16 December 2006
ASI President's Letter (December 2006)
Below are the first few paragraphs of my letter as ASI president, published in Key Words. The full letter is available in the December 2006 issues of the bulletin, available to ASI members at the ASI website, as well as by request.
ASI: Prospective and Retrospective, a Presidential Perspective
At the end this year, I’ll write a letter to “Seth of 2008.”
For a number of years I’ve been sending snapshots of my life to future “selves,” capturing a year’s events, achievements, and desires onto a couple pages. Even though I’m writing to myself, however, I’m trying to communicate with versions of me that don’t yet exist. Who will I be in 2008? Why will I want to know about today’s “me”? What about the Seth of 2014? So, after warming up my pen with details about family, house, job, art, and health, I inevitably get to the tough stuff: ambitions, anxieties, hopes, and disappointments. There’s an irony to the whole thing, knowing I’ll be reading the letter with perfect hindsight. It’s an incentive to improve every year.
ASI’s strategic plan is just such a letter. With its many strategies and priorities, we’re informing our future society about some critical information. Our members have shared with us a vision in which indexing will be recognized and respected more; to reach this vision we’ll have to look critically at who we are, now and soon. With the hindsight we’ll have in 2008 (and 2010 and 2014), I don’t want us to feel nostalgic when we look back. I want us to feel successful. I want us to be glad that we live in better times.
The conflict between the needs of the immediate and our goals for the future is real. To function as a society, we need people in charge of what’s happening right now, as well as people in charge of what’s happening in the future. Week to week, ASI manages a long stream of important details: chapter name changes, SIG formations, PR construction, training course materials, administrative shifts, the Philadelphia conference, membership drives, and so on. The board gets a few dozen reports from committees, fourteen chapters, SIGs, and task forces. This is the “ASI of 2006,” focused on bylaws and meetings and content development.
ASI: Prospective and Retrospective, a Presidential Perspective
At the end this year, I’ll write a letter to “Seth of 2008.”
For a number of years I’ve been sending snapshots of my life to future “selves,” capturing a year’s events, achievements, and desires onto a couple pages. Even though I’m writing to myself, however, I’m trying to communicate with versions of me that don’t yet exist. Who will I be in 2008? Why will I want to know about today’s “me”? What about the Seth of 2014? So, after warming up my pen with details about family, house, job, art, and health, I inevitably get to the tough stuff: ambitions, anxieties, hopes, and disappointments. There’s an irony to the whole thing, knowing I’ll be reading the letter with perfect hindsight. It’s an incentive to improve every year.
ASI’s strategic plan is just such a letter. With its many strategies and priorities, we’re informing our future society about some critical information. Our members have shared with us a vision in which indexing will be recognized and respected more; to reach this vision we’ll have to look critically at who we are, now and soon. With the hindsight we’ll have in 2008 (and 2010 and 2014), I don’t want us to feel nostalgic when we look back. I want us to feel successful. I want us to be glad that we live in better times.
The conflict between the needs of the immediate and our goals for the future is real. To function as a society, we need people in charge of what’s happening right now, as well as people in charge of what’s happening in the future. Week to week, ASI manages a long stream of important details: chapter name changes, SIG formations, PR construction, training course materials, administrative shifts, the Philadelphia conference, membership drives, and so on. The board gets a few dozen reports from committees, fourteen chapters, SIGs, and task forces. This is the “ASI of 2006,” focused on bylaws and meetings and content development.
Labels: American Society of Indexing, future of indexing
02 April 2006
Standards in the indexing community
The American Society of Indexers has been deluged with opinions regarding its venture into credentialing individual indexers. Leaving aside all legitimate concerns about the implementation of credentials, there are still many strongly voiced opinions about whether credentialing is a good idea in the first place.
One thing about indexing certification and index standards building that I keep getting stuck on is the question of who they're really for. There are indexers who believe credentialing will impact all indexers in a negative way, or just ASI members. There are many who suspect new indexers will benefit, and that everyone else will get hurt.
But I don't believe the truest benefits to standards building are about the individual indexer. There will be effects, and certainly those effects will be different for different people, but the whole reason standards are created are to improve the industry as a whole. At least, that's how I understand it.
There is a standard for indexing already out there. It's the ISO 999 standard. Does it benefit you? If you were indexing when it was updated in 1996, did you feel any repercussions in your business? Gosh, it sounds as if I'm joking.
Recently I learned that Massachusetts now requires carbon monoxide detectors on every floor. That means I need to install two more in the house. If I don't install them, I won't have a problem until I attempt to sell the house. And truthfully, I'm kind of annoyed that safety regulations are being pushed onto me -- the vehicle seat belt law, the bicycle helmet law, and now this. I'm not saying that seat belts and helmets are stupid things, but I don't like feeling forced into wearing them.
