From: Carpenter, Michael (Michael.Carpenter@nationalcity.com)
Date: Mon Nov 12 2007 - 14:43:12 ART
What I respect most about the AMA and Bar Association analogy being used
is that those organizations realized that their professional credibility
depended upon self-policing, effective 'guild' marketing (even to formal
lobbying) AND that it was UP TO THEM. Like those associations, we have
to really reach agnostic thinking - imagine a different certification
for a radiology lab tech depending on the manufactuerer of the device,
instead of best practice on how to and how not to irradiate the human
body! Yet that's how today many things are done in IT, and it's 'our'
fault, as a profession.
We'll continue to exert less influence on our employers in general than
an organized labor union or professional association (CPA, even) because
we have not taken it upon ourselves yet to learn from the example of the
professions that have come before us. This is why after the bubble burst
most of our C-level bosses now work for the CFO, who has or has staff
that have a CPA and are therefore more 'predictable' than us IT-types
that led the whole world off the edge of a cliff (when you impact world
financial markets with a profession-wide set of bad decisions, that's a
cliff). Our 'fallout' was a lot less specific and accountable than, say,
the fallout from Enron - why? Different guild. Ours being less mature,
the penalities for being wrong at as and CIO were far less harsh or
enforcable than for an Enron CFO (or even CPA).
If you're a lousy CCIE, and can pass the recert, you're just lousy, but
a lousy enough lawyer gets disbarred.
If we're less accountable to our organizations and the community, it
makes sense that we should exert less influence.
If the CCIE is (as it is) the equivalent of an advanced degree, that
still doesn't account for the 'trades' aspect of our profession, i.e.
the actual contruction. We are missing the self-policing aspect. We are
also still missing the equivalent of inspectors, but not for much longer
if we don't get our collective act together. Really, is IT
infrastrcuture any less important to do right than power, plumbing, or
framing? Of course not, and we have our own 'building codes' AND now we
have inspectors, in the form of auditors for both legitimate (PCI) and
consulting-industry created (SOX) purposes.
What if, for example, municipalities start assessing the plans of a firm
for meshing into the local wired and wireless telecommunications
infrastructures for community impact and stop work for firms that don't
comply with LOCAL regs?! OOF!
Where are we, for example, as a profession in making muni-wi-fi happen
for the greater good, instead of only for a profit?
Most of us have seen 'Holmes On Homes', where a Master General
Contractor comes in to clean up the work of 'guild members' that did a
poor job. While I don't think necessarily we're fodder for reality TV,
the analogy fits, and I'd hazard a guess that most of us on this thread
HAVE in the past had to clean up after another of our guild members that
was performing at an 'embarassing' level for our profession, that would
tend to degrade the overall credibility of IT, ALL of us. Imagine a
future reality where when one of our guild members screwed something up,
we ALL chipped in to fix it and then drummed them out of the guild if
they were found that badly lacking. NOW you're giving your company and
community real accountability.
Not to say that the local framers union or plumbers union act so
dramatically, but the AMA sure does, doesn't it? Because it knows that
it's high-paid careers only exists for so long as it bears significant
public trust. We don't, not yet. Which is why our formerly high-paid
careers are slipping to commoditized status. How did doctors and lawyers
and other knowledge workers like professional engineers avoid it? Or do
we want to be a 'trade' and all paid hourly someday?
This thread makes me see a future I've tried to organize for some
missionary friends of mine, that being the 'Shriners hospital' for our
profession, where the needy get free service. Defining 'needy' is always
a challenge, but, for example, does anyone feel our profession owes some
answers to the voting challenge and the cultural issues behind it in an
e-world? I remember late night sessions while with Novell in 2000 about
the ethical responsibilities our profession owed the idea of electronic
voting and eventually internet voting ... 7 years later, the profiteers
have failed to do anything but decrease public trust in technology in
this area. We as a profession (as opposed to a vendor) have done nothing
to help. How about public health and safety? Do we think that our
sex-offender e-systems are up to snuff? Pick any public cause involving
health, and there's the AMA, pick any public cause involving the Bill of
Rights and there's the ACLU. When was the last time you saw a
technologist donating time to the Peace Corps in Africa? Yet we could do
good on the same level.
Strategically, with the gear that our firms junk every year, what noble
mission in the far east or other impoverished areas could we readily
enable, where ANY infrastructure is better than none? Do we as a
profession help out?
Tactically:
Unqualified people continue to get placed in positions to embarrass all
of us. How are we not feeling accountable for it? We know who these
people are - are we waiting for our boss, or HR, or an 'IT inspector' to
solve our problems for us? They won't, WE are the experts, and it's up
to us to self-police SOMEHOW if we want to be taken seriously as a
group.
