Of course, there are some bets that I wouldn’t make. I’m not necessarily down on specific certifications, but I am down on specific types of certifications.

Any certification that locks you into a specific vendor has, at its core, an interest other than the certification alone. If a vendor is pushing a certification, they want to make you expert in their technology over similar technologies. This raises the demand for that technology and increases their sales. Pretty much all of the large technology vendors have a certification program. These, of course, as the most popular certifications, as they are promoted by the sales department of each vendor.

The big problem for you, is that these certifications will lock you in and links your career to the future of that company. This can be even more dangerous than specializing in a specific programming language. That said, there is an out. In some places, there is no vendor-neutral certification in a specific technology (at a high enough tier). In those cases, you are best off going after two certifications! That way, if one company stumbles, you have the other one to fall back on. You can also brand yourself as an expert in the technology without being a sales person for a specific company.

(Disclaimer: I am Linux certified by both Red Hat and Novell.)

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• Certification – Personal Picks – Vendor Management (0)
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We are exploring my personal picks for areas in which to certify. Today we will look at Vendor Management

As the industry moves away from everything being internal to more “just in time delivery” and subscription-based software, individual businesses will become increasingly tied to vendors. As the vendor loses money when they have to deal with the business, they may not always be completely willing to add functionality, solve problems, or generally do anything that falls outside of their business model. This puts YOUR business in a very difficult position. It will be increasingly difficult to move away from a vendor, and the vendors will be providing a decreasing quality of service. Therefore, managing your vendors will become a key skill.

Sadly, there are no certification or training programs out there (that I know of) that can help you with this. There is one segment of one course (SANS MGMT 512) that touches on this, but there will soon be more. As the work landscape flattens out and there are more and more connections between the outside world and your business, there will need to be a new level of manager. We have middle managers that manage the people in your organization. We have account managers that manage your customers. We have C-level managers that manage the business as a whole. What we do not have are vendor managers, or professional customers. Soon, we will, and those of us who are good at it will blaze that trail and define the profession.

Then, we’ll be able to certify in it.

(Disclaimer: As this certification does not yet exist, I am not yet certified in it.)

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