[consulting] Drupal Certification

[Bill Fitzgerald]

Hello, all,

Personally, I'm of the opinion that a certification program would be 
completely useless, and that the certifications would be worth less than 
the paper they were printed on. I articulated some of these reasons a 
while back; most of these reasons remain unchanged: 
http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/consulting/2007-December/002267.html

But, with that said, nothing is stopping any shop from creating and 
managing a certification program. The catch with any credentialing 
program, however, is that the issue body needs to have some credibility. 
If Shop X starts issuing a "Drupal Uber-Ninja Certification Program" 
it's not going to mean much, except that maybe Shop X talked to some 
marketing and Biz-dev folks and came up with a catchy name for a program 
that might make them some money. The value of that credential will 
decrease rapidly over time (if indeed it ever had any value to start 
with), simply because Drupal development practice evolves rapidly over time.

So, if there are shops out there who want to start a certification 
program, by all means, go ahead. Nothing is stopping any shop from doing 
this. The challenge will be in having the value of that credential mean 
anything.

Personally, I don't care about tech credentials or certifications; I've 
met far too many * Certified people that I wouldn't trust to get me 
coffee -- but then again, I'm pretty picky with my coffee.

Cheers,

Bill

Tom Geller wrote:
> This subject comes up frequently. I know that Acquia was considering 
> preparation of a certification system ("Yellow Jersey"), but it's always 
> been low among their priorities.
> 
> Something on this subject became the most-commented post on my blog:
> 
>   http://tomgeller.com/content/market-ready-drupal-certification
> 
> Then in a post shortly after that, I suggested that Drupal Association 
> would be the appropriate body to run a certification program:
> 
>   http://tomgeller.com/content/why-support-drupal-association
> 
> I wrote, "[DA could] fulfill functions best served by a non-profit 
> authority. While I find commercial interest in Drupal exciting and 
> encouraging, some functions -- such as certification and trademark 
> protection -- are best served by a neutral party with interests beyond 
> the purely financial. Drupal Association is that authority."
> 
> DA never expressed an interest in that -- which is fine, and their 
> right. I'm among those who questions the value of such things... but 
> still think it would be great to try. Alas, nobody's taking the lead. 
> Uncertainly over the Drupal trademark IMHO also discourages anyone from 
> claiming that leadership role.
> 
> ---
>           Tom Geller  *  Oberlin, Ohio  *  415-317-1805
>              Writer/Editor * http://www.tomgeller.com
>     articles, marketing, training materials, user guides, books
> 
> 
> 
> 
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