Everything the review asks for, in one place.

Welcome

You earn each credential by doing the work on a real stakeholder, not by passing a quiz. We review it against a published rubric, and when every criterion is met you hold the credential.

The certification follows Reputation Intelligence in the order the method runs. Discover who the reporting serves, measure coverage against what they need, then turn the score into a decision.

Hold all three and the title Certified Reputation Intelligence Professional is added to your record.

How it runs

• Self-paced. There is no class schedule. Submit within 90 days of your start date.
• One stakeholder, all the way through. Each credential builds on the one before it, so most people use the same stakeholder for all three.
• Your number. Your first credential gives you a practitioner number that is yours for good. Later credentials are added to the same number.
• Reviewed by a person. Every submission is read in full and scored criterion by criterion, with written feedback within 15 business days.

What you need

• The book. It is the curriculum.
• The nine open tools at measuredio.com/book/tools. They run in your browser with no account, and each one saves and exports your work.
• Access to coverage for your stakeholder's company and two or three competitors: a monitoring platform, a news search, or the open data behind mrsindex.com.
• Roughly 3 to 5 hours a week.

Before you start

Choose your stakeholder first. Everything you build is built for that one person, and a vague choice is the most common reason work comes back marked Not yet.

Two ways to choose

1. Inside your own organization (preferred). A senior leader who makes decisions that reputation intelligence could inform: a regional president, the CFO, the head of product, the CHRO. You will have at least one real conversation with them.
2. A public company, if you cannot use your own. Agency, consulting and academic participants often take this route. Pick a company from mrsindex.com or another with steady news coverage, and one named role at that company (for example, its CFO). Build the persona from public evidence: earnings calls, interviews, investor materials, executive posts. Say in your cover note that you took this route and list the sources you used.

A good stakeholder has a decision coming in the next 6 to 12 months, a business priority you can name in one sentence, and enough coverage in their market to score: at least 40 articles across their company and two competitors over the period you choose.

Confidentiality

• Anonymize anything confidential. Replace names with roles ("Regional President, EMEA") and companies with a label ("Company A") if you need to.
• We never publish a submission or quote from it without your written permission.
• If your organization needs one, we will sign a mutual NDA before you submit.
• We keep submissions for 12 months after your credential is awarded, then delete them.

Use of AI tools

You may use AI tools to draft, summarize or tidy your work. The judgments have to be yours: who the stakeholder is, which outlets matter to them, how an article reads for their company, what to recommend. Say in your cover note which tools you used and for what. Work that reads as generated without judgment, such as generic personas, unread articles or untraceable figures, will not pass. This is the same line the book draws in Chapter 7: AI for scale, human for judgment.

Credential 1: Certified PBI® Practitioner

You show that you can scope a measurement program around one stakeholder's decisions. The output is a complete Persona-Based Insights® scope that someone else could use to configure monitoring without asking you a question.

Read

• Chapter 1, The Activation Gap (pages 1 to 22): why reports go unread, and the Monday Morning Test.
• Chapter 3, Section 2, Defining Your Reputation Pillars (from page 69): you will choose 3 to 5 pillars for your stakeholder.
• Chapter 4, Persona-Based Insights (pages 97 to 122): the whole method. Read the PBI® Conversation Guide twice.

By the end you can

• Write an Agile Persona Statement a stakeholder would recognize as their own.
• Name the one business priority, the narrative to own and the competitors who threaten it.
• Decide where to focus monitoring: which markets, which outlets and which competitors, scored and tiered.

The work, step by step

1. Hold the discovery conversation. About 35 minutes, following the PBI® Conversation Guide in Chapter 4: opening (2 minutes), their world (10), their intelligence needs (10), timing (5), delivery preferences (5), closing (3). Listen more than you talk. Write up your notes within 24 hours. Public-company route: assemble the same answers from public sources instead, and note where each came from.
2. Complete the PBI® Builder. All four steps: the Business Priority, the Persona Canvas, the Signal (3 to 5 reputation pillars, evidence of progress, early warning signals) and the Agile Persona Statement. Use Load a worked example first to see Henrik's version.
3. Score your markets in the Priority Markets Map: Strategic Value, Narrative Priority, Risk Level and Media Ecosystem, each 1 to 5. If your stakeholder's business sits in one country, map regions, segments or channels within it instead.
4. Weight the outlets in the Media Weighting Matrix: at least 10 outlets, each scored on Reach, Relevance, Relationship and Executive Attention. Build it for this persona, not for the company in general.
5. Score the competitors in the Competitor Influence Scorecard: 5 to 10 companies on Strategic Importance, Innovation Strength, Executive Voice, Market Overlap and Narrative Authority.
6. Validate. Take 30 minutes with your stakeholder to check the four tools reflect their priorities, and record what changed. Public-company route: test your scope against the company's latest earnings call or investor presentation instead, and record what you adjusted.

