From Roger Frost, Press and Communication Manager, ISO
The 16 September
Feedback pokes fun at the International Organization for
Standardization. This made a welcome break from the daily grind of international
standardisation which, as the article pointed out, is a “combination of
mind-numbing technical detail and sometimes vicious diplomatic
horse-trading”.
Unfortunately, prolonged exposure to the difficulties of achieving
international consensus on standards that help to raise levels of quality,
safety, reliability, efficiency and interchangeability, as well as providing
such benefits at an economical cost, can blunt your sense of humour. So, for any
of the 30,000 experts expending time and energy each year in developing ISO
standards whose feathers might have been ruffled by your seeming to treat their
efforts with derision, I have identified the following five points arising from
your article:
1. You wrote about us.
2. You even mentioned the Technical Management Board—normally so unsexy
that it rarely gets into print.
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3. You got our name right, even down to the correct spelling.
4. You actually read our press release.
5. You also read it to the end. As a journalist, I know that this is almost
unheard of. So I tried rereading the release to try and figure out what we had
done right, but my eyes glazed over before I got to the end.
Just one last point: whatever our future standard on personal financial
planning is designated, it will not be “ISO 666” because that is already
attributed to the 1996 standard “Machine tools—Mounting of plain grinding
wheels by means of hub flanges”. Sorry about the mind-numbing technical
detail.
Geneva
