A CPD Presentation is a structured, educational session delivered by manufacturers or suppliers to construction professionals, primarily architects and specifiers. CPD stands for Continuing Professional Development, reflecting the audience’s professional obligation to maintain and enhance their skills.
While many CPDs seek and obtain accreditation from industry bodies (such as RIBA or CIBSE) to provide formally verifiable hours, accreditation is not a universal prerequisite. Whether formally accredited or not, the presentation’s core function remains the same: to provide genuine technical insight that addresses complex industry challenges, and, in doing so, to subtly position the manufacturer’s product or expertise as the optimal structural mechanism for solving those problems. It’s a fundamental exercise in demonstrating intellectual rigour to establish trust.
The Behavioural Lens: Why Most CPDs Fail #
You are right to point out that accreditation isn’t always present—and that detail offers a crucial context shift. An unaccredited CPD must work exponentially harder to prove its inherent value, as it lacks the initial stamp of institutional validation. This significantly increases the audience’s cognitive load; they must actively discern if the content is educational gold or merely a thinly veiled sales pitch.
Manufacturers often fail here by treating the CPD as a mere information delivery vehicle, ignoring the human tendency to seek the path of least friction. If the narrative is cumbersome, or if the educational content is diluted by marketing gloss, the audience’s perception immediately registers low-trust.
FRAKT’s Insight: The difference between an accredited CPD and an unaccredited one is that the latter is entirely dependent on clarity over noise to succeed. Its integrity must be self-evident. The goal remains to teach the problem so effectively that your solution becomes the only logical path forward, regardless of external validation.
Practical Application: The Self-Accrediting CPD #
Imagine a supplier of niche insulation materials presenting an unaccredited CPD.
- Frame the Reality: Start with a scenario where the standard specification route leads to poor long-term energy performance, creating an asymmetric payoff for the client (high initial build cost for disappointing operational savings). The risk is reputational for the architect.
- Introduce a Behavioural Insight or Reframe: The specification constraint isn’t cost; it’s the architect’s perception gap concerning lifetime performance vs. upfront material price. “Architecturally-speaking—and I mean that quite literally—the specifier is often incentivised to solve the price problem now, rather than the performance problem forever.”
- Surface the Structural Mechanism: Detail how your material’s unique properties offer behavioural leverage by dramatically simplifying the build-up while hitting superior performance metrics, citing verifiable third-party testing data (the substitute for official accreditation).
- Propose a Clean Path Forward: Provide a clear, architect-ready specification clause that removes complexity and guarantees performance, reducing their perceived risk to zero.
- Close With a Catalyst: “If you anticipate the future standards, the present specification writes itself.” This demonstrates future alignment and positions the presentation as essential, high-value intelligence.
This approach ensures the value of the CPD is so high it earns its specifier trust, making it Simplicity Without Simplification.
