Specializing within your field

pmudnairb — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 03:08:19 +0000

Every now and then I hear someone mention the importance of specializing. When brought up it usually sounds like not specializing is career suicide. Thinking about it I can see some of the argument for it: With 10 years of experience, but only 2 years doing what you do now, it seems someone with only 3-5 years experience could easily replace you. Eventually you’d reach an age where people would rather hire someone younger, and you wouldn’t even have the experience of many years of specialization to fall back on.

That is, assuming that the only experience that matters is what improves your skills in one narrow area. I’m a generalist. Jack of all trades, master of none. I like the idea of learning new things, so it’s natural that I would be opposed to this idea. I hope, and think, that broader experience is a good thing. That it will provide you with a large base and a solid foundation, a wide variety of experienced which you can base your decisions on.

Having said that, a lot of people, myself very much included, have thought back on hobbies they had during childhood. A sport they participated in, or an instrument they played, and at some point got bored with. If you’ve done this you know the thought: “What if I stuck with it? How good would I be now?”. It would be great to have one skill you were really good at, one sport you really excelled in. I hope these won’t be my thoughts as I’m old and look back at my life.

Perhaps the best thing is to spend some time exploring. Taking your time to build up a solid foundation, and then taking advantage of your broad base to grow. A pyramid is much more solid and stable than a tower, after all.

Problems and solutions

pmudnairb — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 02:35:13 +0000

People really enjoy pointing out problems. I do it myself. Something not working like it should? A process that could be optimized? We all want to be first to point it out. I think we point out the problems expecting some kind of recognition for it: “Wow, you’re so clever! You’re the first one to notice that this was a problem! You should be employee of the month!”

No-one cares. No-one is impressed if you discover problems, and the people who matter already have enough problems, they don’t want you to give them new ones.

If you want to make a difference come up with a solution to the problem. Write a report, a proposal, a design document or whatever seems appropriate. Explain the problem, why it needs to be solved, and your idea of how to solve it, along with how you intend to help solving it. That’s something people will respect you for.

And if you’re not prepared to do that, if you feel like you don’t have time to solve it, why do you expect anyone else would?

Delusions of grandeur

pmudnairb — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 00:25:45 +0000

I wanted to sleep, but couldn’t stop thinking. When my brain latches onto something it won’t let go until it’s either formulated the thought in mental writing (or some kind of monologue), or until I promise myself I’ll get back to the thought later (by leaving a reminder). I doubt I’m the only one who has this problem.

Today this reached a new (meta?) level, when the latest obsession became a place where I could write down all my thoughts, so that I could get them out of my head. So here I am.

I considered whether it really needs to be public, but I suspect that despite the lack of a readership, knowing that my thoughts are out on the internet will put my mind more at ease. Obviously suffering from delusions of grandeur. When I think about it though I prefer my thoughts being available. I mean, what if I accidentally write something useful?