from occupation to the next.  First responder, EMT basic, EMT enhanced, and so forth -- different levels of emergency medical technicians.  The career lattice on the right side is for financial services and it shows that from one occupation you might be able to take different paths; it's not just one straight linear progression.  These are just a couple of sample models. 

You'll actually see that in the tool we've allowed you to build all kinds of lattices.  And in fact I want to point out that to assist with this process we have eight samples already posted on the Web site -- and we'll point out later where those are -- but that you can look at.  And we also want to point out that it's not just this graphic.  Obviously this is not that fancy, titles with arrows between them.  But as you'll see in the next slide, there is information behind each box that we ask -- that we have filled in on the samples and that the tool prompts you to fill in for the career ladder you're building. 

And so we actually feel that because it is a lot of detail that it really requires a collaborative process.  It would be very hard for a -- or, it would be a lot of work for a single individual to sit down and build all of the information that would be in a career ladder.  And in fact, they should be reaching out to industry, to education, to perhaps even practitioners in the field, people in the occupation.  And a group that would need to do something like this would say, what are the key industries in our region?  What careers are priorities for talent development in those industries?  And then look at the jobs that make up those careers and build a career ladder or lattice.

And so the kind of information that's included -- that you can include, you don't have to include -- you don't have to populate every field -- but includes job title, job level, description, education, workforce preparation, work experience, some of the other requirements such as certification or licensure, and you can also add information on the wages and employment outlook.  And you'll actually see some of that as we go through the demo.

So on the next slide you'll see that where these tools are located is in the Build a Model link on the Competency Model Clearinghouse home page.  And there are two options under there:  one that allows you to build or customize a model and one that allows you to create the career ladder or lattice.  If you click on that, it'll take you to this screen.  Actually, if you look up in the blue box where it says "think about," it says, "view industry models, view sample career ladders and lattices," which is where the eight models that I told you that -- the eight samples we've already developed are posted. 

Then if you look down under the green box you'll see it says "demos" and that's actually what we're going to show you today.  They're either demonstrations or tutorials -- two tutorials.  And I want you to know that the voice that you hear on the demos is also the voice of Laura Putnam who is going to be walking us through them today. 

So now I'll turn it over to Laura.

LAURA PUTNAM:  Thank you, Pam.  Okay.  We are not live out on the site right now so on some of the screens the actual -- the image is going to be cut off; it doesn't allow us to scroll up and down.  But if you do look at those tutorials at some point later on, they walk you through it and they scroll through so that you can see all of the action at once.

So to get started, the first thing to do is to create a user account.  Now, creating an account lets you save your work as you go through.  And it actually saves automatically so that you don't need to create everything all in one sitting and that you can come back to it as necessary.  So the first thing is to type in your user name and your password and then log in.

This brings us to the main menu.  The main menu lets you manage your account and it shows you all of your options.  When you first start -- there are two parts of the tool, as we've mentioned.  And when you first start, only "add model" is the only active link available because you need to -- the way it's set up, you have to create a competency model foundation first to serve as a foundation for your career ladder/lattice.  So we will go ahead and create our model. 

"Getting started," again, just provides you an overview of the tool.  And you can see at the top the navigation bar on this screen highlights the section of the tool in which you are working.  And as you move along, you can click on a different section of the navigation bar to get back to an earlier section of the tool.  Also -- and what you can't see here -- is at the bottom of the screen are blue navigation buttons that walk you through, clicking "next" to advance the screen.

The first step is to select a model to serve as the starting point for selecting competencies.  The options available are to select a generic building blocks model, which has generic competencies applicable to multiple industries, or to select one of the existing validated industry competency models.  For our example today we are going to use advanced manufacturing and then we will name our model and click "next."  And those are the blue navigation buttons there, right beneath the model name.

That brings us to tier one which, as Pam talked about before, are the personal effectiveness competencies, the competencies referred to often as soft skills that are learned in the home and community and reinforced at school and in the workplace.  And you can include only certain competencies by checking -- if you see here these boxes on the right, you can check any of these to select only individual competencies, or you can check "include all" to select all of them. 

Now, you can also -- if there is -- and again, I can't scroll down to show you all of the competencies that are available in this list.  We've also built in a feature that allows you to either add individual key behaviors to an existing competency or add an additional competency.  But now we will add a competency and to do that we would click up here on "add competency." 

The first step is to enter the name of the competency that you want to add; so we'll add interpersonal skills.  Then you can enter a definition, which is optional, but you have to add at least one key behavior.  So we'll add one key behavior, "demonstrate respect for the opinions, perspectives and individual differences of others."  Now, if you notice the blue buttons at the bottom, you can add another key behavior.  You can keep adding key behaviors to this or when you're finished you can click "done."  And since this is just a sample, we're just going to click "done" and move to the next.

Now, if you notice, the competency you added is going to be displayed at the bottom of your screen at the end of the list of existing competencies and it is already checked for inclusion in your model.  Click "next" to move onto tier two. 

Tier two contains academic competencies and these competencies -- the same functions are available on tier one are available again here on tier two.  But if you'll notice, there are little plus signs next to some of the key behaviors.  And what you can do is the plus signs allow you to edit directly the descriptions of the key behaviors right on screen.  So if you like a key behavior that's there but you want to tweak it a little bit, you can do that by clicking on the plus sign, editing it, and then it saves your edited version.  So we will select all again to keep moving and move on to tier three. 

Tier three are the workplace competencies.  And again, same as tier one and tier two so we're just going to include all and then click "next." 

