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Find A Picture Framer search listings

Mira Bishop

Mira Bishop

Frequent Poster
Messages
149
Loc
Beverly- Boston, MA
Company
Oliver Brothers Custom Framing
Some shops have email addresses listed and some don't. My email has been appearing and disappearing.
I have searched 5 zip codes with 100 miles radius, and looked at many listing. All listings with emails have one thing in common.

Only framers with MCPF or CPF next to their names have email address listed. All others don't.
 
Re: Find the Picture Framer search listings

I think you stumbled onto something here Mira.
New Zealand has seven members, four with either CPF or MCPF and they have their emails listed, while the three without these qualifications don't have their emails listed.

These three will not receive emails from PPFA including ballot-papers.
What is the proprtion of members with these qualifications worldwide as opposed to members without? I'd say half. That means potentially half our members are not on the mailing list to receive emails from PPFA.

The system must be at fault and needs fixing.

Some of these non-qualified members probably have tried to bring in their emailnumber thinking it would be listed, only to have the system spit out these emailnumbers.

Small wonder PPFA has a large proprtion of disgruntled former members, who wonder what they got in return for their membership-fees. No communication from PPFA to members without qualifications.

It used to be, that PPFA didn't recognize the GCF qualification and refused to list these beside a person's name.
 
Re: Find the Picture Framer search listings

I analyzed many listings and was not able to find one witout CPF or MCPF with an email. Not all CPF or MCPF have an email or website. I would encourage all to check their zip codes and verify if I was correct in this conclusion.

Here is the link for the Find a Picture Framer:
http://services.pmai.org/pma/xLabfinder/Default.aspx
 
Re: Find the Picture Framer search listings

I tested several searches and you are right, so start studying Mira for your CPF exam (Joking) I doubt it is anything intentional, but certainly the data base needs work. All members should be treated equally. That said I think most people would use the site to find your website or location, still we should all have equal footing.
 
Re: Find the Picture Framer search listings

Randy Parrish said:
I tested several searches and you are right, so start studying Mira for your CPF exam (Joking) I doubt it is anything intentional, but certainly the data base needs work. All members should be treated equally. That said I think most people would use the site to find your website or location, still we should all have equal footing.
Click to expand...

Randy,

Sheila was trying to add my email all day. The email kept appearing and disappearing. Who knows when this happen and why. If anyone would like to contact me, my phone and website are there, so this would not be a problem. I was concern about possible connection with PPFA mailing list. Not getting any PPFA emails is far more important. And yes, all members should be equal.
 
Re: Find the Picture Framer search listings

Mira,
Great catch. I just received a list of members who have "unsubscribed" from PPFA (or maybe PMA) emails. Whether on purpose or by accident. Oliver Brothers is on the list of "unsubscribers". Perhaps this has something to do with your discovery.
 
Re: Find the Picture Framer search listings

Harry Gaston said:
Mira,
Great catch. I just received a list of members who have "unsubscribed" from PPFA (or maybe PMA) emails. Whether on purpose or by accident. Oliver Brothers is on the list of "unsubscribers". Perhaps this has something to do with your discovery.
Click to expand...

No Harry, it's independent. Different problem.

I sent you the list, so we can phone tree the New England people that have unsubscribed.
Mira already was informed about that in a different thread.

This is a search/display problem with DB code.
 
Re: Find the Picture Framer search listings

One of you two could post next time PPFA email goes out so we can test it and see if its working correctly.
 
Re: Find the Picture Framer search listings

Why is the database of Find a Framer linked to the general database of members of the PPFA?
Can there not be two lists?

How do you contact members to add their emailnumber, if you don't have their emailnumbers?
We are talking about a large number of members.

Does this have anything to do with Pat's problems with regard to discounts?

The case of the disappearing emails has been going on for years and nobody ever noticed, not even affected members.

Does the system have a timer, that after two minutes of entering an emailnumber, non certified members get their emails rejected?

Let's hope this was an error and not a deliberate attempt to steer potential customers to certified framers.
 
Re: Find the Picture Framer search listings

Kai Vanuffelen said:
Why is the database of Find a Framer linked to the general database of members of the PPFA?
Can there not be two lists?

How do you contact members to add their emailnumber, if you don't have their emailnumbers?
We are talking about a large number of members.

Does this have anything to do with Pat's problems with regard to discounts?

The case of the disappearing emails has been going on for years and nobody ever noticed, not even affected members.

Does the system have a timer, that after two minutes of entering an emailnumber, non certified members get their emails rejected?

Let's hope this was an error and not a deliberate attempt to steer potential customers to certified framers.
Click to expand...

They are linked because there are updates every day, as members join(daily), change info(daily), or expire(yearly). There could be two, three, or even ten lists, but it would mean a lot more work to manually keep them all updated. I think fixing what we have makes sense, and they're working on it. The programming was done by outside consultants, and it looks like there may be a small error in the code - or export process.

Emails not being received are most likely because the member unsubscribed, or is using a provider (such as AOL) that eats a lot of them. Research is being done to see if the PMA/PPFA unsubscribe does both at once or not. Changes were probably made several years ago, to comply with the new Canned Spam law. (unsubscribe requests have to be honored, by law, and we are all under the same PMA umbrella). Let's give them time to research, for a real answer.

Let's be patient and not make any unfair assumptions/implications/rumors, until they have had time to look into it. I am SURE that PPFA is here for good, and has no evil plot against its membership. :) I'm confident that they'll figure it out, and all the positive suggestions and troubleshooting were very useful.