ASI is attempting to create a standard -- certainly one that is harder to define than "wearing a seat belt or not," I'll freely admit -- and so yes, it is a bit disconcerting to be on the receiving end. I'm doing just fine without my carbon monoxide detectors, and I'll do just fine without professional credentialing.
But ask yourself if you believe in the ideal here. Do you believe that standards *should* exist? You don't have to.
I do.
There are many industries that survive very well without some kind of license, certificate, or degree, and some might think that indexing is one of them. But no matter how it affects me personally, I really believe indexers should be a part of a larger entity, something more important than a simple networking community. Do we -- and I mean ALL of us who write indexes -- have anything in common? Do we have anything to fight for as a group (other than higher rates)? Nah. As an industry, we really don't stand for anything without a standard. We're just a bunch of word inventors -- tinkerers -- working alone in our attics.
Most days, I'm fine standing for nothing. I like my income, I like most of my clients and projects, and I absolutely love being able to work at home and raise a daughter who stops to smell the flowers. Some people like Sudoku and crossword puzzles; I like indexing and teaching.
Other days, I feel like someone bailing out a rowboat with a hole in it, with indexes as buckets. I am frustrated by a complete lack of growth in the industry, by repeating myself to every new production editor I meet, by fighting for the right to use page ranges or decent indexing software, and again and again by having to justify my very reasonable rates.
The deeper meaning that can come from credentialing also comes from other things: professional development, education, and research -- including all those great index usability research ideas. Credentialing isn't the only pursuit of this association, nor would it truly succeed in isolation. But I need to be a part of an association that advocates not just for its individual members, but for the meaning of the industry itself.
Credentialing can be part of the solution.
One thing about indexing certification and index standards building that I keep getting stuck on is the question of who they're really for. There are indexers who believe credentialing will impact all indexers in a negative way, or just ASI members. There are many who suspect new indexers will benefit, and that everyone else will get hurt.
But I don't believe the truest benefits to standards building are about the individual indexer. There will be effects, and certainly those effects will be different for different people, but the whole reason standards are created are to improve the industry as a whole. At least, that's how I understand it.
There is a standard for indexing already out there. It's the ISO 999 standard. Does it benefit you? If you were indexing when it was updated in 1996, did you feel any repercussions in your business? Gosh, it sounds as if I'm joking.
Recently I learned that Massachusetts now requires carbon monoxide detectors on every floor. That means I need to install two more in the house. If I don't install them, I won't have a problem until I attempt to sell the house. And truthfully, I'm kind of annoyed that safety regulations are being pushed onto me -- the vehicle seat belt law, the bicycle helmet law, and now this. I'm not saying that seat belts and helmets are stupid things, but I don't like feeling forced into wearing them.
ASI is attempting to create a standard -- certainly one that is harder to define than "wearing a seat belt or not," I'll freely admit -- and so yes, it is a bit disconcerting to be on the receiving end. I'm doing just fine without my carbon monoxide detectors, and I'll do just fine without professional credentialing.
But ask yourself if you believe in the ideal here. Do you believe that standards *should* exist? You don't have to.
I do.
There are many industries that survive very well without some kind of license, certificate, or degree, and some might think that indexing is one of them. But no matter how it affects me personally, I really believe indexers should be a part of a larger entity, something more important than a simple networking community. Do we -- and I mean ALL of us who write indexes -- have anything in common? Do we have anything to fight for as a group (other than higher rates)? Nah. As an industry, we really don't stand for anything without a standard. We're just a bunch of word inventors -- tinkerers -- working alone in our attics.
Most days, I'm fine standing for nothing. I like my income, I like most of my clients and projects, and I absolutely love being able to work at home and raise a daughter who stops to smell the flowers. Some people like Sudoku and crossword puzzles; I like indexing and teaching.
Other days, I feel like someone bailing out a rowboat with a hole in it, with indexes as buckets. I am frustrated by a complete lack of growth in the industry, by repeating myself to every new production editor I meet, by fighting for the right to use page ranges or decent indexing software, and again and again by having to justify my very reasonable rates.
The deeper meaning that can come from credentialing also comes from other things: professional development, education, and research -- including all those great index usability research ideas. Credentialing isn't the only pursuit of this association, nor would it truly succeed in isolation. But I need to be a part of an association that advocates not just for its individual members, but for the meaning of the industry itself.
Credentialing can be part of the solution.
Labels: American Society of Indexing, business of indexing, indexing process, training in indexing