After the foundational tiers, a review screen appears that shows you two views of your model so far:  a grid view which shows you the overview of your pyramid, the basic -- the blocks; and then beneath that is the detailed view which lists all of the key behaviors and any of the additional information that you have added to those descriptions.  So at this point you can review your model and, if you like, again use that navigation bar at the top to go back if you want to make any changes.  If you like it as is, you can select this tier four competencies button at the top will move us on to the next tier. 

Tier four are the industry-wide technical competencies and again all the same features are available here.  You'll notice there's actually -- although there's an additional element and that is levels.  Some of the models that have been developed have different levels.  You see, there is entry-level critical work functions and then beneath that are technician level critical work functions.  You can include all of them.  You can include some of them.  It really is available for you to customize.  We are going to select "include all" and move on to the next screen.

Again, after tier four you have a frame that lets you review your model and at this point you can stop and save -- stop building -- move on to build a career ladder/lattice; or continue building through tier five, and that's what we're going to do. 

Tier five for many of the models have sectors that have been identified, and some competencies have been identified that are associated with those sectors to give you a starting point so you're not staring at a blank screen.  If, however, you are building a model for a sector that is not available, you can enter the sector name yourself -- create it yourself -- and then start from scratch on the next screen.  We're going to use aerospace as an example and move on. 

And again, it's the same functionality.  Here we have different levels.  You have the plus signs next to key behaviors that you can click on to edit or you can add additional key behaviors and competencies.  We again, for simplicity sake, are going to include all and click "next."

This is the final review screen and it'll show you everything to date, your foundational tiers up here in the grid view and your industry tiers.  So you can review them at the top level and then scroll down -- unfortunately we can't see it, but scroll down to look at all the detail of everything that you've included so far.

When you are finished and would like to stop and save -- although, your work has been -- every time you complete a tier your work is automatically saved.  This "stop and save" button lets you download your work if you would like.  You can download your work as a Word document.  The only thing we caution is that if you make any additional changes in your Word document they won't be saved in your account.  So it's helpful to make any changes that you want to make in your account so that everything is saved.  And then when you feel that it's finished, download the Word document.  After you've done so, you can move on to build a career ladder/lattice. 

The introduction page of the career ladder/lattice tool provides an overview of the structure of the tool and uses of career ladders.  It also shows you some of the capabilities of the tool.  And the graphic that is displayed here -- only it's a little illegible -- is the same type of graphic that will be created at the end of the tool that shows your -- the progression of your career ladder/lattice.  So we will click "next."

"Getting started" again shows you some of the key features of the tool and at the top we have the same navigation bar, same navigation functions and the same blue navigations buttons as in the first -- the Build a Model tool.  And the highlighted section up here again is the type of information that you can include in your career ladder/lattice.  You don't need to have everything available all at once, although it can be helpful to gather some of this information before you start, but the tool is designed to help you locate and identify some of this information as you go through.  We will click "next."

The first step is to select one of the career ladder/lattices that you have built and we will select --

MS. FRUGOLI:  No.  Competency.

MS. PUTNAM:  Sorry.  Competency model that you have build as a foundation for your career ladder/lattice.  So we will select healthcare and then name our model "Sample Career Ladder;" and click "build career ladder/lattice," the blue navigation button. 

The next screen that pops up is the job information screen.  This is where the bulk of the work gets started.  And that is -- it's all of the fields that we identified before and where you can fill in information.  Now, if you notice at the top of your screen there are two tabs.  One is the Enter Job Information tab and this is where you'll be entering the information.  The other is the Research Job Information tab, and we're going to click on this and this allows to go out to Career One-Stop and O*NET to pull in occupational information. 

So the search function here is by keyword.  We will type in "health aide" and select Virginia to do our search.  It brings up a list of related O*NET job titles.  We can select, as we've done here, several to look at.  And then when we're ready, when we've selected, click the blue "select jobs" button over here and it'll gather those jobs in a box -- this highlighted box at the bottom right here shows you all the jobs you've selected.  So at this point you can go back and search for another keyword if you want to find additional jobs.  You can search for another keyword. 

Once you've selected all the jobs you want to look at, you would click the "show job profiles" button in the right hand corner and it will show you all of the information that we can pull together from Career One-Stop and O*NET on those jobs -- some of the tasks, some of the hourly wages, what the outlook looks like.  And from here, some of this description we can copy and paste into the Job Information screen so that you don't have to type everything directly. 

Moving now -- this shows the Job Information screen already filled in with different information.  We have the job level, job description, workforce preparation, work experience, certifications.  You can also search for certifications using -- this link right here allows you to go out and search for certifications related to the job. 

References.  We recommend noting any references that you use in this references field to help you keep track of where the information is coming from that's supporting your career ladder/lattice. 

MS. FRUGOLI:  I'd like to say that -- because you can go out to any Web site you want.  You can go to an industry association Web site, an occupation Web site, even firms.  You could go to -- or job postings and take information out of that and cut and paste from here.  Or if you've gone to the Web site of a certification agency you might want to site that here.  So you're not limited to the ones that we've provided through the Web services. 

MS. PUTNAM:  When you finished adding everything you would click "save job."  And then the jobs that you add are all collected in a "job titles" box at the top of this screen.  So we have already included licensed practical nurse, certified nurse assistant, direct support professional, and you can keep adding as many jobs as you want to have in your career ladder/lattice. 

