In a very basicsense, communication is information, or rather, it is act of conveying desiredinformation, desired answers. The ECo-C is, in this sense, very much aboutshowing people how to find answers and reach conclusions. This is never moreimportant than when one receives questions such as the following:

“I cannot find the ECo-C in the Austrian trainingdatabase [weiterbildung.at]; what does that mean?“
(By Anonymous reader)

We would like todedicate this particular article to answering that question:

Firstly, you arequite right; the ECo-C should be in the Austrian training database, because, asindicated by the adjacent map, ECo-C training and/or testing is offered at 29different training centres in 11 Austrian cities, and can be sponsored by theAustrian Federal Employment Service, the AMS.

Yet, the problemreported here is not really the non-inclusion of the ECo-C in the database, asmuch as the difficulty experienced by a user who is trying to find it: a searchby acronym suggests that there is no “ECo-C Ausbildung” in there. However, asearch for the “European Communication Certificate” will yield as many resultsas there are scheduled classes. In essence, this is a communication issue: whenit comes down to individuals sitting in front of their computers, it is veryeasy to forget the audience, the user, the other, even when trying to create asearchable database. However, in this instance, the full name of thecertificate was more important.

It stands toreason that a person that visits eco-c.eu would not try to get ECo-C relatedinformation on weiterbildung.at. That database is meant to help people get anencompassing view of the training programs offered in Austria, and enable themto select the one that suits them. By contrast, our site is for the initiates,the cognoscenti who already know that “ECo-C” stands for „EuropeanCommunication Certificate“. These are people who will look here, and on ourAustrian website, www.eco-c.at, forinformation.

But for theothers, for the average jobseeker who wishes to acquire some social andpersonal skills, the words “European Communication Certificate” truly say itall, translating both the reach and the purpose of the proposed course.