Posts tagged "career"

5 posts
Four hooded figures in dark robes riding horses through a destroyed modern city street at night. The scene is illuminated by vibrant neon lighting in pink, purple, and orange hues from damaged storefronts and buildings. Debris and rubble are scattered across the wet pavement, creating an apocalyptic cyberpunk atmosphere.

The four horsemen of a dying career (and the shields that protect you)

| In Productivity
| 9 minute read

Working for my then employer’s Munich office in 2011, I felt it—that hollow sensation when your career becomes a treadmill. The acquisition of the company I originally joined had stripped away the technological beauty and purpose I’d thrived on for more than a decade. The rigid culture, the pure commercial focus, the loss of autonomy.

I wasn’t incompetent, broke, or irrelevant… I was just bored.

And boredom, I realized, was the first horseman of a dying career.

A network of fungal mycelia with golden-orange spores connected by luminous thread-like structures radiating outward from a bright central hub, set against a blue background, resembling the interconnected web structure of fungal networks.

How to thrive as an Expert Generalist in the age of AI

| In General
| 8 minute read

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly.

Specialization is for insects.

— Robert A. Heinlein

When I read a recent article about Expert Generalists on Martin Fowler’s blog, I immediately changed my LinkedIn title. Finally, someone had named what I’d been doing for 27 years without realizing it!

A person, standing on top of a hill, overlooking a vast landscape of hills.

How to find good opportunities

| In Productivity
| 11 minute read

In my current job, I occasionally mentor people and one of the questions I often get is: “How do you find good opportunities?” By which people mean cool technologies to explore, great projects to be part of, opportunities to talk at conferences, great companies to join, interesting people to meet, a…

Book Review: The Art of Non-Conformity by Chris Guillebeau

Book Review: The Art of Non-Conformity by Chris Guillebeau

| In Productivity
| 10 minute read

A guy I know once said: “If you follow the herd, you’ll end up as lunch.” (Actually, he said “Schnitzel”, since he’s German, but you get the idea).

Well, here’s a guide, a manual if you wish, for avoiding the fate of leading a dull, boring and unremarkable life. This is not just a self-help or success guide type of book, it’s much more. It’s a manifesto for personal freedom that can apply to all of us, if we choose to follow it.

In some ways, it’s like the red pill/blue pill thing from The Matrix: Do you want to stay in the normal world, do normal, boring things like getting a job, applying for a mortgage, going on vacation once or twice a year, and feeding the ducks in the park after you retire?

Or do you want to decide for yourself what to do with your life, create your own rules and live your life the way you want?

A table with brushes, colors, a lamp and creative background.

How to Add Creativity to Your Technology Career and Save Yourself From Automation and Outsourcing

| In Productivity
| 11 minute read

In a recent blog article about the future of IT admins, my MUCOSUG-Buddy Wolfgang wondered whether the new generation of self-managed, appliance-like systems like Oracle Exadata (no link, page no longer exists), Oracle Sun Storage 7000 (no link, page no longer exists) and their friends from other vendors are making IT personnel redundant, or what kind of jobs IT people are supposed to be doing in the future.

Book cover for: A Whole New Mind

This reminded me of Dan Pink’s book “A Whole New Mind” (Amazon.com|co.uk|de, BooksOnBoard (no link, booksonboard.com no longer exists)). Pink argues that today’s “left-brainish” jobs are threatened by “abundance, automation and Asia” (the latter really meaning “outsourcing”) and that today’s knowledge workers need to learn how to better employ their “right-brain” and add creativity to their jobs, as a new competitive differentiator.

How does this relate to Technology or IT jobs?