The evolutionary professional

The road to extinction.

Nature’s generalists have a tendency to survive longer than its specialists when environmental change accelerates. For those species adapted to become dependent upon a particular habitat its loss can spell their doom.

There’s no doubt that the technological world can exhibit these phenomena for those with a limited set of experience and skills. This realisation should inform our career choices: which skills you should develop to avoid extinction?

The good news is that, unlike physical changes, professional evolution is capable of working on in a much shorter timeframe.

Constantly look for change.

In the 1960s, British railway rapidly moved from steam to diesel. In this environment trains still needed to be driven, so the drivers mostly survived, huge numbers of firemen didn’t. Since then travel by car and aeroplane have become far more common: I wonder how many train drivers realised this too late?

Those in highly specialised professions almost always command higher pay. If you make the conscious decision to chase the cash, that’s fine, but be aware that its a high risk strategy.

Look for the future trends: which are the promising technologies and can they be addressed with the skills you currently possess? If not, you need to decide upon the new skills and knowledge that will be necessary.

Learning is all around you.

Books are readily available and I’m a big fan of reading, but don’t expect them to be up to the minute. It takes time to write, edit and publish a book, so you’re best using them as a source of general knowledge.

Likewise, formal education courses are slow to react to the pace of technological change. I’ve often heard complaints about the failure of a course to teach the latest advances or techniques, but if used properly they have an important place. Industrial practices had little in common with my Engineering degree, but it did teach me how to think like an Engineer.

These two sources exist to provide a solid, general background knowledge that will enable you to develop your own understanding of the cutting edge. Basics covered, you’ll find the Web and journals much more useful.

There’s a massive quantity of both good and bad information available on the Web, and with your general grounding you’ll be able to tell them apart. In addition to traditional websites, there are podcasts, video tutorials, wikis, forums, and much of the very latest information will appear here before it can be published.

Academic and industry journals can be a little hard going, and some of the content is less than informative: intellectual property can be too jealously guarded sometimes. This said, they’re rigourously edited and can give a good global perspective on the direction of the industry.

Finally, conferences can provide a good indicator of what is hot or not, but beware of jumping on bandwagons. These are also good places to network and find out what other people are doing.

You may want to follow the herd or deliberately make your own path, just make sure you’re happy you understand your decisions. Constant development and the application of a little thought to your actions is the key to professional life.