Re: Certification spreads beyond techwr-l!

["Peter C. Johnson" <raoul -at- MINDSPRING -dot- COM>]

Geoff Hart pens:

> Note: I'm not trying to reopen this debate, just casting
> another light on it. _Please_ don't start that whole thread
> again.

I'll put it on a different frequency, FWIW.


> The latest issue of _Publish_ contains a column by the
> publisher suggesting that graphic designers need to have
> some sort of certification program, and invokes many of the
> same reasons we discussed in our own debate. Interesting
> that we writers aren't the only ones facing this problem.


I'm both a graphic designer and a technical writer. One of the leading
organizations advocating certification for designers is the Graphic
Artists' Guild. (See their latest ethical whatever and pricing guide,
otherwise a pretty good tome.) Overall, a good organization, but their
ideology rather reminds me of the vague programs of all reformers; the
devil will be in the details, when some cabal of chuckleheads who graduated
from whereever.edu sits, tribunal-like, and pronounces its opinions of us.
I say that every time I get paid, it's my recertification.

I suspect GAG wants to unionize us, too, as the next step, to keep
deadbeats who can't cope with technology working at some subsidized price.

Here endeth the rant.


PJ
another dissident in Atlanta; seems to be a few of us

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