I don't have the answers, but this thread is certain part of the right
questions. It's got to start somewhere, or we'll become as irrelevant as
a profession over time as an assembly line worker replaced by the robots
our automations control. If you've talked to a 'developer' that doesn't
know that PowerBuilder is a front-end and not a development language, or
a switch jockey that doesn't understand Layer 2, or an SNMP salesperson
that doesn't know what a MIB or an OID is, you'll realize, we can over
time become commoditized to the point both of losing our real
effectiveness and having most IT positions compartmentalized and
segmented to running vendor-provided solutions without understanding
them.
Then we'll all have to join some 'new' technology trend to have any say
in changing our companies or the world, having lost the chance this
industry has right now, but maybe not for much longer.
Where will we find our Hippocrates?
Great thread and ideas, thanks for including me.
- mike
Replyto: mikelcarpenter@gmail.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Adato, Leon
Sent: Monday, November 12, 2007 11:28 AM
To: William Nellis; Dennis Dumont; Scott Vermillion; swm@emanon.com;
darth router; M_A_Jones@dell.com
Cc: cisconuts@hotmail.com; joe@affirmedsystems.com;
pauld@marshallcomm.com; jlogginsccie@san.rr.com; tom.nohwa@gmail.com;
ccielab@groupstudy.com; Marci Carpenter; Carpenter, Michael; Leon_home
Subject: RE: CCIE Important Interview Quesition asked by Sunrise, Swiss
Sorry for the late reply, but just a counterpoint to Scott and William's
thoughts:
What Dennis *might* be suggesting is the beginning of the evolutionary
process that gives us today's AMA (American Medical Association).
One of the challenges I find with the "50 or so" organizations is that
they are largely vendor-based. CCIE does not apply to Nortel. MCSE does
not apply to Novel. RedHat certification does not indicate AIX
expertise. It may imply a level of conceptual familiarity, or even
experience based on the likelyhood of cross-platform environments. But
an Ophthalmologist is not licensed only for Alcon brand techniques or
procedures. And taking it further, even if you go to a plastic surgeon,
you can safely assume that they can start an IV, perform an emergency
tracheotomy, give CPR, etc. Even if you wouldn't trust a cardiologist to
do factial reconstructive surgery, you know they understand the
fundamentals.
So what I'm talking about is a vendor-agnostic organization that goes
beyond the "clubs" that I see out there today (dba associations and the
like). This group would set the curriculum for the training
organizations. It might even administer centralized standard testing
that would be distributed or hosted by local training org's.
Speaking to the guild metaphor (and it's only a metaphor), I don't see
it as a question of good ol' boys in fez's with secret handshakes as
much as a more formalized process of ownership and mentorship. Studying
under an IT mentor would give the mentor an extra set of hands for
certain tasks, and it would provide the apprentice with name association
and the chance to experience environments they might not have access to
on their own merits.
I am, of course, extrapolating a lot of political what-if's to continue
to overlay the medical metaphore onto IT, but I see it not only as
possible but also beneficial.
Stepping back from my (typical, for those on this list who don't know
me) naieve rosey-sunglasses outlook, I would submit the following
observations based on 17 years of involvement in IT:
1) no automated test can accurately weed out "paper tigers".
1a) practical tests such as in the CCIE do a better job, but it's still
possible to "fake it"
2) prolonged interaction - both with an individual and watching that
individual work in real situations - rarely will fail to separate those
who actually know a topic from those who do not.
Presuming those 2 (ok, 2.5) items to be true, it suggests that direct
observation over time is the best way to "certify" what someone actually
knows. The challenge in IT is that the only time this happens is when
someone has been hired for a job. And the problem there includes 2
realities:
1) when a person is deemed not-knowledgeable, companies are limited in
what they can tell the NEXT employer
2) at higher levels (CCIE, for example), the person being hired is often
supposed to be the best expert, so by definition there is frequently no
peer-level employee to accurately identify what this person does or does
not know.
The apprentice - journeyman - master (or some modern equivalent) would
mitigate that, and might even boost IT workers value in the eyes of
employers and businesses. Having a master craftsman on your staff may
mean something to customers and investors.
Leon Adato
==============
"Measure what is measurable, and make measurable what is not so"
- Galileo
Reply to: adatole@yahoo.com
-----Original Message-----
From: William Nellis [mailto:nellis_iv@yahoo.com]
Sent: Friday, November 09, 2007 1:22 AM
To: Dennis Dumont; Scott Vermillion; swm@emanon.com; darth router;
M_A_Jones@dell.com
Cc: cisconuts@hotmail.com; joe@affirmedsystems.com;
pauld@marshallcomm.com; jlogginsccie@san.rr.com; tom.nohwa@gmail.com;
ccielab@groupstudy.com; Adato, Leon; Marci Carpenter; Carpenter, Michael
Subject: Re: CCIE Important Interview Quesition asked by Sunrise, Swiss
The way you keep less than qualified people from taking your position or
the sale, is by demonstrating your value day in and day out. Not by
creating an exclusive club. The best thing we could do is, not form an
"industry guild" (actually, on that note, there is probably only about
50 of them already... which means none of them hold any merit)... So
industry certifications are supposed to give some ability at this.
