RE: Certification (was: Re: Hostility Towards Whatever)

[MList -at- chrysalis-its -dot- com]

> 
> To encourage people to continue their education in 
> profession-related areas.
> 
> Many fields that support certification require that X amount 
> of time be
> devoted toward continuing education and training. My girlfriend is a
> property manager and their certification is called PCAM (Professional
> Community Association Manager).
> 
> In order to retain this certification, you must meet certain 
> continuing
> education requirements.

My wife is in the insurance and financial planning industry. 
She has attained certifications that require regular ... um... 
re-furbishment?  The thing is, not only does the industry 
association provide the training (sometimes just the course 
materials, other times, full-on, instructor-led classroom 
sessions) and the testing, but the employer provides all sorts 
of co-ordinated assistance.

That is, there will NEVER be a year go by that my better half 
will be looking around, wondering what the heck she should be 
doing this year, to meet the ongoing certification renewal 
requirements.  It's always laid out in detail. It's always 
industry-specific.  That is, sales is part of her job, but 
the industry doesn't get involved in that (except to lay 
down some standards of what you can't claim, etc., which is 
covered in one or more of the certification courses). 
It's the company that provides the sales-training 
opportunities. But as far as her "professional" certification 
and subsequent renewals are concerned, that's a complete 
package:
 - setting of requirements and standards
 - provision of training
 - testing and accreditation
that is handled by the industry association.

They can do that because great volumes of technical expertise 
are standard across the industry (she keeps receiving these 
loads of bricks by courier, that turn out to be 4-inch binders 
or sets of 4-inch binders, and then spends most of her evenings 
studying).

STC and technical writers don't have that kind of environment 
or that kind of relationship.  I think that if tech-writing 
sub-groups -- by industry -- were to form their own associations, 
they wouldn't generally achieve the critical mass and financing 
to set up that kind of infrastructure, unless they got their 
industry-specific associations and companies involved.

In that respect, something of the sort might be achievable for 
pharmaceutical-industry documentalists, and separately for (say) 
aeronautical-industry doc specialists.  Not sure what other 
represented industries would have enough TWs to make a big enough 
grouping. STC could then be an umbrella group for those groups 
and "the rest of us".  Eventually, the software industry would 
become mature enough to have/support their own writer certification 
and marching society. Perhaps y'all can suggest some others that 
are at or near the necessary population levels.

In the meantime, I'm still not clear on what kind of certification 
STC (or anybody) could administer that would be useful and cost-effective 
(i.e., worth as much or more than its cost) to all members.

/kevin

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