Something to consider from Seth Godin

This is an interesting point, but I'm not sure I agree. Good point for discussion.

I'm with Mr. Billingsley. People who think they know how to do things and really don't usually accept whatever it is that they get. Being a photographer at a wedding is a yes or no thing, for example. Nobody looks at the amateur crapola then decides to reassemble the entire cast in costume at the scene of the crime with a professional photographer. It just doesn't happen.

Do-it-yourself mortuary science is about the only thing not attempted by amateurs.

His statements that certain professionals do not sweat the less-than-professional-grade services offered by non-professionals is far from the truth.

I would say that the one glaring thing none of the mentioned professions have the ability to impact so many with so few errors, as well as the cost involved; bad wedding pics? Your really upset; building erroneously staked out/built over property line, etc, etc....big bucks. Also, the realtor said I didn't need a survey.:-O

It's not just interesting; the article is a wake up call. Or at least an opportunity for us to think about the services we offer and what service we offer that is truly "Professional".

Once we define our "Professional" product then it is our job to inform the public and in particular our clients about the product. I agree with the above post that say we deliver a product that is difficult to compare to wedding pictures.

The question we need to be asking ourselves is; what have I done very recently that has helped the profession or my business to promote itself and inform the public about our professional service and their need for it?

Merry Christmas!

I visited Serbia over Thanksgiving. I was curious, so I went to the Serbian Surveyor's Society (The equivalent) website. The main article was devoted to the question of professionalism. A group had visited firms in Germany where they observed the same issues.

I believe Serbia is resolving the issue. I spoke with a person who has a cousin who was a surveyor. According to this fellow, no person without a formal college degree may practice Land Surveying and there are NO grandfathering provisions. Many firms are closing their doors because the owners do not meet the regulations. It's tough, but could result in a true profession. My source is reliable, but third hand information could have been twisted.

I spoke with an advokat (attorney) who was working with the Chinese on a project. I asked if the surveyor would at least be Serbian and he laughed, "What, one of those old drunks? We'll bring in someone from Switzerland." I guess it does not help that stilling is legal and most of the old timers have grape vines and plum trees. Those plums aren't for eating and the grapes make more than wine!

>
> I spoke with an advokat (attorney) who was working with the Chinese on a project. I asked if the surveyor would at least be Serbian and he laughed, "What, one of those old drunks? We'll bring in someone from Switzerland." I guess it does not help that stilling is legal and most of the old timers have grape vines and plum trees. Those plums aren't for eating and the grapes make more than wine!

😀 That was funny!

Godin fails to take into account what I think is one of the defining tenets of the post war industrial west: it is near impossible for the bar, once lowered, to rise again.

> Godin fails to take into account what I think is one of the defining tenets of the post war industrial west: it is near impossible for the bar, once lowered, to rise again.
Pretty good insight, the bar has been lowered and anybody who tries to raise it around here gets treated like the nail that stands out in the coffin.

Ralph

In a true free market you could hire anyone you wanted to screw up the work. It would be the owners responsibility to hire a competent professional. There would be no need for any licensing. As part of the Borg then the Borg protects your turf. If you are going to have regulation then you might as well get your part of the pie. It's a much smaller pie but for the guarantee of your own small slice you'll give up the greater opportunity. In the end it just costs society more to assume that the regulation protects you from doing what should be done to protect oneself. I have licenses because the Borg requires it not because I believe in it. In a free society the cream would rise to the top. In our overly regulated nanny state the cream is skimmed off the top and there ain't much cream for that.

....
> I believe Serbia is resolving the issue. I spoke with a person who has a cousin who was a surveyor. According to this fellow, no person without a formal college degree may practice Land Surveying and there are NO grandfathering provisions. Many firms are closing their doors because the owners do not meet the regulations. It's tough, but could result in a true profession. ....

I've never bought into the argument that all our problems could be solved by requiring a 4 year degree. There are plenty of good things that go along with each of us getting more education. But there is nothing magical about that that automatically elevates the profession.

When I go into a professional office the very last thing I look for is a fancy degree hanging on the wall. Most survey clients neither know nor care about whether or not we must have a degree (or not). As I have said many times in the past, your clients do not care about you. They care about themselves. Any sort of behind the scenes requirement passed by a licensing board matters little to client. They do and should care about the value of the service they receive.