When you have finished adding all of you jobs, you would click this link, the "place and link jobs" button, and it brings you to the grid screen in which you can begin arranging the jobs to show career progression.  To arrange the jobs in a title you select the job title you want to move, you select the box you want to move it to, and then the down arrow and it moves it down into that part of the grid.  So you would keep doing this with each of your -- the jobs in your grid.

Now we will skip ahead to having most of them in.  Now, if you notice, all of the grid cells -- I want to include registered nurse above licensed practical nurse; it's the next step.  But there are no more rows left.  So we've added a feature that allows you to over here add extra rows or on the right add additional columns if you need to expand your grid to accommodate all of your jobs.  So we will add a row at the top and then same process.  Click on the title.  Click on the box.  Click on the down arrow.  And now all of my jobs are in the grid. 

At this point we would move on to link the cells to show the direction between jobs in the career ladder/lattice.  To do that we will use the "create ladder/lattice" function box -- the yellow function box on the left side of the screen.  And so we will enter the cell titles -- each of the cells are titled A1, B1, B2.  So we enter what we want.  We want to move from A1 to A2, home health aides to personal and home health care aide, and then click the "link cells" button.  We do that and it creates an arrow for us that shows the direction of movements between the jobs. 

Now, if you notice on some of the career ladder/lattices there's lateral movement that allows you to move between jobs one to the next.  So to create a double-sided arrow, you would just do the same thing and make a link from A2 to A1 and it will create an arrow going the other way to illustrate that you can move between jobs.  So you would do this for all of the cells, linking all of them to show the progression and can end up something looking like this that shows the double arrows on the bottom -- the bottom row -- and then the vertical arrows moving up as you move up the career. 

At this point, once you have linked all of the cells you want to link -- and of course the "function" box allows you to delete links.  So if you have made a link that you then decide is not appropriate, you can just deselect it and start again. 

But at this point we will move on to the -- get into the final step which is adding critical development experiences for each of the jobs.  What exactly does it take?  What is the difference between jobs?  How do I move from one to the next?  When you click that button and you move "next," in the yellow function box there's a new feature to add critical developmental experiences.  So in the same way that you linked the jobs you can type in A1 to A2 and then click "add critical developmental experiences."  You can also, if you want, click directly on the arrow and it will serve the same function.

Okay.  So you add critical developmental -- tough word to say -- critical developmental experiences.  A text box appears at the bottom of the screen and it allows you to add any of the information.  The key -- what's nice about this is up on the right there's a link that says "details of linked jobs."  You can click on that and it will bring up a screen -- a new window -- that shows you the differences -- it brings up the job information that you entered in step one of the tool so that you can compare side-by-side the differences between the two occupations, between a home health aide and a certified nurse assistant.  So you can compare -- decide which are the important differences, what you would want to tell someone that they would need to do to move back and forth.  Next.  You would enter anything, click "save" and it is then held behind there. 

So once you've added all the critical developmental experiences, you move on to the last step where you can view the graphics.  You can view the ladder diagram with the foundational competency model beneath it that you had created in the first part of the tool.  All of the details -- to look at all the details of your jobs you would need to go back and look at the Enter Job Information screen if that's where you would want to make any of those changes. 

Again, the last step enables you to download your work and you can download it either as a PDF document that includes all the sections, or as a Word document that includes the job descriptions but doesn't include the ladder/lattice diagram.  Again, if you make any changes in those documents they won't be saved to the model or the career ladder/lattice that is in your account. 

MS. FRUGOLI:  But you can go back into your account.  For example, if you do this work and send out a document to be validated and people give you comments back, you can go back into your account and go back into -- and make the changes that were suggested and then download a new document.  So you're not stuck; you can go back.  And that's one reason we ask you to register, so that you can go back and save it or augment it.

MS. PUTNAM:  Yes.  So this -- and then you can from this screen return to the home page, begin building another one if you're ambitious, or exit the tool. 

MS. FRUGOLI:  And we've tried to put information out there.  First of all, this webinar will be archived on Workforce3One.  We have the demos, the tutorials posted on the Web site.  There are some downloadable documents with instructions on how to use these tools.  But we're still providing our contact information here for both myself and for Laura if you'd like to -- if you have suggestions or whatever, and so that's available here. 

MS. PUTNAM:  Okay.  And I think we'll move on to questions and answers.  A couple questions have come in during the presentation.  They just disappeared. 

MS. FRUGOLI:  Hold on one -- oh, here they are.  Okay. 

All right.  "Did the sector leaders that were interviewed include anyone outside of company managers?" 

MS. PUTNAM:  I think that's referring to the validation process of the industry model and the expert -- the people who were --

MS. FRUGOLI:  Well, we did a lot of models and I don't think I could speak to all of them right now.  Usually we were not talking to necessarily company representatives but association representatives, and sometimes it would actually be occupational associations as well. 

MS. PUTNAM:  Okay.  The next question, "Can I use an existing model as the basis for the ladder/lattice rather than creating a new one?"  The answer is yes, although what you have to do is fill -- go through the beginning of the tool and add new model and then you can just go through each of the five tiers -- or four tiers -- of your selected model and check "include all."  So you have to go through, check "include all" for each of the tiers and then click "save," and then you will have a model to be able to serve as a foundation for your career ladder/lattice.

MS. FRUGOLI:  Right.  And it's really very quick.  It's designed as a way to have you review what's there so that you're familiar with it because sometimes there's a tendency to start putting something in the job description that's already been covered in the competencies below. 

"Tier four equals -- cluster tier five equals pathway."  Ah.  I think that's a question about how these relate to the career and technical education clusters and pathways.  You know, I would probably say for some models that might work and others it might not.  So I don't think I could express an opinion.  You can make it work how you want it to I believe when you create your own. 