It's great to see such passion and participation from true professionals on this forum. Let's harness this and start some new threads about framing, too! :)

Sincerely,
Mike, moderator team
 
Re: Find the Picture Framer search listings

Why is the database of Find a Framer linked to the general database of members of the PPFA?
Can there not be two lists?

From an old software engineer, it is much less costly to use one list properly configured.

How do you contact members to add their emailnumber, if you don't have their emailnumbers?
We are talking about a large number of members.

All the emails and phone numbers are there, they just have unsubscribed, which means we can not legally send them a bulk email, but must make the contacts individually. This isn't a problem, just a little time consuming. It isn't that many members. We're talking about around 130 unsubscribes, many of which are legit and no longer in business. The problem isn't as big as posts here have made it out to be.

Does this have anything to do with Pat's problems with regard to discounts? [\color]

no


Does the system have a timer, that after two minutes of entering an emailnumber, non certified members get their emails rejected?
being silly I guess

Let's hope this was an error and not a deliberate attempt to steer potential customers to certified framers.


you don't have to "hope" it's a problem with communicating to programmers. Not intent.
 
EMAIL issue-Find A Picture Framer

Large number of listings without email addresses (or all members who are not MCPF or CPF) in the Find A Picture Framer database was a known issue (to me) since June 2013. Nick's response acknowledges the email field doesn't exist for all members. What I discovered yesterday is who does this apply to- non MCPF and CPF. I wish I posted all this last year, but better late then never. This forum could be an effective way in resolving system glitches.

This was my correspondence with Nick:

From: Nick Shaver [mailto:NShaver@pmai.org]
Sent: Friday, June 14, 2013 9:08 AM
To: 'Mira Bishop'
Subject: RE: http://findapictureframer.com/


Hello Mira,

I have fixed the broken link so it should work fine now. With all of the listings we don’t have email addresses as a field listed but let me check with our CIS department to see if it would be an easy fix to have that field included.

Thank you,

NICK SHAVER
MEMBERSHIP SPECIALIST
PMA INTERNATIONAL
517.788.8100 X 106
www.pmai.org/
www.ppfa.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Other listing issues

There are some other illogical aspects of the listing. Our membership is a shop based and not an individual one. What happens when you get a search result is a quite different.

There are two sets of rules.

1. The shop membership rule is only for non MCPF and CPF. Shops who have MCPF or CPF are listed by individual names followed by a shop name. Shops with multiple certifications are listed multiple times. For instance three certified framers on staff and the shop would be listed three times. I would assume those shops would be paying multiple memberships one for each listing.

Here is an example of double shop listing:
Pagaterman, Frank CPF
Page-Waterman Gallery
Wellesley, MA 02482-6322
Business: Picture Framer Retailer
more info...

Black, Ryan CPF
Page-Waterman Gallery
Wellesley, MA 02482-6322
Business: Picture Framer Retailer
more info...

2. Non MCPF and CPF shops are listed this way:

Oliver Brothers Custom Framing
Beverly, MA 01915-3252
Business: Picture Framer Retailer
more info...

I don't have any problem with listing certifications, but I do have a problem with inconstancy of listings. We should eater list all names or none. We should be eater an organization of individual or shop members.
 
Mira Bishop said:
...
I don't have any problem with listing certifications, but I do have a problem with inconstancy of listings. We should eater list all names or none. We should be eater an organization of individual or shop members.
Click to expand...

I respect your opinion, but disagree.

Certification is an individual thing.
Although many people want to think it doesn't matter, there ARE customers looking for the Certifications.
Listing the Certified individuals with their shops is the only thing that makes sense to accomplish this.

I agree that the rest of the listing including web, email, phone, etc. should be the same and consistent.
 
Cliff Wilson said:
I respect your opinion, but disagree.

Certification is an individual thing.
Although many people want to think it doesn't matter, there ARE customers looking for the Certifications.
Listing the Certified individuals with their shops is the only thing that makes sense to accomplish this.

I agree that the rest of the listing including web, email, phone, etc. should be the same and consistent.
Click to expand...

I have no problem with certifications being listed. The problem is in listing member shops in two quite different ways.

All shops should be listed in a same fashion, we pay membership on a shop by shop bases. If you list names it should be done for all member shops. In that case, you can add my name above my shop's name. Names of individuals with certifications should reflect this.
 
As I understand it Mira, if a member has ten employees without certification, then according to you, all these employees have to be listed on the Find a Framer database.
This is not actually fair to a nearby framer who is self employed as they get less exposure.

We can have one entry per shop with as many employees possible with or without qualifications, but who is to check, whether all these individuals are actually working at this company, or just friends added to look impressive to a potential customer.

It is a tricky situation.
 
There are more illogical issues with the Find A Picture Framer.

I just searched 01945, Marblehed, MA zip, knowing full well my and one other listing have the shortest distance.
I used 30 miles search radius.

Here are the results:
1. 11 shops (out of 26) listed are outside 30 miles radius (I used Google maps). One is 46.5 miles from Marblehead.
2. In order to see the closest shops you have to stroll down to the very bottom of the page and you would see 18 other shops first.

I do understand that this search was programed to display certified framers first. It definitely does that but not for all certified framers.

It is quite clear that members without certification are not only listed in a different fashion but they don't even come up in searches according to search parameters. The search should be either by distance or by certification, mixing both is deceiving to consumers and not very fair to the members.

This is a know subject and I am just using an opportunity to bring it up one more time.

search 01945 30mi.webp
 
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