Larry P

Perhaps some distinction needs to be made (as Steve D. began to make) between the trade and the Profession [capital P]. Three anecdotes moving from the photographer in question to the Professional Land Surveyor:

1) If I hire some photo enthusiast to document my daughter's wedding, and he takes bad pictures, I have no one to blame but myself. If the price tag and/or misery of my daughter warrant, I might take it up with his company or a business bureau. I might even activate the legal system. If he has no legal business, I have no one to blame but myself.

2) If I hire some yahoo with a transit to lay out my hotel and she puts, say, a sanitary manhole in the wrong place, I have no one to blame but myself. I will take it up with her company and, if necessary, activate the legal system. If she has no legal business, no insurance, no means for righting the wrong, I have no one to blame but myself. Of course she will not be laying out the elevators and will no longer benefit from the construction of my hotel because I was able to discern the error. If her mistake puts me out of business, I should have left the building of hotels to "professionals" [small p, bit of a joke].

3) If I hire some moonlighting surveyor to survey my farm, and say, his ninety-year old grandfather puts his at-one-point highly respected Professional Seal on his grandson's linework, which turns out to be absolute junk, I will carefully sit down and admire the plat (because certainly it will look nice) and then I will smile and pay him and thank him, shake his hand, record the piece of worthless sheet in the courthouse and never know the difference. Unfortunately, the boundary lines in my little corner of the world will be thrown into a terrible state of disarray and Professionals may be struggling with the chaos for years. At some point of course I, as the bewildered farmer, will most likely be yanked into the fray, but for all intents and purposes I won't have a clue what is going on with my property lines.

The TECHNICAL trade follows the oscillation of a free and progressive economy. Technology pushes many industries clean of people. And it hurts, though progress also enables growth and innovation. (Think about the phone you carry on your hip and the thousands of jobs lost over the years as the telephone/smoke signal progressed.) Anyone with a little gumption and perserverance can take a good picture or lay out a square building. This is a good thing though it may not at the time feel good. I'm not making light of these occupations, please, but that's not what the Profession is protecting. The Profession (in its most perfect state) protects the public from what the public cannot see.

The Profession declares that in order to represent me in a court of law, you must have a minimum level of competance. It will be hard for me as Johnny Q. Public to discern the quality of my representation, but I can at LEAST be certain that my lawyer was, in fact, a Professional lawyer. I really don't care how lawyers maintain their Profession, but I do need a certain level of CONFIDENCE in the Professional Seal lest the power of the courtroom be degraded to a mob. (Whether or not I attempt to employ levels of confidence ABOVE the minimum is up to me as a consumer.) I can know when I wrote my five thousand dollar check that I received at least a MINIMUM level of representation.

In the same way, to the landowner, the Professionally sealed plat should represent some minimum level of competence, because Johnny Q. Public cannot be expected to know what he is really getting. It is hard for the public to see the difference between a good Plat and a bad one. They ought to be able to leave that to the Profession, and the Profession ought to be secure enough to protect them from the fraudulent.

That reminds me of an excerpt from a few business meetings some 30yrs ago - "It is better to trust a drunk surveyor than them low balling engineers"

to say any more, I would have to name names

"no offense to surveyors or enginers intended"

😉

:good:

> The Profession ought to be secure enough to protect them from the fraudulent.

The question is; is the Profession doing that?

I read the article 3 times. Still have yet to understand the message and how it apply s to Land Surveying. It may have at a time in the past and It does to a point but,as professionals we should be well past that point.....

However, it does seem to have garnered several responses from professionals. Interesting.

I see some differences between those with undergraduate degrees and others from the 'school of hard knocks' only sometimes. Many of those times I see the less educated individual being more professional. There are professions that are well known to require advanced schooling and training.

Farley - "You know, alot of people go to college for seven years."
Spade - "Yes, they are called doctors."

If we adopted the Serbian policy and dropped everyone without a 4-year degree, it would cause some headlines. One way to change the image in the public's eye is publicity. Might not be the best approach and it may end up destroying the profession, but we ae heading there with our minimum requirements to sit for the examination.

In MA, we still have the 20-year rule on the books, but it is a commonly believed fact that the Board would not allow a candidate with such qualifications to sit for the examination. I know of a politically connected engineering technician who was denied admittance to the examination based on such an application. If someone from the public wanted to know more about our profession, they could read the laws and deduce that the minimal educational requirements are a detriment to our profession's status.