The Geeky back-story

I grew up in the suburbs of Detroit.  I remember when I knew nothing much about computers or programming.  I had typed in some program listings for games printed in magazines so I could play them on my TI-99/4A  when I was 10 years old.  Sure, I adjusted those games so I could outrun the lion that was chasing me, or whatever the game did.  But after about a year or 18 months, I got bored with loading programs I wrote by super slow cassette players and preferred to jump ramps on my bicycle, and otherwise be a dumb kid running around outside.

The cocky college kid

In college, I teased the computer science and business school kids who were always in the computer lab, and crying and hissing when the unreliable equipment would instantly destroy the assignment they had been doing for hours.  I would gloat that I outlined my writing assignments between classes on paper, and could generate an error free paper in a couple hours, first try on my trusted electric typewriter.  I remember trying out the computer lab a few times and getting screwed when the bomb icon would show up on the old macs (the PCs were occupied by the forementioned business and CS students), which meant the machine had locked up and corrupted the file I had on my floppy disk, and on my way driving home I got so angry I tore a piece of my dashboard off with my bare fingers!

I feel stupid doing the same thing repeatedly

Years went by, and I was working as a technical recruiter.  I was getting tired of running laps around the file cabinets, formatting resumes on a typewriter, and entering the same candidate information on each bid sheet, every time I submitted them to a position.

Discovered a talent

So, I created a simple Microsoft Access database to hold the bid sheet information for the candidates I was submitting to make things less repetitive for me.  Then I figured out how to share that database on the network so my co-workers could use the same bid sheet system.  I learned how to configure the Windows for Workgroups network so that I could print the resumes directly from the computer, instead of working through the old Unix-based resume system and horrendous printed workflow it forced us to use.   Then I shared out the fax-modem that the acccount rep had on his computer, so that I could skip the printing step altogether, and fax bid sheets directly to our client.  If the fax did not go through, an email alert showed up at my desk letting me know I needed to retry.  It was fantastic in terms of productivity, but seems rather primitive by standards of today!

Off to the races

Not too long after that, I found myself in my first database/programming job, at a small electrical engineering firm.  There, I had to learn how engineers worked with CAD documents, paper files, and how to fix a document control system, eventually replacing it completely.  Along the way, I learned Visual FoxPro and Visual Basic, because both were more flexible than Access, and much more useful in the marketplace.  About a year into my programming career, a friend and former co-worker from the recruiting job asked me if I could build a system for his new employer to use for tracking applicants and jobs in their recruiting department.  I have less than 2 years experience in software, and delivered my first product on my first consulting engagement!  As a new consultant, I had to learn about self-employment tax (that sucked).  As a programmer, I learned how to be a de facto Oracle DBA, because I saw resistance from those groups when I asked for help from them.

The pattern emerges

On and on this goes.  I always seemed to hit a wall that required me to learn as I went, learn just what I needed to get to the next step, and fall on my face in a few places as necessary along the way.  What I did not realize at the time, is that I was an early adopter of what I believe is the most critical life skill for the next 50 years…Just in Time Learning!

What is so different now compared to the time of your parents?

At one time, we were all encouraged to become the best at something–To get a solid skill, and use our specialty to improve our incomes, lifestyle, and futures.  Today, I do not believe this is a reliable way to get ahead, past a certain point.  For one thing, there are so many specialties available, espeically in technology careers, that the options are endless.  There are so many people in these fields competing for top position as a specialist, that even if you are in the top 10% of a specialty, there are probably like 50,000 others just like you in the marketplace.  Instead, it is the combination of things you are good at which makes you unique, and this is your strength when competing in a market.  For example, there are some brilliant software developers out there.  I have worked with some of them, and they can out-class me in every facet of algorithm design, their use of patterns, and even speed to completion of individual programming tasks.  I was often amazed that I ended up on top of these talented folks so often.  Here is why that happened:

1. I could deliver a bigger project more reliably, because I would use the best designs for the skill level of the people on my team.
2. I could explain to the VP and ‘C’ Level people what we were doing and why, and I could explain to the developers how the work they were doing fit into the bigger vision.
3. I could demonstrate that performance issues during testing were not due to code, but due to database and networking configuration issues, using tools and terminology that the DBAs and Network Admins used daily.