This is a comment.  "I'm very impressed with your model," and they want permission to promote the site.  Certainly.  This is a public good we have created here and we want people to use it.  And so it's taxpayer dollars and you're free to do what you want with it. 

MS. PUTNAM:  That's right.  And this transitions into the next question which is, "Are there a cost or a fee to use this tool?"  And no, there is not. 

"How many models have already been validated?"

MS. FRUGOLI:  Okay.  That was six models that we have posted there already and a few more are coming.  But if you look at the main screen you'll be able to see which six models there are. 

MS. PUTNAM:  Next question is, "Will the healthcare sector be included as a future sample industry?"

MS. FRUGOLI:  Yes, we're working on healthcare and we're working on one specifically for long-term healthcare also.  So yes, that's coming.  It's fairly technical and there's a lot already out there so that's why it's taking longer.

MS. PUTNAM:  "How does the competency model become industry-wide?"

MS. FRUGOLI:  How does it become industry-wide?  Well, really it's the way you create it.  I mean, we've tried to -- like advanced manufacturing is very broad.  It could include pharmaceutical manufacturing or aerospace manufacturing or so forth.  So we just mean sort of cross-cutting.  Like healthcare would be across hospitals and clinics and community health and things like that.  So it just means it encompasses the entire sector.

MS. PUTNAM:  Next question is, "Why isn't advanced manufacturing an option on the screen Select Competency Model Framework after we just entered the data?"  Probably because I was not doing it live and so the -- I have a couple accounts on this tool and I probably pulled screen shots for the first part from an advanced manufacturing model and for the second part I pulled it form an entirely different account in which I had developed a financial sector and healthcare model to be used as the foundation.  So that's the only reason.  If you were building it through it would have shown up as -- and if it was the only one you had developed -- it would definitely show up as the options to select.

MS. FRUGOLI:  Boy, you guys are really paying careful attention here -- (inaudible).

MS. PUTNAM:  Oops.

MS. FRUGOLI:  "Who is the best target market for using this tool?"  Well, I don't know.  We're doing it to support talent development in regional economies so it's whoever's working on that  tissue.  It could be started by a local business or it could be started by the workforce investment system, either the workforce investment board or the One-Stop career center.  It could be started by a community college.  It could be started by the economic development.  It really doesn't matter.  It's sort of whoever's taken the lead on this in the economy. 

MS. PUTNAM:  The next question is where to find career outlook.  And if by career outlook we're talking about employment projections, that was available through the Web services when you -- the tab to Research Job Information.  In the job profile that is pulled up there is information on job outlook; probably couldn't see it on the screen, it was too small.  But that's where that information can be found. 

MS. FRUGOLI:  "How would they supply the fields that don't lend themselves so well to laddering, such as a social worker?"  Well, you could document a single occupation, I suppose, if you wanted to.  And there are other -- there are different types of social work so you might do sort of -- even just a lateral one showing a community social worker, a public health social worker.  You could do that if you wanted to.  And there's always becoming a manager or a supervisor as the next step up. 

"Can you use the created documents in publications?"  Yes.  I mean, again, this is in the public domain.  And you're going to be the one populating it so it's actually your information.  So there aren't restrictions.

MS. PUTNAM:  The next question hopefully came in before I answered a previous one, "What is the connection between the first part using manufacturing to the second part, nursing?"  And it was just two separate examples that we had put together that -- it would not be how you would normally develop using your competency model foundation to then building a career ladder/lattice.

MS. FRUGOLI:  Yeah.  We were just trying to show some variety.

"Can anyone build a model and archive it or must it be approved by you before it can be archived?"  Well, I'm not sure what you mean by the term "archived."  We actually have thought about that if people wanted to share these that they could submit them to Workforce3One, which is where we disseminate products like this.  And I guess there's some kind of review for products that are submitted to Workforce3One.  The team that's actually developing this tool on the competency models doesn't really have the capacity to review models.  I mean, we would hope that if you're going to submit it that you would have validated it with your local community, with the interested parties, with the stakeholders. 

"Who leads the initiative?"  I guess -- I mean, we were trying to explain before that Department of Labor Employment and Training Administration took on a role just sort of to be a broker of this information.  We don't really do it alone but we're sort of the catalyst and we're supporting the Web site and so forth.  But again, we always draw on industry partners.  And when you use the tool you're leading your own initiative. 

"Are we sharing career ladders?  If I have agencies that certify an LPN to become an IV certified?"  Again, the sharing can be done through Workforce3One.  I mean, we aren't right now going to post everything right here on this Web site except for the large national industry models that we have and some of the samples, which are designed mostly to be helpful to you in trying to design your own. 

"Can you share your document online to jointly complete the model?"  If you share your login with people you could, but you couldn't all be on -- only one person can be on at a time.  I mean, you could also meet in a room with the computer and do it together, but you might -- if you're working with several other people, you might log in and do your work and then e-mail the person that you're out and say, log into this account and make your changes or make your additions.  I think that's the way I would handle that.

MS. PUTNAM:  Next question is, "From the community college perspective how or where would we add in programs and how they align?" 

MS. FRUGOLI:  Well, I think programs often could be the critical developmental experiences between occupations.  One thing I also wanted to emphasize that we didn't really go over in the demo was that it doesn't have to be O*NET or (stock ?) level occupations.  You could put in your own job titles.  That's why we tried to show you that example at the beginning with the emergency medical technicians.  It could be different levels within one that are meaningful in a community.  Obviously there's a lot of workforce information about things that are at the O*NET (stock ?) level but you have access to other information, so you can make it more detailed. 

