Re: Certification Issues

[Jim Purcell <jimpur -at- MICROSOFT -dot- COM>]

Bill DuBay writes:

>   I was quite surprised to find a presentation by Larry Kunz at the
> Toronto
> meeting, in which he announced the funding of the new study, the first
> since
> the 4-year study done by the STC in 1982-86. <snip>
>
>   I was surprised, because I felt there had been a blackout on any
> public
> discussion of this issue. In 10 years that I know of, only one article
> of
> note was published in any of the publications. When I expressed the
> novel
> idea that perhaps it would be well to inform people about the issues
> before
> surveying them, I was told: "It is too explosive an issue. People are
> tired
> of it. It will tear the society apart."
> "What?" I said. " Where is the fire?"
>  "On the Techwhirler. They will tear you apart."
> "Oh," I said. "I'll have to look into that."
>
I hope this doesn't mean what it sounds like. To me it says that the STC
doesn't trust its membership, wants to pursue an issue that it feels
will tear the society apart, but doesn't particularly want these efforts
publicized. Please tell me I'm missing something.

> I for one do not think that an organization should ever back off from
> informing members about an important  issue because it is
> controversial. To
> the contrary, that's how issues generally are aired and sorted out.
> And you
> certainly do not want to allow those who are the most emotional and
> voluble
> to control the debate, nor do  you want to keep them out of it. I
> expressed
> the belief that:
>
>  1. The general STC membership is woefully uniformed of the issues
> surrounding certifcation.
>  2. The members of this list,  both pro and con,  are not much better
> off.
>
> Much of the emotion and frustration is the result of
> 1. The issues not being clarified and
> 2. STC not taking leadership in clarifying the issues.
>
Given that the status quo is no certification, those who want it are
obligated to make a case for change. Dismissing opposition as uninformed
is not making a case. A list of talking points might get the discussion
moving, but such a list is not by itself information. What is missing in
the world that only certified technical writers can provide? I still
don't know the answer to that question.

        <snip>

>   For starters, here is one. Someone asked how certification could
> contribute
> to the preparation and development of skills. Look at it this way.
> Many of us
> came in the back door of this profession from other trades not knowing
> much
> about technical writing. We wallowed around a while, picking up new
> skills
> from editors, STC groups, and occasional conferences and seminars.
> After a
> while, some of us came up to speed. Many people never came up to
> speed.
>
> We had no objective standard by which we could measure our competence
> in
> this field, nor did our employers. We wasted a lot of time and money
> with
> this willy-nilly self-taught training.
>
This was probably a lot more true 15 years ago than it is today. The
reason was not that there was no certification program, but that
technical communication as we know it was in its infancy. A profession
that has not yet defined itself is not in much of a position to assert
what its practitioners need to know to be qualified.

That many people never came up to speed is perhaps an indication that
this work wasn't then, and isn't now, for everybody. Lots of people wash
out of lots of professions. Do all jobs require certification?

>  If certification existed, whether we applied for it or not, there
> would have
> been a measure we could have tested ourselves against, saving
> ourselves and
> our employers a lot of time and money trying to figure the whole thing
> out by
> oursleves. Certification is not directed at keeping anybody out of a
> profession but on bringing them up to speed in the quickest time
> possible--as
> determined by members of the profession, not by the academe nor by
> industry.
>
These things are, or should be, the agenda of university TC programs at
the undergraduate and graduate levels. If those programs are failing to
identify and teach the skills and knowledge that are useful in the real
world, people will find programs that do. Why would a certification
program be less likely than a university curriculum to emphasize the
wrong things?

>   The same goes for professional development. What is the proper
> course here?
> How much time and effort should a person be investing in new and
> advanced
> skills? Certification helps us all define those issues by establishing
> check
> points in our careers.
>
How does certification establish these check points better than, say,
annual performance reviews or keeping up with industry and professional
literature? I am a great deal more interested in what my manager says I
need to work on than in what a certification board might say. Just
browsing the TOC of Tech Comm tells me what issues are important to the
profession. What would certification contribute that I'm not getting
now?

> TC is a very dynamic and varied field, even for a
> single career. Those check points give us support and encouragement as
> we
> attempt to migrate from one path to another. If I want to jump over
> into
> editing and document management, what are the skills I am expected to
> have?
> Where can I learn those skills, quickly? Those are the problems that
> certification solves. It defines the skills of the profession. (You'll
> hear
> me say that a few times.) It also points to the quickest paths to
> those
> skills.
>
How does certification point to a path to skills? How does certification
even identify the real skills that real employers are looking for? If a
writer wants to move into editing or document management, what will
certification tell her that talking with editors or document managers
won't?

>   To people who say that they are quite content in their existing
> situation
> and that certification has nothing to offer them, I say, "How long are
> you
> going to be content?" More important, "How long will your current
> employer
> and industry as a whole be content?"
>
It would be a mistake to conflate career complacency with contentment
that there is no certification program. I wouldn't touch certification
with a barge pole, but I would be crazy not to keep up with my industry
and my profession.

> Wouldn't it benefit us all to have a
> process ready and waiting to help jump start a new direction in CW
> with new
> skills and career opportunities? That's the promise that an effective
> CW
> certification program could hold.
>
But there are many such processes available already--continuing
education, professional activities, mentoring, networking, or just
reading books. People who attend to their professional development will
do better than people who don't. Certification, in fact, does not offer
a process for development, only a yardstick, and there are already
plenty of yardsticks at hand.

Jim Purcell
jimpur -at- microsoft -dot- com
My opinions, not Microsoft's

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