RE: Certification--a new concept. Discuss

[eric -dot- dunn -at- ca -dot- transport -dot- bombardier -dot- com]

But John, it IS the same thing. If your certification body requires me to 
have XML knowledge for example, why should my employer send me out to get 
training when I could be better informed working on my own and 
corresponding on lists?

Why should I get the certification if I'm already employed?

Why should I sacrifice anything to prove I'm better than the next 
candidate if I can prove that without the asinine certification?

All those in favour of certification are putting the cart before the yet 
to be conceived horse.

Certification comes about when a central body is large enough, powerful 
enough, and/or respected enough to gain enough influence either through 
sheer size and bullying power or through health and safety regulation 
necessity.

Technical communication has absolutely no such body.

Without such a body, the best you can hope to accomplish is establish a 
course or two. And the only way those courses will be of ANY value is if 
they teach a sought after skill. Later, the exclusionary nature of the 
courses may grow IF (and that's a big IF) the organisation can prove 
significant increases in productivity to employers and/or significant 
increases in salary to employees/contractors.

Will techwriting ever have such a body? I severely doubt it. The STC has 
tried for ages and they're still a long way off.

Will other organisations have standards that affect techwriters? 
Absolutely. In the engineering disciplines, medicine, heavy machinery, and 
other mature industries their various bodies are producing and already 
have various standards and requirements.

I invite anyone who is really interested in certification to seek out the 
professional organisation associated with their specific industry and 
promote techwriting within it and become trained and familiar with the 
pertinent regulations and standards of the organisation. Then, perhaps you 
could communicate with other specific organisations to define common 
middle ground.

But much of the common ground between industries for techwriters is 
covered by basic learning in all language and writing focussed degrees.

Pulling examples of certification programs in other industries and wanting 
one for techwriting seems to me like more "Why don't I get respect" navel 
gazing. And it is completely pointless if you can't define the 
courses/learning required of the fantasy techwriting certification.

Eric L. Dunn
Senior Technical Writer

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