These past days I have been reflecting a lot. Being hired by a non-technology company as a technologist has made me see a complete different world.For many years, a good technologist or a good IT expert has been assimilated to being a geek, an expert in some technology that allowed him or her to be able to excel professionally. Specialization was the key word. “In what do you specialize?” “What is the programming language that you master?” “What kind of telecoms are you proficient in?” These are some of the questions that all IT professionals had to have a good answer for.
I believe, however, that this specialization focus is starting to disappear. As technology evolves faster than people can actually specialize, being an expert in “something” technical is simply mission impossible. So what can a good IT professional do? I guess, it is time to go back to basics, to understand the nature of human beings, and to embrace the fact that only by also exploring other aspects of science and arts, an IT specialist can fully contribute in the work place. Which for me it translates into becoming a humanist, or better said, a Leonardo DaVinci – kind of person, somebody interested and proficient in multiple facets of life. The first facet being: encourage curiosity and learning of science and arts to understand technology, and vice versa. Continuous learning is a must nowadays anyway, why not to encourage arts and humanities to be a fine complement to technology?
Disclaimer: I am not stating that IT people should stop specializing in technology, I am only stating here that this is not enough anymore. The reality is that the day only has 24h and that there has only been one Leonardo DaVinci in history. How will humans cope with excelling in multiple facets of life?
