Re: Hostility towards STC
won't take our self-created Certification seriously until we can demonstrate
that we are solving a grievous problem.
Paul,
First of all, I don't want to get cast as a strong proponent of certification. I'm interested in discussing how we might design a _meaningnful_ certification program for those who are interested; but mostly because I'm tired of reading endless debates about the irrelevance of the STC.
The effort I envision to create a TWBOK would take several years to reach fruition, just as the PMBOK did. Similarly, any sort of certification based on that would take time to develop. There would be course review materials, traveling instructors giving workshops, proctored test sessions around the country (let's start with one country, okay folks?), etc.
Who would take this seriously, other than tech writers? After all, as you point out, hardly anyone takes tech writers seriously.
Well, start with project managers--the people whose signatures matter. They don't have a lot of respect for tech writers because they've encountered a lot of bad ones. But if we worked to obtain PMI's endorsement of a tech writer certification program, that would certainly gain us the respect of a lot of project managers.
Here's another constituency, by way of a parallel example: The Product Development Management Association set up a certification program for New Product Development Professionals (course materials, training sessions, proctored tests) a year or two ago. Several people at our company--implementation specialists, trainers, sales engineers, marketing people--did the work, got the certification, and have a logo on their business cards attesting to that fact. As a company, we promote this fact to our prospects--we are serious subject matter experts in new product development methodology; we didn't just hire a bunch of bodies off the street and stuff them into job titles. Has this directly resulted in additional sales? I don't know. But we certainly compare favorably with our competitors in this regard.
If I were in an industry where documentation is important (industrial equipment, for example), I would promote to my prospects and customers that I had certified master technical writers (or whatever) in charge of the documentation set for they equipment I wanted to sell them.
My point is that we don't have to prove that bad documentation kills people in order for certification to provide a benefit to our employers.
Dick
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References:
Re: Hostility towards STC: From: Dick Margulis
Re: Hostility towards STC: From: Paul Strasser
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