Introduction
In my earlier career, I measured my knowledge by how many exams I had passed and how much frowning I did throughout the day. I’ve lost the exam bug over recent years, mostly because the 700 page study tomes contain perhaps 100 pages relevant to either my role at the time or my future goals and with the pace of IT these days, I honestly have better things to be doing with my time.
That’s why I try to focus my learning goals myself, rather than be told by somebody who doesn’t know me is what I should be learning.
The Training Trap
The cycle of continuous training contains many pitfalls. First of all is the cost. Training courses, books, ,other materials, exams. The whole refresh cycle means that once you are committed to remaining certified, you are on a one way journey to Emptywalletville. Unless you are lucky enough to have a sponsor that will pay your way.
The vendors love telling us how marketable these certifications make us too and we seem to eat it up by the bucketful. What annoys me the most is how these vendors lock businesses and individuals in to the training trap by insisting you need so many MCSx/CCNx/etc. people to maintain certain partner level accreditations. Just another set of hoops to jump through, another maze to remain locked within.
Same shit, different day
Every time I go to the supermarket or newsagents, I always have a browse of the magazines. Over the years, I’ve even subscribed to several of these covering Film, IT, photography and gaming, but none have lasted more than a couple of years.
With the ever expanding catalogue of available publications, it is easier than ever to see that a large percentage of these publications are simply regurgitating the same material in a cyclone of confusion and trickery.
The worst offenders seem to be the IT and Health sector magazines. The same top 10 lists, learn how to do this or that, absolute beginner’s guide to blah, blah, blah. Even within the same month, on display you can see magazines that have similar content to attract your hard earned money.
Another sector that is guilty as sin for this is the self-help book brigade with the same information commonly being thrown at us time and time again. Sadly, the target audience for these are often the most susceptible to the need to buy.
Suckers for or victims of punishment
One thing that is for sure, these publishers would not remain in business for long if they didn’t have a steady revenue stream. The way out is easy enough in this scenario and is covered below.
The more difficult scenario to disentangle oneself from is the vendor partnership scheme. For these, you need to ensure that the benefits you receive from participating outweigh the associated effort and cost, but you often have little leeway in this regard.
I’ve yet to find a magazine in the supermarket that contains information that is not easily and freely available on the Internet, within minutes from anywhere in the world where I can connect, or to download for later offline reading. The fact that I can dive deeper in to those articles by ‘going down the rabbit hole’ at no extra cost and end up with a much fuller understanding is another free benefit. Despite the electrical usage, I’m also a little greener by saving the trees.
For those people who argue ‘I like to feel the paper in my fingers’, my advice would be to count the bundles of cash you will save instead.
Summary
The wider field of self improvement, no matter which topic we are talking about has created a business sector which is growing year on year, with no signs of slowing down. For some reason, we buy in to their marketing as if we’ve briefly forgotten what a connected world we live in, just for those moments between the shelf and the checkout.
From a certification point of view, I’ll mostly only be recertifying and proving my knowledge via other means.
I like to think I’ve seen the light. At the very least, I’ve got a few more pennies in my pocket and a lot more time to enjoy the more meaningful things in life.
Till the next time.