I invited and appreciate all comments, and we can only do better by taking on board your comments on the day and those above, Mitch.

The inclusive memebrship issue is a perennial one. When the ACS applied to join the Australian Council of Professions we were told that we would never be admitted as an offical 'profession' unless we set an entry threshold that was high enough to keep out those who had not reached a minimum level of formal training and experience (or equivalent recognised prior learning). We took the view then, and remain of the view, that the benefits of being a recognised profession outweigh the disadvantages of being less than inclusive. But we are not dismissive of your comments - the decision was taken at the time for good reason and was not taken lightly nor blithely.

The fee structure is another tricky issue. We have a very broadly distibuted membership across the country, including people in remote areas. It costs money to service members and to provide a basic infrastructure to run a professional society. We get no government funding, we get no corporate donations - all of our members are individuals many of whom are small business people. By comparison with any other profesisonal organisation our fees are LESS THAN HALF. CPAs are close to $700, Law Society in NSW is close to $800 etc. Our $320 membership is good value when you consider both the tangible and intangible benefits. Even if you only take advantage of our discounted PI insurance premium arrangements you will save your entire membership fee, not to mention the savings that can be made on everything from rental cars to home loans. It's not something we market on but objectively it means that few people cannot more than recover their membership fee, as well as the fact that they are tax deductible for almost all members.

And I do want to take you up on your offer to provide time and effort to support the important lobbying work we are doing - we believe in the industry and we pursue its promotion without commercial alignments of any kind and in a genuinely altruistic fashion.

Thanks once again for giving me the opportinuity to have a slot on the programme - I think CodeCampOz is a terrific event on the annual calendar and I hope to be invited again.

Regards

Philip Argy
President
Australian Computer Society

Rock on matey V great post. Im at a PD Board meeting for the ACS on Monday and will keep pushing this point. Actually what I suggest we do is to start bashing ideas around (like the premium SMS idea which I love!!!) that we can present to council V if we do that it becomes doable.

This said there are some things that I do want out of the ACS and that conflict with you (a little). I DO want a society that is part of professional council that has requirements to join. HOWEVER, those requirements should not be limited to tertiary education (which technically they arent at the moment, it just becomes more of a hassle to join if you dont). The process for new membership should be v.simple. You should be able to go to the main ACS website new members page, fill in your information (including qualifications, certification, industry experience, even a resume and the required 2 referees (name and contact info only, instead of the written submission currently required) and press submit. You should immediately get a tracking number with a follow up by the ACS in less than a couple of working days. The ACS should be responsible for validating your information (without you having to submit anything else) or in the case that they need your help they should be proactive about helping you (instead of the you havent supplied us with the right info response you get atm).

Ok, so this said, I completely take your point about the ACS being cheaper (or even free). In fact my ideal society would cost $0 to join but you would have to meet (and continue to meet) a minimum set of professional requirements.

Anyway thats my 2 cents worth.

Comments by Mitch (hope you don't mind me quoting your email back to me):

Mitch> Professional membership really just boils down to verification of references right? If I have a degree then that’s one very strong reference (although I’m not naive enough to believe that having a degree really means you have skills).

Nick> Firstly, yes you are right it comes down to verification of references. The problem is how do you do that - agreed a social network (such as using notaries) might be a solution. I agree about your comment regarding a degree - in fact university is NOT about vocational skills, even in IT, it is about learning to think. This does NOT mean that someone who has completed a degree is any better than someone who hasn't. There is really no substitution for experience ;-)

Mitch> Bottom line – if the ACS is going to grow and have influence it needs more members (professional or not). So it can either choose to be professionally irrelevant or openly relevant

Nick> NO. In actual fact, the ACS doesn't NEED to grow. It is currently very influential when it comes to government policy and while everyone in the ACS wants it to be represent more of the industry, it is by no means a requirement.

Nick> One of the difficulties for any professional body is to stay relevant. In other industries (eg accounting) they have a bit of an advantage since they dictate standards that have been adopted for reporting purposes (ergo by building these standards, or reworking them in line with international standards they stay relevant). In the IT sector we have to be more innovative about this. I think in the past the ACS has relied too heavily upon its internal certification program to maintain this relevance. Going forward this is not possible and hence there is a massive change underway in this area.

Mitch> I think that Kevin Daly said it best when he said it was a trade. But I don’t think its one of those paperwork induced government sanctioned trades, it’s a ye olde trade like blacksmiths.

Nick> I presume you are talking about IT being a trade? In which case I don't agree, it is only a trade because the industry is still too immature to truely architect or engineer solutions. With the introduction of more sophisticated modelling and architectural tools (eg software factories, application frameworks, DSLs etc) we will start to see a divergence between those who practice IT as a "trade" and those who practice IT as a "profession". (This opinion is completely independent of the my previous comments about the ACS)