[TCP] certification (was: ranting STC)

[Ned Bedinger]

JimDexter at aol.com wrote:
>  
> ommunicators will pay to be certified AND be happy with the  results.  
>   

Thank you for the comments. I think the point of your response is that 
certification will be designed by whoever can sell their cert idea to 
TWs. This is interesting, but what consumers prefer is of economic 
interest, and I'm a little reluctant to accept your proposal as anything 
other a clear-eyed view of the overwhelming role of money as a driver 
and limiter in any discussion of tech writing certification. Did I 
mention cynical yet?


As a model for a business selling certification testing to tech writers, 
your proposal has the virtue of being an experiment in the economics of 
certification for TWs. In other words, you're iterating through 
variations on the certification to find the one(s) that tTWs will pay 
for, while adjusting the TW's cost at each iteration in order to find 
out how much TWs are willing to pay for the satisfaction they'll 
experience with the particular iteration of the certification you're 
offering. Phew, you've got your work cut out for you! I'd consider 
scrapping the study as too much work and cost for undemonstrated reward, 
but I'd want to preserve the intellectual investment in complexity--it'd 
make a great inspiration for a business selling 3-D glasses :-)


At the risk of re-starting the string theory thread, I think you'd 
gather additional interesting data if you observe the rate of enrollment 
in professional organizations like STC among TWs interested in paying 
for certification testing. If you do this, perhaps you'll do me a favor 
and also test the hypothesis (ok, hunch) that TWs who are interested in 
certification will be willing to pay for either certification or 
membership in STC, but not both.


Ned