You submit

• The PBI® Builder summary (print to PDF) and its saved file.
• The Priority Markets Map, Media Weighting Matrix and Competitor Influence Scorecard, exported to Excel or saved.
• Your conversation notes (one page is enough).
• A cover note (template in How to submit).

Check yourself before you submit

• Could your stakeholder read the persona statement and say "Yes, that's exactly what I need"?
• Is the outcome in the statement a decision, not awareness or sentiment?
• Is there one priority, not three?
• Does every Tier 1 outlet have a reason tied to this person, not to the industry?
• Are your Close Watch competitors the ones contesting the same narrative?
• Could a colleague configure monitoring from your files alone?

Credential 2: Certified MRS® Practitioner

You show that you can score coverage against your stakeholder's priorities, roll it up into a Media Reputation Score® and benchmark it against competitors. The output answers three questions: where do we stand, why, and what should we do.

Read

• Chapter 5, Media Reputation Score (pages 123 to 157). Building Your MRS® Scorecard (from page 142) is the core of this credential.
• Chapter 7, AI + Human Intelligence (pages 183 to 206): where human judgment is required, and why.

By the end you can

• Score an article on the six dimensions in the book and explain each score.
• Roll article scores up to pillar scores and an overall MRS® weighted to your stakeholder's priorities.
• Read the result as a diagnosis, a competitive gap and an action path.

The work, step by step

1. Set up the pillars. Carry the 3 to 5 pillars from your PBI® scope into the Pillar Definitions tab of the MRS® Scoring Guide, with keywords and example headlines for each. Set the weights so they total 100%, and tie each weight to what your stakeholder told you.
2. Write 2 or 3 key messages. Precise statements that would advance the business priority if they appeared in coverage (Chapter 5 gives the pattern).
3. Gather coverage. One month or one quarter for your company and your two highest Close Watch competitors. Fold syndicated copies, so one story is scored once.
4. Score at least 40 articles across the three companies, with at least 20 for your stakeholder's company. Read each one. Score Source Authority from your Media Weighting Matrix tiers, then Prominence, Salience, Sentiment toward the company specifically, Key Message alignment and Voice, and assign a pillar.
5. Show your judgment. Note at least 3 articles where your score differs from what a platform or AI tool assigned, or from what the headline suggests, and say why: sarcasm, framing, a niche outlet that matters, a competitor-focused piece.
6. Roll it up in the MRS® Roll-up Calculator: normalized article scores, pillar averages, the weighted overall MRS® and the same for each competitor.
7. Write the read. One page, three parts: the Diagnosis (where you stand, and why), the Competitive Gap (what the leader is doing differently, with numbers), the Action Path (specific moves, owners, timing, and a success measure).

You submit

• Your article log from the Scoring Guide, exported to Excel.
• Your Roll-up Calculator export: pillar scores, overall MRS® and the competitor comparison.
• The one-page read.
• The cover note, including the 3 judgment calls from step 5.

A note on the two MRS® models. The credential grades the scoring method in the book, which is what the tools teach. The four-pillar model on the Media Reputation Score page is the same idea applied at scale on open data, and that page shows how one maps to the other.

Check yourself before you submit

• Do the pillars and weights come from your PBI® scope, not from industry defaults?
• Did you read every article you scored?
• Is sentiment scored toward your company, not the article's overall mood?
• Does any figure in your read fail to trace back to the article log?
• Is the volume of coverage missing from your score? It should be.
• Does your read answer where, why and what to do?

Credential 3: Certified SIGNAL Practitioner

You show that you can turn a score into a decision. The output is a SIGNAL brief your stakeholder could approve the same day, the proof chain that follows it, and a 90-day plan to make it routine.

Read

• Chapter 6, Executive Storytelling (pages 159 to 182): the six components, the Activation Workflow and the four narrative patterns.
• Chapter 9, Build Your Playbook (pages 231 to 254): the phases and the decisions along the way.

By the end you can

• Write each of the six SIGNAL components to the standard in Chapter 6.
• Recognize which of the four narrative patterns a situation calls for, and weight the brief to match.
• Record what happened after the brief, honestly, as a proof chain.

