Hi Ruben,

I love the idea of recognising people who have been using OutSystems for a long time. Thanks for the suggestion. Time, unfortunately isn't really a measurement of experience or skill.

Can you help me understand why dinosaurs don't get certified? Should we rather create incentives for these people to get certified and get the actual certification badges who are valued by customers and partners?

Hello Mário,

Thanks for considering the idea.
Walking among our community I have seen some dinosaurs who got their certifications during the period they were valid only for two years, and after they expired the dinosaurs didn't renew them.

Create incentives for these people to get certified again would be great but won't distinguish them from the youngest developers.  Recognize their loyalty to our technology and community with a new badge still make sense to me.
How does this sound?

I think the idea is very sympathetic, but I wonder if a dinosaur is a good way to show appreciation. Dinosaurs are mostly associated with things that are obsolete, legacy and not of this time.

Perhaps an elephant or (dare I bring it up?) unicorn badge would be a nicer symbol of appreciation for this group of people?

Then again, as Mário pointed out, time isn't really an indication of experience or skill. So how about certification badges with a number on the shield? A 2 for the second time you acquire a certification,  a 3 for the third, etc. That way experienced developers can distinguish themselves from the younger ones and do have an incentive to certify again and again.

@ruben - we've removed the expiration date of all certifications a while ago and gave people their certifications back, FYI. Even the ones that expired.  In your case, for example, you are a member since 2016, 2 projects and 4 components. 

There are other members with the same number of years or even older less achievements than you. So if people start looking at these folks by number of years, and not achievements wouldn't your market value go down?

@frans - we can certainly consider highlighting the number of years - something along the lines of "Professional Developer" certified x years ago or something like that. Did I get your idea right?

Hey,

@mario - I knew you removed the expiration date of all certifications a while ago but didn't know you gave them back to the people who have obtained them. This being said I understand now your point between the years of experience versus achievements and makes total sense to me.

@frans - Thank you for being part of this brainstorm, ideas start and grow faster this way. 

@Mário, Well, not exactly, although mentioning when a certification was obtained is a good idea also. 

My idea was to stimulate people to re-take a certification exam after some period of time, say 2 to 3 years. When that time has passed they get a reminder (maybe once a year) to do a fresh-up training and re-take the examination. When they pass the exam they get a new badge with a number on it that shows the number of times they passed the exam for the same certification. By putting a number on the badge, people with more experience and knowledge can distinguish themselves from the newbies.

For example, someone that passes the Professional Developer exam the first time receives a Professional-badge like we have now. When 2 years have passed that person gets a reminder from Outsystems to fresh-up. When that person then re-trains and re-takes the Professional Developer exam and passes, that person gets a new Professional-badge with a 2 on it. The next time, say 3 years later, when that person re-takes and passes the Professional Developer exam a third time, that person gets a Professional-badge with a 3 on it.

You could combine the above with the year the last certification was obtained to show not only how experienced someone is but also how current that person's knowledge is.

Hope this clarifies what my idea was.

I want a OutSystems 3.2, 4.0, 4.2, 8, 9, 9.1, 10 and 11 Badge! (Didn't work with OS 5-7); 

Of course with the Older OS Logo's 

echoing Frans...

This is a good idea (I say this with < 1 year experience with OS), however, the term "Dinosaur" has negative connotations in North America in the technology industry.

Here, if you call someone a dinosaur, in the tech industry at least, it means they are .... "extinct" their ways of thinking are dead. They aren't up with current technology. Basically, the opposite of what you are trying to convey. 

Most people here wouldn't want a dinosaur badge, unless somehow, it could be used ironically maybe.

The dinosaurs you speak of are more like Prophets. They saw the future and jumped on, years ahead of the crowd. They are early adopters. Innovators. Visionaries.

There!@ How about call it the Visionary Badge? In 10 years, I'll wear it.

@ PJ M The badge image or logo is not the main focus, although is important also.
The point with this idea was to give a special reward to our community members with more years in this technology. 

Thinking back to that time, embrace OutSystems and start a career in this technology was a brave move.
Visionary sounds good also.
Thanks for supporting the idea.

Yeah, would be a nice feature.

@Ruben - Great Idea!

@Mário and @Gonçalo , I can only speak of my experience. I don't have a IT background. Having a certification gives me credits that otherwise I could not have.

But what real world (IT industry) actually evaluates is what kind of experience do I have, projects etc...

That's a pitty, but even if panorama is changing a little bit, things were like that for years.  

It was like that at the place that I actually work...  

All IT people, with IT background with years of experience of OS, but no certification. 

Huge knowledge of OS business based experience, excellent troubleshooters, humble enough to listen to my newborn knowledge and discuss it to me (making me grow and learn).

But at the end of the day, they are invisible at OS community eyes just because they didn't have a certification (OK, some are getting it know), even if they were part of OutSystems success at the battlefield.

Therefore, I share Ruben's opinion that we should give them merit and even more, to turn them more keen to participate in the community.

There could be another indicator aside certification for that, community logs, forum participation....

I think PJ M suggestions "How about call it the Visionary Badge?" sounds great

@ Thank you Helena for supporting the idea and for sharing here your experience regarding the topic.

@Mario, I had alot of certifications, but they are all missing. (just like the dinossaurs)

I've been an active member of the OutSystems world since 2006 (yeah... I'm a dinossaur).

Is there any way of showing again the certifications and bootcamps?

Thank you!

@rui we certainly try to help figuring out what happened.  Would you mind opening a support ticket for this? Thanks!

@Ana Sequeira

That makes me very happy! Thank you for considering it =D

Did you know that this technology is preferable to someone who is new to dealing with programming languages?

@Ricardo Sequeira any update on this?