SEMPO Certification and DM News

There’s a short QA with me in the new issue of DM News about the SEMPO Institute. According to the SEMPO dean, I was the first student to register for and pass the Advanced Search Engine Optimization course. Has anyone else taken or passed the course? What did you think? For the most part, I’m all for standardized training. Although SEO takes creativity, it’s not impossible to learn, and the basic tenets can be taught to those with the right skill set. As such, there’s a real opportunity for the SEMPO folks to lead the way when it comes to standardized training for SEO, much in the way that Google does for AdWords and their other products. However, from what I’ve seen, the course has its limitations, and is honestly quite far from being a good resource for advanced practitioners. Would love to hear others input, however. What do you think?