nPostednon October 14, 2015
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Key Points
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nTodaynwe acknowledge and celebrate “the world’s common language.” And,nno, I’m not talking about Mandarin (the language spoken by the mostnnative speakers in the world), nor English, which is the most commonnlanguage counting total speakers (native language and secondnlanguage and students of it as a foreign language).
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nNo,nWorld Standards Day isn’t about oral languages at all – and it’snnot about sign languages, either.
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nInsteadnit is about standards like:
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n “Whatnsize should debit cards, and ATM card slots, be?”
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n “Whatndoes the telephone country code 1 mean?”
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n “Whatnsymbol means Euro?”
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n “Whatnsizes should lightbulb sockets be?”
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n “Whatndo the wash and care symbols on clothes mean?”
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nThanksnto the International Organization for Standardization, the world hasna lot of symbols and standards used in almost every industry so thatnwe can buy and sell things all over the world, so that we can travelnfar and wide, so that we can communicate with many more people, moreneasily. These are voluntary standards that companies adopt becausendoing so is a win-win – customers’ lives are easier, and thencompany has more customers AND happier customers.
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nItnwould be hard to imagine living in a world in which each lampnmanufacturer makes light bulb sockets of a different dimension. Youncould only buy lightbulbs created especially for the lamps from thatnone company! What about if battery-run gadgets had battery slots ofnthousands of different sizes. You would have to find the specialnbatteries made just for that one Mattel Company toy. Yikes!
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nDifferentncountries have quite different forms of currency. Paper money can benas large as 8½ by 14 inches (215 mm by 355 mm) or as small as anpostage stamp, and coins are found in various different sizes. Butnit’s pretty nice, now that so many of us use plastic, that there arenstandard sizes of credit, debit, and gift cards, and that thenmachines that use the cards can use slots of standard sizes as well!
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nCannyou imagine have phone numbers with no country codes or area codes?nIt would be even harder to give, dial, and memorize phone numbers ifnevery person in a particular community had a unique 11-digit numbernwith no rhyme or reason behind ANY of the digits!
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nAndnhow challenging would it be to build or fix machines and electronicsnif there were no standard sizes of screws and transistors and so on!
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| If only ISO had existed early in the 1900s, we wouldn’t have such different sorts of plugs and sockets in use all over the world – and even different voltages! |
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nOkay,nwe get it – standards are important. Now…what is thisnorganization?
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| The world seems a whole lot smaller now. Millions of people travel outside of their own country; people communicate easily and cheaply and instantly with others half a world away. |
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nThenInternational Organization for Standardization started in 1946 withndelegates from just 25 countries. They met in London and made anneffort to provide coordination and unification of technologiesnthroughout the world. There are now 162 member countries in the ISO.nThe Central Secretariat of the organization is located in Geneva,nSwitzerland, and the ISO has published more than 19 THOUSANDnstandards in many different industries. n
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nThengroup does not create standards out of thin air. Instead, when a neednarises for a new standard, let’s say in a new kind of industry or forna product that is being bought and sold all over the world for thenfirst time, the ISO consults with experts from all over the world tondevelop appropriate standards through a consensus process. Consensusnmeans agreement—the experts come to an agreement for a new standardnthrough discussion, perhaps compromise, maybe even through a vote.
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nBynthe way…
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nInncase you are wondering why it is ISO instead of IOS, remember that innmany languages the formal name of the organization would bentranslated into slightly different names, the organization decided tonstandardize its acronym regardless of the translation. So thenorganization is always ISO, everywhere, no matter what the long formnof the name maybe be.
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nOnenreason for ISO as opposed to IOS or OIN or any other acronym is thatnisos, in Greek, means “equal.” Nice, huh?
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nAlsonon this date:
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nAnniversarynof the October Revolution in Yemen
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nBirthdaynof Quaker and Pennsylvania founder William Penn
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nWorldnEgg Day
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nNationalnBring Your Teddy Bear to School / Work Day
(UnitenAgainst Bullying)
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nPlannahead:
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nChecknout my Pinterest boards for:
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nAndnhere are my Pinterest boards for:
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nNovembern holidays
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nNovembern birthdays
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nHistoricaln anniversaries in November
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