Certification: recommendation mass produced

"Who knows a fool, must know his brother; For one will recommend another."

– Benjamin Franklin

It is often argued that certification is a bad thing. I would say that certification is not good or bad: it is rather the certifier and the manner of the certification that can be good or bad.

Certification is just recommendation mass produced.

Recommendation is very valuable, but only if I trust the recommender. If a trusted friend recommends the work of another, I will listen hard. If that recommender is a faceless corporation, then I won’t pay so much attention. If that corporation has been paid to recommend someone to me, then I will pay even less attention.

I suggest we seek to win the recommendations of trusted people through a good track record, rather than paying a corporation to recommend (read: certify) us. Those who have mass produced their recommendations through a paid certification scheme are not likely to carry weight with anyone after a while.