But I believe the programs would probably be -- first of all, there's a place to document relevant education in each job description and then also in the critical developmental experiences.  You would say complete this program -- if you're in this occupation, complete this program and then you would be qualified to enter the next level.

MS. PUTNAM:  "How does this compare with the designing of a curriculum process?"

MS. FRUGOLI:  Well, I mean, I'm not totally familiar with DACUM but I do know this does not get down to the level of learning objectives and some of the performance criteria and so forth.  So that is -- I think this would support curriculum development but certainly it is not a substitute for it or a tool to actually develop curriculum.  It's just information.  If you're developing curriculum for certain careers, this would be helpful.  But it's not -- you can't do the actual curriculum development with this tool.

"Who specifically are we targeting to use this tool?"  I think we sort of covered that earlier and, really, if other people think they have a use for it, they're welcome to use it.  But again, it's people who are working to meet workforce needs, meet talent development needs. 

"What is the base reading comprehension level of the job-seeker that is recommended for receiving and understanding this information?"  Okay.  Well, that's actually a good point.  We do not intend this tool to be used by job-seekers.  We intend this tool to be used by people who are trying to build a workforce and build talent.  And so a job-seeker might look at a career ladder/lattice that's completed but I don't think they would build one of their own.  And they might not, you're right, read all of the detail behind even the job description; they might just use the graphic.  I suppose if you wanted to build one specifically for a job-seeker you could simplify it and not fill in all of the boxes, you know, and have a version like that.  It's really meant to support the people who are training the workforce and recruiting people for the workforce in these career ladders.

Oh, gosh.  "Will the system have the capacity to differentiate competency models and career ladder/lattices by state and/or regions?"  You know, that's one thing I thought of later; we don't have a title on these.  I mean, you can name your file and you could indicate the state or regions but the competency models that we're developing are considered to be nationwide and that's one of the reasons the tool allows you to customize it, in case there are regional features or state-specific features.  Like, for a career ladder or lattice states often have difference licensing requirements so you'd put in the state's specific licensing requirements if you're doing it for a state.  And if you put it into a Word document later, you might want to put that into the title.  But we don't have a specific mechanism for that. 

MS. PUTNAM:  "As others create sector-based competency models for their areas is there a place where these might be shared?"  I think we talked about this a little bit before that Workforce3One would be the place to share these kinds of products.

MS. FRUGOLI:  "How will aggregate models and data which are input be used by ETA?"  Well, actually, we aren't going to have access.  There's a privacy policy on the Web site and so forth, so we're not going to go in and look at these unless you actually submit them to us.  Unless you submit them to Workforce3One or e-mail it to one of us we won't be looking at what you're doing out here. 

"Can I share my ladder/lattice with others?  How can they see it?"  Well, again, I mean, once you download a document you can e-mail it to them or print it out, or you can share your login if you want to.

There's another question about, "Can this model be used for apprenticeship program?"  Yes.  Actually, a lot of apprenticeship process schedules were used in creating the competency models and they're in the resource database.  We're working with our Apprenticeship Office here to show them this tool and have them help us brainstorm ways to do that.  But of course you might think of good ways to use this too.  I do think there is potential for it but we haven't really explored that in depth yet. 

"Is there a way to post a model to a shared drive so that others could benefit and not have to recreate?"  Well, right now our approach is to send them to Workforce3One.  But if we find that we're getting models in Workforce3One I think we could add a link here directing people to go there and look for such things.  But on this site here right now we're using just the nationally created and validated models. 

"Is the model ultimately interactive?"  Well, it's only interactive inside this tool.  Unfortunately, once you download it into a PDF or a Word document it's static.  But if you log in and look at it, you can click on the boxes and get the information.  We haven't figured out a way to download something that way, that it's still clickable.

MS. PUTNAM:  And in the sample career ladder/lattices that are in the upper right hand box, the graphics are clickable because we made them so.  After we created the document we went back and just inserted links because we found that that was a nice way to navigate a difficult document.  So that might be something that you can do after the fact, after you've downloaded your work, is to insert links from the graphic to the section of the text that is relevant.

MS. FRUGOLI:  Right.  Are they HTML links or are they something else?  I don't even know how to do it but there is a way to do it and it wouldn't be that hard.  So you could have somebody help you with that. 

"What is the timeline for the next model?"  Actually, the aerospace model we're planning to release in November because it's going to be part of the aerospace taskforce report, so I think it's -- I'm not sure of the exact date, but later in November, 20-something.  The transportation, distribution and logistics model I believe we're targeting for December. 

You know, it depends on the kind of reaction we get in the validation process whether a lot of changes are needed or if there are a few changes.  So we don't give hard and fast deadlines but -- and I'm not really sure yet, for example, on the healthcare model. 

"Is there a model for pre-apprenticeship for construction trades?"  You know, I'm not the right person to answer that.  We would have to go to our Apprenticeship Office.

"How are the models validated?"  Okay.  Well, the industry competency models we reach out to industry associations and then they reach out to member organizations and educators and so forth.  For example, for the energy model we worked with the Center for Energy Workforce Development within the Edison Electric Institute as our point of contact, but they have an education workforce committee that includes community colleges and so forth.  And we also encourage the people that we meet with to then send it to others they know.  So we usually keep a list of all of the people who worked on the validation because we present webinars, we send it out via e-mail, we present it at meetings and people are welcome to keep disseminating it and send back the comments.  So it's fairly broad.

