IT Insights Blog — certification

As the Continuing Education Marketing Manager for TestOut, I attend my share of conferences. Almost all of them are worthwhile for connecting with colleagues, vendors and customers. Every time I attend a conference, I come back energized and excited at all the new advances in the training industry.

At last year's Academy Awards, the big scandal was that Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway announced the wrong Best Picture winner. At this year's big ceremony, held Sunday night, nothing even remotely similar happened to disrupt the proceedings. Well, at least we at the IT Insights blog are pretty sure that nothing happened. We, er, didn't exactly watch the show.

It's Friday, there's mild chaos in a suddenly turbulent stock market, and a gigantic snowstorm is bearing down on the East Coast (from roughly Maryland to Maine) of the United States. Is everybody ready for the weekend? A favorite weekend pastime is going to the movies, which many people do to escape the sometimes persistent troubles and weighty responsibilities of reality.

Everyone, at one point, has had a moment of frustration in which they said more or less the same thing Princess Leia does during the scene in the trash compactor in Star Wars. Han Solo has just finished bawling her out, and Leia snaps, "Could be worse." What happens next is the first indication of the trash monster, followed by Han glumly stating the obvious: "It's worse."

One of the main purposes of certification is to serve as a method of lifelong learning and professional development. In addition to helping you gain knowledge and skills in the first place, certification helps you keep your professional knowledge and skills current. You need the right skills and knowledge to get that first IT job, but continually refreshing those assets is what keeps you employed.