In short, it was the intersection of technical prowess, communication skills, and adaptability to my environment that made my probability of success much higher than that of the “programming god” sitting next to me.  I will tip my hat to Scott Adams (Dilbert cartoon), for drawing out this concept in his book, “How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life”.

While we must have competency in several areas to be viable in any complex field, the most important skill to have after acheiving a core competency is the ability to integrate a new skill into our perspective and problem solving.

This is what I call Just In Time Learning, and it is the ability to identify the key parts of any discipline, boil those down to self-study practices to add the new competency, and to apply the new practices to our vocation.

Embrace Just in Time Learning.  Once you get comfortable with the idea, your world will open up.  After doing it successfully, you will realize that you already have everything you need to pursue anything you want.  You just have to be open to learning, and get good at determining what are the core parts of any discipline you study.  If you are facing a career change, Just In Time Learning can help you keep calm and confident as you pursue your next opportunity.

 

Society seems to be wanting to emphasize inclusion, diversity, and engagement as concepts, while seeming to ignore the need to make fast decisions that are “good enough” very quickly.  If you want to thrive, you have to take action quickly, so I will simply state:  Diversification is for stupid people.

How many times have you encountered these ideas?

• Don’t put all your eggs in one basket
• You cannot time the market, so spread your money around to avoid losing it all
• Let’s get input from the whole team to help with this decision

While there is some truth in these statements and some are even  “common sense”, a contrary approach has merit that we should consider, so I will unpack each with some questions.

Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.

How many baskets can one person safely carry?  If you try to carry 3 baskets, it becomes more likely that you will drop one of those baskets and lose a lot of eggs.  If you mindfully carry one sturdy basket, the risk of losing eggs is smaller.

You cannot time the market, so spread your money around to avoid losing it all.

Is losing money in the stock market the result of investing in too few stocks, or is it the result of trying to keep track of too many stocks, and buy and sell all of those at exactly the right time?  Or is losing money caused by our human nature that encourages us to sell a stock that just lost a bunch of its value (before we lose it all)?  If we are diversified in a lot of different stocks, it will require much more work to stay on top of how those are performing.  Maybe to avoid losing money in the stock market, we need to select a smaller number of investments carefully, and not try to game the system.

Let’s get input from the whole team to help with this decision

This idea is special to me.  It is a great idea to gather input from people you trust who have different specializations and perspectives than you do. This will help you have fewer blind spots when you make decisions.  However, there is no evidence that an ever larger number of opinions will result in a better decision.  Even when gathering information from other people to get more perspective, the group you solicit input from should be quite small, and carefully selected.  The not-so-nice way to say this is that if you add 100 idiots to the discussion, you will either get a worse decision, or it will take longer to arrive at the right decision because the decision makers will need to filter out all the extraneous and useless input from the idiots.  Why not just ask a few trusted people for their input, and make a good decision quickly, without the frustration of talking to the idiots?

The goal of a business activity is to make money for the owners, and probably also to provide a useful product or service.

If you are collecting eggs to sell, you should walk the shortest/safest path to the hens and collect the eggs in a sturdy, appropriately sized basket for the task, and do not play on your smartphone while carrying the eggs, as the lack of attentiveness is probably the biggest risk to your egg profits.

If you are hoping to profit from stock market investments, you should identify the source of your risk and avoid those things first, then you should seek ways to improve your odds and making profits with the least investment of your personal time.  You are probably scattering your money in too many places that you have too little knowledge of, and you probably do not have enough time to keep track of all the daily changes to the value of your positions.  Some very successful investors focus on purchasing really good companies that they are sure will go up in value, and they hold for a long time to make profits safely, with less daily interruptions to their lives.

If you are trying to make a difficult decision, do not take a survey from a bunch of people.  Instead, pick one thoughtful, competent person from a number of disciplines or perspectives and get weigh their opinions.  With this approach, you will learn something, and you will build relationships with smart people.

Good luck in your next venture!