About 10 months ago, we here at CertMag Survey Central decided to go in an exciting new direction with our obsessive interest in surveys. The annual Salary Survey — which is just around the metaphorical corner, incidentally — remains the staple of our year-round mission to collect and analyze data about IT certification.

The new normal, however,  is that we no longer ask for salary information when conducting the in-between surveys for our Spring, Summer, and Fall quarterly editions. The third of our new(ish) in-between surveys to show up in 2018 is our Computer Networking Certification Survey.

In 2018, it’s often irritating, if not mildly confounding, when we encounter some new device or object that does not, in some way, connect to or interface with the worldwide web. True story: Just a few days ago, we overheard a conversation that included the revelation of a young child’s recently uttered first words: “Hey, Google.”

In a world increasingly driven by data and powered by complex and interacting computer technology, one of the most vital infrastructures we have is the largely unseen realm of wires, cables, and, increasingly, wireless transmitters that ties everything together in a massive continuous exchange of information. Not literally everything, or at least not yet.

There are, after all, a lot of things in the world. To paraphrase the immortal words of Chief Martin Brody in Jaws: We’re going to need a bigger internet.

We’re also going to need a lot of skilled individuals deeply immersed in the ins and outs of computer networking. Existing internet infrastructure needs to be maintained and upgraded, and far more infrastructure needs to be added to the system. That’s without even tackling such looming issues as security, privacy, and standardization.

If you’re one of the certified computer networking professionals who is out there on the front lines, then you’ve come to the right place. We want to find out all about your certification experience. Has certification helped you thrive? Are existing certification programs meeting your needs?

We also want to get inside the computer networking world just a bit and get a snapshot of what the men and women on the inside see there each day. As with previous surveys in this series, we’re still in a bit of an experimental transition, and we hope to get better at going in this new direction.

As we always do, we’ve added a dash of incentive to participate. If you take the survey all the way to the end, we’ll thank you with either (or both!) of two rewards. You can get a free digital copy of the next issue of Certification Magazine. Or get a one-year print subscription at 40 percent off the normal cost. (Hate making decisions? Get ‘em both! We don’t mind.)

BIG THANKS to everyone who participated in our Computer Networking Certification Survey! Watch for the results to appear the forthcoming 2018 Fall Edition of Certification Magazine.