"Will green jobs be one of the areas you plan on developing?"  I don't think -- we don't have plans to do that yet but that certainly could happen.  Actually, if you go and look at the energy model you'll see that one of the competency blocks includes renewable energy generation as part of it.  I don't think we have any model yet that picks up the energy efficiency side, like retrofitting buildings and homes to be more energy efficient, but that's certainly something that is in our minds and we're considering.

MS. PUTNAM:  And I think that there are green elements that run through some of the models.  In the residential construction -- the draft residential construction model -- there is a section on green-friendly building materials and in the aerospace model there's information about sustainability and lean manufacturing.  So I think that there are elements that are being filtered through into the models.  There aren't necessarily specific to green jobs or to specific occupations. 

MS. FRUGOLI:  Okay.  "Who do we envision as the primary user?"  I think we talked about that. 

But then, "How is the user encouraged to use these systems versus something else?"  Well, actually, I mean, if there is something else that you know of we'd love to know about it.  But we just tried to be helpful because we did have the industry competency models and we saw that there was an application to use that.  And so the nice thing about this is that it's really pre-populated so you don't have to again start with a blank page and cut and paste or type everything.  You could use existing validated competency models and other sources.  I mean, that's the thing; you can pull in things that you know of.

MS. PUTNAM:  "When will the transportation model become available?"  I think we touched on that and I think we're looking at towards the end of December for transportation. 

"And what about biotechnology as a model, or will it be included in healthcare?"

MS. FRUGOLI:  Oh.  No, biotechnology is a separate model that we're working on but it's in much more developmental stages so I wouldn't hazard a guess or a timeline for that yet.

MS. PUTNAM:  "Is there help if you get stuck?"  There is.  There are general instructions -- a link to general instructions on almost every page, and in the green help line box there are two documents that are general instructions for the tool that can help you -- help walk you through it.  So you could even print those out ahead of time and refer back to them if you have questions on any of the pages.  The links on the pages to the general instructions are formatted so that they take you, we hope, directly to the relevant instruction for that page. 

MS. FRUGOLI:  "Who do we see as building these models?  Like in a community college setting would someone working in grant development do this or would someone else?"  I guess -- well, I don't know.  Like the kind of committees that are pulled together to develop curriculum might be the same kind of people.  I would imagine it would be some of the teachers.  And of course I would think it would be helpful to pull in people from business and industry also. 

"Out of the models that were validated do the examples cover each state's requirements?"  Okay.  You mean if we did a healthcare model would it include all state licensing requirements?  I don't think so.  I think we tried to do some generic, broad things that were common to all.  So, no, it wouldn't include all the states' specific requirements. 

"Do we have a bioscience specific model as opposed to a life and physical sciences model?"  Actually, yeah.  We're taking the biotechnology model and making it bioscience but I don't think I'm knowledgeable enough to say it would be distinct from a life and physical sciences model.

MS. PUTNAM:  "Is there a way to create career ladder/lattices for occupations that cross industry lines and sectors?"  I would say if you're going to do that you could use the generic building blocks models as your starting foundation, which would be applicable across sectors and across industries.

MS. FRUGOLI:  And I think actually -- I'm not positive; Barbara might know -- but that you can actually pull together pieces of more than one model.  I'm not positive.  You could pull up another model and cut and paste things from it in the add feature if you really needed to.  We're sort of -- well, that would be cutting edge.  Good idea. 

MS. PUTNAM:  Well, and this is the first iteration of the tool, so any feedback that you have or suggestions for improvement or development would be welcome.  And you can send that to the contact information -- you can send that to me, Laura Putnam, and my contact information was up there before. 

MS. FRUGOLI:  I think we've talked about some of the other interesting models we're developing.  I don't think youth services is one that we currently have in the pipeline.  We're doing a model for transportation, distribution and logistics that is underway.  It's not covered currently in the existing models. 

"As we build models are they open for public viewing or are they private under my account?"  Yes, they're private under your account.  And the only way, again, to share it is either to give people your login or to submit them to Workforce3One or any other -- you know, you could submit them to -- there are some wikis.  In fact, they could be posted under communities of practice Web sites or wikis or all kinds of places.  But we would encourage you to submit them to Workforce3One because then we will know where they are and we can look at them also.  I mean, not just we but our -- the whole public workforce investment system. 

"Are there hard copy templates available to download that would facilitate the gathering of competency information from industry partners?"  You know what?  I don't think there are but I bet we could do that.  That's actually a good idea so that -- and we could just post them as documents on the Web site.  That probably wouldn't even be that hard.  I mean, making actual changes to the functionality of the tool is resource-intensive, but I think templates is something we could do without too much trouble, so thank you for that idea.

TDL model December-ish.

We're not going to vet career ladders and lattices but we hope that you will. 

Yes, this concept is being shared with the Office of Apprenticeship.  Mostly they're very, very busy right now because they're doing regulations and so all our meetings keep getting rescheduled.  But they're aware of it, they're involved and we're going to get them more involved now that we're at this stage. 

MS. PUTNAM:  "Is there anything out there you could use to guide students through the career lattice process?  For example, a blank template that they could fill in with their current place with what they need to do to achieve their goals?"

MS. FRUGOLI:  Well, I mean, that's a good idea also that you could have a more simplified template that you could share with students.  And we did discuss that earlier, that you could sort of do a version with less information in it that you might then print out and give to students. 

