What would YOU find valuable in an industry trade association?

[larossmann]

We don't really have a board repair/device repair industry trade association. Let's say we did.

What would be necessary for it to be valuable to you?

What should it provide?

 

[LCDR2]

Hello Louis,

I saw your video on this topic yesterday!

For it to be valuable to us long term the association / accreditation process would have to do at least one of two things...

1. Give us skills to do work we currently are not able to do
2. Deliver us customers we currently do not get

Allow me to expand

1.

With board repair I've found the community to be open with their advice and their knowledge. They share everything from tools to specific equipment and techniques. By contrast the Data Recovery community seems to be the exact opposite. Most of what I've learnt has been through a lucky friendship or two, and direct correspondence with the companies selling the tools. Aside from $20k+ in courses (over which there is massive argument about their usefulness) it appears to be a very difficult area to break into.

It would be good to have foundational level courses in a range of areas (perhaps these would be free) and then advanced courses available for additional cost. ? Courses in what NOT to do would be just as helpful! (Especially for DR firms) You could also have an internal directory so that members who don't want to bother with board repair / data recovery can find local, certified people to do the work.

How much of a broad base of repair would you want to cover? Physical repair like on your channel or all the way down to "how to connect a wireless printer for grandma?"

2.

To be useful beyond simply "up-skilling" the membership would need to have some purchase with the customer as a good thing.
We get questions all the time "Are you an Authorized Apple Repaired" "Are you using genuine Apple Part" etc etc. Their marketing is so good that (some) people don't want aftermarket SSD's even though they're better, cheaper, more reliable etc.

So it would need a good name, good branding, consistency of branding and some kind of licencing and re-certification process to ensure the work being put out by the 'members' was good and the messaging was clear to clients.

To get THAT far would be a massive undertaking and achievement. I guess a parallel at least in Australia would be RAA mechanic certification for cars. One of our larger insurance companies endorses certain mechanics who meet certain standards etc.

For our industry it would need a big, well known and respected company.

Maybe approach Apple and see if they'd be interested . . .

 

[down1nit]

For shops:

Qualified Vendor Lists would be an absolute joy. Vendors that maintain high standards and availability of parts are essential. Beets does the most reliable operation on the west coast but they don't stock EVERYTHING, ifixit to some degree as well for consumables, and obv your shop for east. I like laptop_mb_seller and see_ic on ebay too. There are loads of operations in China but we've all had the honor of telling a customer it's going to be 2 weeks or so until their chips get here, then making the phone call to tell them the chips are bogus or wrong.

For the industry:

Education would be amazing. Taking the equivalent of an A+ cert for various devices would be a definitive way to assure the customer that a tech knows their stuff. This is totally something that doesn't need physical presence or classrooms and could be a funding source for sure. Courses that focus on BIOS recovery/programming, courses that focus on pure physical techniques and best practices, even business focused courses for folks starting out or those who've been on the bus for years but need a push.

For the public:

Lobbying seems far off but is it really? It's deffo in the public's best interest that we get a god damn CD3217 chip at some point. I love TI to a fault but bespoke production for a top of market brand that's strongarmed them into not releasing a reel of these things seems unneeded. We need a program to repair touchID, to reprovision T2 chips, to reload firmware in blank programmable chips. ECs, Thunderbolt controllers and whatnot. This would save the consumer tons of cash. Get spokespersons into TI HQ, into Intel HQ, into AMD and Intersil. Get the word out that there's an emerging market. Possibly a lower volume one, but an important one for consumers and for the planet. Speaking of...

For the planet:

Another trade association isn't going to help global warming, but maybe it can help by sponsoring carbon offsets for shops / outfits that run with the passion and determination of mine and yours. You don't know me, but you know yourself, and you know your fellow tradespeople. We all want these things to work (unless its a shorted cpu/T2 chip then fuck it). We know how to fix them (at least for the most part). We know they're mostly good board designs and we know the whole package is usually a damn fine machine, but we're missing the cogs. It's important we have these cogs IMO. An association should advertise or lobby or at least get the word out to vendors, suppliers, the public, and our fellow techs that we have skills but are lacking the silicon and, honestly, proprietary information on programming/reprogramming ICs. T2 chip be damned.

For real:

This shit ain't going to last much longer. We need to branch out from Apple with an association. They're a money maker but they're not the only game in town.

ADD A PC REPAIR FORUM FFS IT'S BEEN TOO LONG. Also I like your forum software better than badcaps.