Summary: Techwr-L held hostage; Cert Day 2

["Walker, Arlen P" <Arlen -dot- P -dot- Walker -at- JCI -dot- COM>]

Little that was new came up today. If this drought persists, I'll drop the
summaries.

Issues (apparently) agreed upon:

Certification Benefits
   Benefits accruing solely from Certification:
      1) A Certificate
      2) Something which could be used during hiring in lieu of critical
appraisal of individual condidates (because the staff is either unwilling
or unable to make such judgements on their own)

   Benefits which can accrue from Certification or from some other source:
      1) List of skills required in field
      2) Official cknowledgement of movement of New Tech toward mainstream
of TW

Open Questions, presented in no particular order (If I missed any, I
apologize ahead of time):

1) Do objective standards for TW exist?
2) Is the opinion of fellow TW's an important or accurate evaluation of
your skill?
3) What would be the direct benefit of Certification to individual TW's?
4) What is value of Certificate in relationship to portfolio?
5) What core competencies are common to the field of TC?
6) What effect would existence of Certificate have upon uncertified?
7) What value would employers place upon Certificate?
8) What value would agencies place upon Certificate?
9) Should we provide something which hiring staff can use to remove from
consideration candidates who might otherwise be good hires?
10) Who will be in charge of deciding what material is relevant to
certification?
11) Is it possible to create a truly optional certification program,
without it becoming either a legal or a de facto requirement?

I apologize for anything I missed. There was a lot of initial traffic on
this and (not being a Borg) I probably didn't assimilate it all. Bring any
oversights to my attention and I'll update when I can. Also bring any
perjorative wording to my attention and I'll try to adjust it as well.

Thank you all for your input on my last summary, especially Chris and Paul.
I've made the changes requested. Hope this is useful.

There was an outcry against discussing this. I'll join the outcry against
if the discussion is simply going to endlessly repeat what has already been
said, only with more heat. But if we can actually address ourselves to
specific issues with rational comments and no accusations, I'm for
continuing it. A religious war we don't need; information is always
welcome.

Have fun,
Arlen
Chief Managing Director In Charge, Department of Redundancy Department
DNRC 224

Arlen -dot- P -dot- Walker -at- JCI -dot- Com
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In God we trust; all others must provide data.
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Opinions expressed are mine and mine alone.
If JCI had an opinion on this, they'd hire someone else to deliver it.

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