Given, they are not perfect, the CCIE is challenging enough to move
beyond rote memorization, and it is also unbiased. Even if it is not
perfect, having this unbiased system is better than having a bunch of
guys sitting with elk hats making subjective votes on who can join the
union. How do you measure that? How do you offer a business case for
value based on subjective matters? If the unbiased system isn't working,
lets improve that instead. I'm of the opinion, that while it aint
perfect... it does weed out allot of people.
I honestly dont have the answer to all these questions, one of the main
problems is IT is a constantly sliding window. It develops at a pace in
which whatever standards you set now will need to be reevaluated every
24-36 months for relevance. Another problem is there is a constantly
short demand for talent. There is ample "people", but the companies need
talent. I think there are allot of people in Ops and Tier 1/2 positions
that want to move around and develop but are challenged because there
are lots of other people there, while companies are looking for tier3/4
type people to work on their ever increasing networks... (for sake of
simplicity I put all people in 4 tiers for this discussion)
AND, the Tier 3/4 people today that don't stay abreast of the moving
targets lose value over time. Tech is rough man, you got to work just to
stay afloat. These networks aren't getting any easier, and it seems the
more companies rely on them for increasingly mission critical
reasources, it keeps getting hairier.
So, when interviewing people, your not looking just for someone to do
the job today. That isn't as bad, but also looking for people that can
understand new technology and advances As they are being written and
coming out, and be able to grow with them and design for them. So your
looking for someone with promise, someone you can invest in and get ROI
out of. Someone with critical thinking, experience to some degree, and
probably a Cert to get their foots in the door.
I don't think the "bashing" of these so called Paper CCIE's is the same
as the bashing we used to do of paper MCSE. it's a whole other level,
and given, they may not be the BEST of the BEST in every permutation,
and you can pick them apart, they have reached a milestone in their
education that, like it or not, makes them an asset. Not for every
opportunity or every organization, but an asset none the less. Because,
at the least, you can ensure they have some semblance of problem solving
capabilities, or that they worked extra hard to get it. So, like it or
not, the reason CCIE is the most respected cert, is because it is the
best the industry has.
CCIE = Aptitude + effort. So, you can say some people don't have as much
aptitude, but in that instance, it means they had to exert more effort.
And another reason to stop the "Paper CCIE" stuff already, it's a
plaque, darn it.
-------------------------------------------------------
r/s
William Nellis IV
nellis_iv@yahoo.com
----- Original Message ----
From: Dennis Dumont <dfdumont@yahoo.com>
To: Scott Vermillion <scott_ccie_list@it-ag.com>; swm@emanon.com; darth
router <darklordrouter@gmail.com>; M_A_Jones@dell.com
Cc: cisconuts@hotmail.com; joe@affirmedsystems.com;
pauld@marshallcomm.com; jlogginsccie@san.rr.com; tom.nohwa@gmail.com;
ccielab@groupstudy.com; Leon Adato <leon.adato@nationalcity.com>; Marci
Carpenter <marcarpe@cisco.com>; Michael Carpenter
<michael.carpenter@nationalcity.com>
Sent: Thursday, November 8, 2007 5:17:20 PM
Subject: RE: CCIE Important Interview Quesition asked by Sunrise, Swiss
Back when I was a hiring mgr, I had a few questions I asked that had
multiple right answers. Case in point, "You have just typed, 'deb ip
pack det' in your session, but nothing shows up. What's wrong and how
do you fix it?"
Yeah there's LOTS of answers to this one, but I was looking for the
thought process, not the actual answer.
I don't see how 'lifting' router or fixing it still attached to the rack
applies, but I'll say this - I concur wholeheartedly with the other
comments in this thread around 'paper' CCIE's. I thought I'd never
admit such a thing existed, except I've interviewed too many of them.
They couldn't design there way out of a wet paper bag, and probably
couldn't troubleshoot an inverted 60-pin serial cable.
I think this points to an even more pervasive problem in the IT industry
- lack of governance, or more correctly of an admission process to the
industry.
Just because I can cram a Transcender or TestKing test puke, doesn't
mean I know anything about the technology. Quite frankly all
certifications EXCEPT the CCIE Practical exam are fundamentally flawed
by being a multiple-choice questionnaire. The correct answer appears in
the test question simply for the person to select - but I digress
I said this before on other forums, but I think WE need to decide what
to do with OUR industry. I think we need a guild, or some form of
regulatory body, like what Lawyers, Doctors and even CPA's go through to
ENTER their respective professions. We need people like Scott Morris,
Linus Torvalds, et. al. to be on the Board and to delineate how the
rest of (that haven't already proven our worth through years of
contributions) get into the Guild. I think a system that follows the
Apprentice, Journeyman, Master kind of hierarchy would work well and has
significant recent and historical validity.
What do YOU think? How do we either prevent less-than-qualified people
from taking our positions (or our sale), and/or how do we validate that
we as a person know what we are talking about and can be trusted?
Just my $0.02
Dennis Dumont
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