MS. PUTNAM:  "It seems that the real value of these models are not the models themselves but rather the opportunity to use them as tools within a sector partnership.  Are you putting together any tools or facilitation guides to this effect?"

MS. FRUGOLI:  Well, we do have a document on collaboration in creating them, but not necessarily a facilitation guide for -- well, and we have a guide that's on there now about some of the uses.  And in fact, one of the clicks on the screen -- I don't remember what the home page looks like -- (inaudible) -- myself right now -- has a place where we have things we call "case in point" stories about how competency models are used.  Yeah.  There's a link in the lower left, says "using competency models" and there's all kinds of examples there. 

And again, we actually link out to thinks on the Web so -- because the thing is it varies so much depending on what your real application is.  There we go.  It's below the red circle there.  It says "using competency models."  There are examples.  I guess we could consider that, a tool or facilitation guide about using the models.  Or that may be part of the technical assistance guide.  Actually, we have a training and employment notice that is in the final stages of review that could help with that. 

Oh.  Gary's just told us that he's made the link live for careeronestop.org competency models.  So if you want to go out and look at it now, you can. 

Okay.  "Were SCAN's basic skills determined as necessary included in developing these competencies?"  Really the SCAN skills in many ways were incorporated into O*NET and -- the Occupational Information Network -- and O*NET was one of the sources that we used in creating the competency models, along with curricula and certifications and so forth.  So they are incorporated in that sense.  It may not be the exact same terminology. 

"Do we have a general definition of what a competency is?"  Yes.  We left it out of this presentation to save time but it's really usually thought of as knowledge, skills and abilities, but the ability to apply those in a workplace setting.  So we always -- my example is the difference is that in school you take algebra and you have a unit of algebra and at the end you have a test and your goal is to get all the answers and get as many right as you can. 

But in a workplace setting you don't just have a problem to solve.  You're looking at piece of machinery with different numbers and dials and readouts on it and you have to know, these tell me something, and know where to put them in the formula.  Then you have to know how to solve the formula.  And then when you get the answer you're not done in a workplace setting.  You actually say, oh, this tells me everything is running smoothly; this tells me the machine is ready for maintenance; or this answer tells me I need to go get my supervisor and tell him that the thing's about to break down.  So that's the difference between just knowledge and a competency is the ability to apply it in a workplace setting and pull it all together. 

MS. PUTNAM:  "For how long will the competency tool be accessible?  If we begin to use it and encourage industry partners to use it and become dependent on it, we would hate to lose access to it."

MS. FRUGOLI:  Okay.  Well, some of that is I guess dependent on funding.  We may not have the funding to make it fancier.  Hopefully we'll have the funding to keep this up there and available in the future. 

"Would board ladders be good templates if everyone must follow those paths?"  I'm not sure what board ladders are, unless you mean certification boards.  I mean, the thing is there are career ladders out there.  I mean, we've seen them.  We looked at them and they were all different kinds of graphics and things and we just thought that if you don't have graphic capability that this was a way to help build it.  We're not saying this is the best and only way to do it; it's just -- we thought it would be helpful to have a tool that would help you, and also suggest some of the information you might want to have documented on each occupation or job.

MS. PUTNAM:  Now, here's a question asking us to clarify that we talked about the models that we're developing and then the models that the audience would develop; what is the difference? 

MS. FRUGOLI:  Okay.  Well, we're developing national models -- you know, broad national models for a single sector at a time -- industry sector at a time -- and we go through a national validation process with it and then we post them.  Now, what we're assuming is that you would probably tailor your model for your regional economy or maybe even for a few specific key employers.  I mean, if you build a national model and you have the resources to pull together those people, we would certainly hope you would submit it to Workforce3One and say, this is what we've done.  And of course it would be good to document.  Again, we document the resources that we used in pulling together and we document who participated in the validation.  So I think it would be helpful.  If you're saying you're producing a national model and you want to submit it, we'd need to know how it was created.

"Is there an automotive model available?"  No, there is not one yet.

"Have states used these competency models to support demand for federal training funds such as the Workforce Investment Act?"  Well, we do think that competency models can be useful like if you're applying for a grant to train people in a certain area.  That's actually one of the reasons that we're developing them.  I don't know if they actually -- I mean, I know that some of our grantees are definitely using them; I don't know if they use them to apply for grants.  I'm not sure if maybe that's not what you're asking.

"Is there a state, local, federal government model?"  No, there is not. 

"Since license is a subject of changes and regulations, shared information should reflect a date 'as of.'" Yeah.  And actually, we weren't able to do that as a Web service but in Career One-Stop there is a licensed occupations database that has licensing information from each state for all the occupations they license.  And it's updated annually, although we rely on the states to submit us information and they may not always do it annually.  But anyway, that is a good point.  If you include licensing information, you could include the date in the box there -- in the field.

"Is there any way for us to connect with others in this group of similar interests?"  Oh, with the green economy.  Well, actually, I think as far the green economy workforce development there's a lot of Web sites out there and some of them are wikis.  And again, we're going to have communities of practice on Workforce3One; I guess you could always suggest that one be started for that.  But I believe there are things out there.  If you start googling, I think you'll find them. 

Ah, "When you validate a model does that mean the information contained within it is accurate or does that means that the paths that are depicted exist in reality?"  Oh.  "Is there evidence that people actually move from, say, home health aide to CNA?"  You know, we validated the industry competency models to make sure that it represents as close as possible what the workforce demands are out there now.  We have not really validated the career ladders and lattices; those are samples.  And I know what you're saying is that sometimes there are theoretical pathways that don't always work that well in practicality, or there may be barriers or obstacles.  So I don't want to claim that we have validated all of the career pathways.  That's a good point.

