ISO 9001:2000. Yes that's right. This post is certified with the ISO 9001:2000 Certification

BLAM. Stamp of awesome.(Source:http://www.gelec.co.uk)

Hello and welcome to the mecca of totally useless knowledge. Of course being totally useless is a subjective term and hence this information would be useful to you at some point or another. Then again, it has been proven contantly that the information contained within this blog is not very relevant to the real world DESPITE all of it being very real.

Today, we shall explore the intricacies. Of the ISO 9001 certification. Ever seen something similar to the logo on the left on any of your items before? E.g. a bread wrapper or even your handphone box? Chances are you might have. But then again, who really cares about it right?


Lets shed light on this mysterious logo.

1. The ISO or International Organization for Standardization is some gigantic organisation that sets standards for companies and their products to follow

2. The ISO 9001:2000 certification was created by them based on their research for companies to follow to assure some form at quality benchmark

Basically, what I am trying to say is that, a group of people decided to make plenty of surveys regarding services and quality and compiled a huge list of 'guidelines'. Of course like all rational business people, they would want to make money off it and hence they started this business of certification. Of course I would be very willing to give you all the details but my fingers refuse to type out the 20 page long list of guidelines regarding the ISO 9001:2000 certification so blame them. You can read it here though.

A fun fact. Wikipedia was purportedly the first encyclodpaedia to ever have an article about the ISO certification. For some reason it lead to an argument as to which encyclopaedia, Britanicca or Wikipedia, was more relevant a few years ago. And wikipedia being the easily vandalised encyclopaedia as it is didn't really help its cause. Despite this it still manged to become even bigger than Britannica ever was. If it were a badly drawn comic it would looks something like this.

Arr be squashing them brits.

Alright that is about as much nonsense I can take for now. That said have you ever wondered who gave anyone the right to set standards? Nobody asked the ISO to be formed yet there they are setting standards and at the same time indirectly undermining those companies who aren't certified by them. Even wikipedia is a perfectly good source of information. The articles can be written from the child to the guy who is a Professor and a doctor and does a Phd in his spare time. Of course, this is not to say that Wikipedia can be 100% accurate. Then again what makes Britannica so special? Are the articles in there written by overly qualified people too? Or is someone with very good cross referencing skills taking stuff off the internet and dumping it into a very well versed encyclopedia. Isn't it true that complicated language makes someone sound intelligent?

Personally, I feel that standardization is the one of the inhibitoons of innovation. Standardization gives the impression that one must 'live up to' anothers expectation before he can actually go about their own ideas. Ask yourself this? Do you like being pushed around and being told what to do? Without standardization There would be those with the highly excellent companies that stand out like some skyscraper in the middle of a slum and those that just fall flat to the ground because whoever runs it stinks at doing so. But the difference is, both can learn on their own. There is no guidelines telling them what to do and how to run a company. How to build this and how to do that.  People think differently and have different ways of solving an issue.

However, I also feel that humans are natuarally lazy people. We the inhabitants of the earth, would grow fat and lazy and die early without any standardization. Let me give you a scenario. There are two cavemen, Ugga and Bob, about to fight each other. Ugga is lazy. Bob is innovative. Bob finds a rock on the floor and picks it up. What would happen to Ugga if he doesn't pick up a rock too? A nice concussion thats what. I'll leave you to wrap your head around that analogy.

One paragraph in a picture.

As for now, you have been enlightened. Hope you enjoyed this extra long post which was certified by ISO (I Say Only) 9001 certification program. =D