But computerists? Some of us have academic qualifications - which may or may not be as useful as a bootcamp qualification - and some of us learn from MineCraft mods. There aren't many external bodies which assess or validate our knowledge.

I'm not sure if I'm happy with that situation or not. I do, occasionally, need to prove to an employer that I'm as good as I say I am. Take-home-tests and whiteboard interviews only get you so far, I've found.

So I was curious to see that BCS - the Chartered Institute for IT⁰ - was offering a discount on its chartering process. This was a chance to have my skills and achievements accredited by someone external. I figured I'd give it a go.

The process and requirements were pretty simple. Mostly filling in some forms explaining what I'd done in my career, how I'd met certain criteria, and evidence of professional development. My self-promotion had to be signed off by someone who knew me professionally and belonged to an organisation which followed a code of conduct. Luckily my boss² was just such a person. Thanks Martin!

After a bit of waiting, I was delighted to find this in my inbox:

And, just like that, I was listed on their register¹

What does this mean?

For me, there are two distinct advantages. Primarily, when applying for jobs which list membership of a professional body, or want evidence of my competence, it will be a strong signifier that I have those things. It shows my commitment to Continuing Professional Development, and that I have achieved some level of distinction in my career.

A secondary benefit is getting to use the post nominals CITP MBCS. ✨Fancy!✨

What can I say? It appeals to my vanity.

Semantic Data

I think the correct way to represent this in Schema.org is using hasCredential

<script type="application/ld+json">
    {
        "@context": "https://schema.org",
        "@type": "Person",
        "name": "Terence Eden",
        "hasCredential": {
            "@type": "EducationalOccupationalCredential",
            "credentialCategory": "CITP",
            "recognizedBy": {
                "@type": "Organization",
                "url": "https://www.bcs.org/"
            }
        }
    }
</script>

Do correct me if I'm wrong.

And finally

The British Computer Society is an august body, and the OSSG have put on some brilliant talks in the last few years. But I'd like to shake things up a little. I want us to move away from doing talks to a small group of London-centric folk. I want us to spread the message of open source out beyond people who are already interested. I also want us to put our money where our mouth is and start using more open source tools - like Mastodon, Matrix, and Jitsi.

Here's the presentation I gave:

Those slides are, of course, open source!

How you can help

I can't do this by myself. I'm not a BDFL. I need you to help me. Things are going to kick off at the start of 2023 - and here's how you can get involved:

1. Join the OSSG - you don't need to be a member of the BCS (although it is tax deductable!)
2. Subscribe to our calendar of events
3. Tell us about a talk you want to give! We'll help you find a good conference and see if we can help pay for your ticket and travel.
4. Tell us about an event you're running! If you want to have a brilliant speaker talk about the power of Open Source, we can help.
5. Want to write a small blog post? Or record a short podcast? We can help with that too!
6. Know how to configure Mastodon, Jitsi, Matrix and other useful Open Source tools? Contact us!
7. Got a better idea? Let us know!

As I say, these are early days. Not everything on this list is going to work out. New things might pop up. But I want to find new ways of making sure that Open Source is for everyone.

Before I get on to the even itself, I'd like to go through a little history.

Last year, the BCS found itself in a bit of a kerfuffle. It was trying to reorganise and found itself up against a hostile membership bloc.

On one of the many blog posts on the subject, I left a comment of my experiences with the BCS.

I said...

10 years ago(!), when I was at university, we had a talk from the BCS. The number one question we all had was "What are the benefits?" Never mind the long, illustrious history - do I get discounts like my NUS card, or something better.

We never got a straight answer. There were vague mumblings about being part of a wider community, being able to represent our views to government, etc. Nothing tangible. Nothing useful.

I can't think of anything that the BCS do. I've barely heard of them in the news for the last decade. I've been working in the high-tech sector my whole adult life - I don't think I ever came across a CV which mentioned them.

So, to echo your question - what do they do? If whatever it happens to be is going well, they shouldn't change and leave me in my ignorance. Considering how they're currently perceived, I think they do need urgent change.

Perhaps they could start by sponsoring a BarCamp!

What's The Date?

Here's the current footer of the BCS Website. This raises several questions.

1. Has the content on the site really stayed static for around 2 years?
2. Does their webmaster not know about PHP's getdate() functionality?
3. Surely, as computer professionals, they should have a continuing project plan in place to update the footer once a year.
4. Finally, does no one at the BCS use their own site? Surely someone must have noticed it during 2010.

Validating Email Addresses

Checking an email address for validity is a complex business - yet one that is increasingly common. One would expect the BCS to provide leadership in this area - or at least follow best practice.

When I went to register for one of their events, I was told that my email address was invalid. Why? Because it ended .mobi.

In the old days, you could reasonably assume that all email addresses ended with a two or three character tld. That's not the case today. The canonical list of tlds show at least 10 which are longer than three caracters - that's before we even consider the non-English tlds.

In fairness, once I emailed them, this problem seems to have been corrected.

Securing the WiFi

I'll write up my notes from the event later - but here's the first thing I noticed when I got to the BCS building. Like any geek, I scan for WiFi in order to get my fix. This is the list of WiFi access points in the BCS.

WEP.

Now, I realise that computing isn't solely confined to web pages and Internet hotspots - but I think that's a pretty big part of it. Overall, it doesn't give me much faith in the BCS as an organisation.

Where The BCS Is Today

I did a quick search of BBC News for mentions of the BCS. The results are disappointing. As are the search results from The Register. I realise that this isn't an extensive survey - but for an organisation which is meant to represent the computing society to the world it's inexcusable.

I chatted to several BCS members at the event. I asked each of them the same question - "What are the benefits of joining the BCS?"

I got a variety of answers - mostly around networking (ironic as it was an event about social media) and a few comments around putting letters after your name (is anyone impressed by that?).

So, my question to you, gentle reader, is what's the point of joining the BCS? Answers in the comments please.