The work, step by step

1. Pick the finding. One finding from your MRS® read that matters to your stakeholder's priority. Name its pattern: Erosion Alert, Momentum Opportunity, Competitive Threat or Crisis Signal.
2. Write the brief in the SIGNAL Brief Template:
   • Signal: one sentence, a metric, a direction, a time boundary.
   • Implication: the business consequence for this stakeholder, not a communications metric.
   • Gap: the specific absence or vulnerability, pointing toward the action.
   • Narrative: the emerging story, specific to this company.
   • Action: one to three actions, each with an owner and a date, and a budget where relevant.
   • Lift: the expected outcome, quantified and time-bound, with the assumption and your confidence stated.
   • Set the urgency level, then write the executive summary last and place it first.
3. Review and calibrate using Step 5 of the Activation Workflow: the action sits within the stakeholder's authority, the timeline is realistic, the budget holds up, and someone could carry it out without asking a question.
4. Deliver it in your stakeholder's preferred format and timing, and record their response. Public-company route: write a short note on how, when and to whom you would deliver it, and what response you would look for.
5. Build the proof chain in the Proof Chain Builder: signal detected, brief delivered, decision made, outcome. If the outcome is not in yet, mark the decision status honestly (Pending is fine) and state what you will measure, and when.
6. Plan the next 90 days in the 90-Day Implementation Roadmap: what it takes to run this every month for your stakeholder, with the Go/No-Go checkpoint at the end of each month.

You submit

• The SIGNAL brief (print to PDF) and its saved file.
• The Proof Chain Builder export.
• The 90-Day Roadmap export.
• The cover note, naming the pattern you chose and why.

Check yourself before you submit

• Could your stakeholder approve the action without asking you a question?
• Does every action have an owner and a date?
• Is the lift quantified, with its assumption stated?
• Would your narrative still be true of a different company? If yes, make it more specific.
• Does every figure in the brief trace back to your MRS® work?
• Is the proof chain honest about what has and has not happened yet?

Your 90 days

All three credentials fit in 13 weeks at 3 to 5 hours a week. You can submit each credential as soon as it is ready, which gets you feedback early, or submit everything together.

The plan mirrors the book's own 90-Day Implementation Roadmap, so finishing the certification also leaves you with a working program for your stakeholder.

Check-ins. We send a short note at day 30 and day 60. Reply with anything that has you stuck. If life gets in the way, tell us before day 90 and we will agree a new date once.

How to submit

Email your files to info@measuredio.com with the subject line Certification submission: [Your name], [PBI® / MRS® / SIGNAL]. Attach them, or send one shared-folder link if they are large. We confirm receipt within 2 business days.

Name your files Lastname_Credential_Item, for example Garcia_PBI_Builder.pdf, Garcia_PBI_MediaWeighting.xlsx, Garcia_MRS_ArticleLog.xlsx, Garcia_SIGNAL_Brief.pdf.

Every submission includes a cover note of up to 500 words. It is where you show your reasoning, and reviewers read it first. Use this template:

Cover note

Name:
Credential(s) submitted:
Date:

STAKEHOLDER
Role and organization (or anonymized label):
Route: own organization / public company
The decision they face in the next 6 to 12 months:

WHAT I BUILT
In two or three sentences, the scope or result.

THE CHOICES I AM MOST SURE OF, AND WHY
1.
2.

THE CHOICE I AM LEAST SURE OF, AND WHY

FOR MRS®: THREE JUDGMENT CALLS
Article, the score I gave, what a platform or the headline suggested, and why I differed.
1.
2.
3.

FOR SIGNAL: THE PATTERN
Erosion Alert / Momentum Opportunity / Competitive Threat / Crisis Signal, and why.

AI TOOLS USED, AND FOR WHAT

SOURCES (PUBLIC-COMPANY ROUTE ONLY)

ANYTHING ELSE THE REVIEWER SHOULD KNOW

Before you send

• Every file in the "You submit" list for your credential is attached.
• Anything confidential is anonymized.
• Files open without a login or special software.
• The cover note is 500 words or fewer.

The rubrics

Every criterion is marked Met or Not yet, with a written note. A credential is awarded when every criterion is met. We grade judgment, not formatting: a rough file with sound reasoning passes, a polished one without it does not.

PBI® Practitioner

MRS® Practitioner

SIGNAL Practitioner

After you submit

You hear back within 15 business days with a mark and a note on every criterion.

If every criterion is Met, the credential is awarded.

If any criterion is Not yet, you get specific feedback on what to change. One revision is included: resubmit within 30 days and we review only the criteria marked Not yet. If you disagree with a mark, reply with your reasoning and we will look again.

Founding Practitioners also get a 45-minute review call to walk through the feedback, and we ask for 15 minutes of your feedback on the process itself.

What you receive

• Your practitioner number, assigned with your first credential and kept for good. Numbers 001 to 005 are reserved for the Founding Practitioners.
• A certificate (PDF) showing your name, the credential, your number and the date.
• A digital badge for each credential you hold.
• A listing in the public registry at measuredio.com/certification: number, name, credentials held and the year each was earned.

Add it to LinkedIn

On your profile, choose Add profile section, then Licenses & certifications, and enter:

Then share the badge in a post. Say what you built and for whom, in a sentence, without anything confidential. Tag measuredI/O so we can reshare it.

Questions at any point: info@measuredio.com.