"Can you show us a sample of the downloaded output, a Word or PDF document?"  Well, we didn't make a slide of it, so we can't right now.  I suppose we could post one up there also.  I mean, the ones -- because samples we have are actually fancier than the ones that are downloaded.  We could post one there if you wanted. 

"As a college counselor, how could this be used for career counseling?"  Again, it's not so much for individual counseling, but I suppose there would be an application where an individual could try and build their own career ladder and just not fill in as much information.  But the real intent was on the talent development side as far as people funding the talent development or developing the curriculum or providing the training, not so much on an individual mapping of their own path. 

And someone said -- because there was a question about other tools and someone's telling us that there's something called Road Map that helps build career ladder and paths.  So that's good to know.

Yeah.  Since we're not live on the Web site we can't go -- I do think we have a career ladder/lattice in the financial sector, or did you want to go back to that?  You know, it says actually New York is very interested in that.  One application that we just started recently but we haven't done yet is we were thinking of using the tool to build parallel career ladders of transferable skills.  So you might have financial services ladder and then next to it you'd have horizontal arrows going saying you could go from being a broker clerk to being a bookkeeping and accounting clerk, for example.  So even though that might not be in the same exact industry sector, it could be like a lateral move.  So I think you could use that.  And so if you want to review the career ladder and lattice in the financial sector -- because there is a sample out there, I believe, so you can go to the Web site and click on it. 

"Can these models also apply to non-private sector jobs -- non-profit, government -- or is it meant for all scenarios?"  Well, you know, we haven't done public sector jobs but certainly there's a growing need for teachers and everything so I think -- I mean, you could do it.  You'd have to develop the competency model and the Office of Personnel Management has all kinds of stuff on competencies.  We just haven't done it, but hopefully you could apply it to that.  You'd have to go to different sources for the information.

Actually, I don't think we have any more questions.  Okay.  Well, we're really pleased at the turnout and all your questions. 

MR. GONZALEZ:  (Off mike.)

MS. FRUGOLI:  Uh-oh.  "Are these models being used or going to be used in the WIRED initiatives?"  Yes, they are definitely being used in the WIRED initiatives and actually there's a WIRED Academy session this week and we're going to be presenting the transportation, distribution and logistics model to a group there for their review and validation.  And actually, there's a model on entrepreneurship, even though it's not an industry, that's under development that will be presented. 

"You want the parallel transferable skills in order to retrain those who have lost jobs."  Okay.  Well, you know what?  You could try using the tool that way, but I think definitely ETA is looking at some of that issue.  So if we develop one like that, we'll figure out some place to post it and let people know about it.  I mean, and that is an excellent idea.  We just weren't focusing on that when we developed the tool but I think you could almost use the tool the way it is because you can just add rows over and have them going up parallel to each other.  And we may use -- I mean, we do sometimes use the tool ourselves.  So if we develop one, we would post it in Workforce3One or somewhere. 

So is that it?

MR. GONZALEZ:  (Off mike.)

MS. FRUGOLI:  Okay.  In case anyone's typing now we're going to stay on. 

(Pause.)

MR. GONZALEZ:  And I don't see anything in the queue, so --

MS. FRUGOLI:  Okay. 

MR. GONZALEZ:  As was mentioned at the beginning of today's session, we were recording the webinar.  We're going to be making the recording available to you within the next two business days.  It'll be posted to your Workforce3One account under your My Events page, the first page you're taken to when you log in.  The quickest way to access the recording and the PowerPoint and the transcript is to click the View Resources link to the right of the session title.  That'll allow you to directly access not only the transcript but the recording and the PowerPoint.  The transcript and recording, as I said, will be posted in two business days.  The PowerPoint has already been made available to you.

And it looks like we had a couple questions come in at the very tail end.  "How about adding a blog to the site?"

MS. FRUGOLI:  Wow.  The thing is, we're adding that capability to Workforce3One, the community of practice.  So I think it's probably going to be better to do it there than to do it -- I mean, you what we could do?  We could create a community of practice around career ladders or around this tool if you wanted so you would know where to go.  We were thinking that people would want it under the industry community of practice but maybe we could create a community of practice around this for people to share them as they're working on them.  And that would have -- I think it does -- I'm not sure what it's like but I think it has some kind of blog feature or comment feature.  Okay.  On Workforce3One.  So that's a great idea.  Thank you. 

MR. GONZALEZ:  Okay.  And seeing nothing else I'll just keep moving forward.  I just wanted to speak to you briefly about Workforce3One.  As you know, it's a tool build for you and by you, the community.  You can find engaging communities of practice where you can share your ideas, your questions, your innovations, any documents you want to share, as Pam was mentioning earlier, any best practices.  You can also use Workforce3One to join any live Web conferencing events that feature leaders and experts from industry and from government, such as today's.  And it's also a means of registering to be informed of news and events as they occur.  So we really encourage you to make note of Workforce3One as it's a powerful tool funded by ETA and powered by you. 

Now, you can also learn more about the workforce investment system by visiting www.careeronestop.org or by calling 1-877-US2-JOBS. 

All right.  With that I want to wrap things up by thanking all of you participants for joining us; and the presenters, Pam Frugoli and Laura Putnam, for their time.  Have a good day, everyone.

OPERATOR:  Thank you.  This does conclude today's conference call.  You may now disconnect. 

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