Great find Steve,

After been a DBA for 10 years and 3 years as an IT Manage I can safely say that I have a personal dislike of certifications and am fairly neutral about degree (having one myself). All too many times have I recruited staff that held certifications such as MCSE, MCDBA etc etc and found that individuals who boast their credentials actually failed by a long shot during my grilling sessions.

People that I have hired and had the pleasure of working with had minimal academic or IT training yet were self confessed 'geeks' since they could talk. These individuals have the passion to play on a few spare Linux or NT boxes at home or who can reminisce about old versions of DOS and how, as a 10 year old fixed their aunties PC's back in the days.

That's the type of passion and love of IT I like to see in people I hire.

Cheers

Tom