For years, I was told, the only way to succeed in this day and age of buy and sell and push and produce and create, create, create is through specialization. You cannot be a jack-of-all-trades, otherwise, you’re good at lots but great at little.
I’ve spent some time now, out of University, on my quest for specialization and creating my perfect niche between marketing and design. Now that I’ve stepped out of my university bubble and have continued my education in another domain, I see how misleading this push towards specialization can be. Don’t get me wrong, it’s wonderful to be great at something but…. Well, just stay with me and we’ll get to the point.
I’m presently reading “The Mysterious Island” by Jules Verne; The story of 5 men who are stranded on an island after a tumultuous hot-air balloon escape. These men have the physical and more importantly, mental, resources to not only survive but thrive on this island. It seems no matter what issue they are faced with, one of them has the solution. Yes, this is a fantasy, but it’s gotten me thinking – If I, the sustainable marketer/designer, were stranded on an island with 4 of my peers, how would we do? Would we have a kiln built and dinner in bowls only 3 weeks after our arrival on the island? It’s laughable really, how greatly we would struggle and probably fail. Being the specialized modernists that we are, we lack the essential knowledge that was, not so long ago, essential to survival.
In this day and age, university graduates are all being pushed towards specialization. If you study a little bit of everything, you are a floater, unfocused and simply have not yet found your path (but you’re the type of person I’d love to have on that island with me). The issue with this mentality is that students feel the need to specialize so strongly, that they close their minds to the nuances and connections that are around them in every direction. Everything is connected! Yet, on our quest for a niche career, we forget this. How does chemistry relate to philosophy, art to business, relationships to the economy? Why don’t we ask ourselves these questions more often?
Didn’t Leonardo Da Vinci say something along the lines of - The world is a complex system of simple things? A system… Functioning together and affecting everything around it, whether we acknowledge it or not. Recently, I made a connection with a sustainability expert – Michelle Holliday. (For those of you who know me or read this blog, you know that I want to work in sustainable design, so this chance encounter was a great one.) I heard her speak of her notion that all things in life, your body, your company, your community, is a living ecosystem. Working together towards a goal. Again, this notion of system arises. Systems and connectivity, both are filling my thoughts these days.
I see now that on my quest to focus my knowledge, I am in fact broadening it and connecting the dots. Yes, we must specialize in order to become valuable members of society but as we do so, we must remember to take the time to step back and see how everything connects. How does what we’re doing affect the people around us, our community, our environment, our economy, the system we are a part of?
This year, I’ve delved further into my passions of marketing, design and sustainability and, I see it all so clearly now, marketing, business-2-business, design, sustainability, service… it’s all connected and all of it affects the living system that we are a part of.
To go off on a tangent:
The only way that businesses and inevitably, the human race, will survive is to start considering their impact on their ecosystem. They must understand that all efforts are connected to either their existence, or their demise. Sustainability people! It needs to become a way of life. After all, what is sustainability other than simply striving to last long? Don’t we all want this?
I digress.
So, specialization isn’t a bad thing, as long as you have the intelligence, curiosity and observation skills to step back and understand how this all relates to the bigger picture. This intense focus on the bottom line, be it monetary or a career goal or the picket fence, is the reason our lives, our communities and our planet are in such shambles.
so cool to see these thoughts down in writing!
ReplyDeletei have been thinking about this a lot over the past few months having returned to school after a year off working and struggling, flip-flopping from pursuing one interest then another, building one skill here and loosing another there...
specialization can lead to great success in this society however, this specialized strength can easily become a weakness- in the sense that a lack of flexibility and adaptability means one depends on stability and lack of change. But as we all know, we inhabit a society (system) and indeed planet(full of systems) in constant evolution!
From an evolutionary perspective, the most successful species (in terms of longevity and reproductive success) have been the ones most ready to adapt and to find a new niche should the old one disappear. Highly specialized species may be well suited to succeed in a particular environment at a particular time but when those given factors disappear or change they face extinction. This of course applies to the individual level as well...
example: as hundreds of autoworkers here in windsor/detroit have learned in the past couple decades, specialization can be a double-edged blade. When "Johnny" quit high school in the 80's to work at a Ford plant he was making $15/hour off the bat and laughed while his friends struggled through university/college. As the years went by he was making more and more and more (over $55/hour) and bought a car and a house and did well for himself. But 25 years later when the plant shuts down and his pension is slashed by GMs economic restructuring, he joins thousands of others who spent their lives on an assembly line screwing on the left door on mini-vans, or performing some other highly specialized task. What can he really put on his resume now? Transferable skills are a must but the broader the application the better - other manufacturing jobs in north america are on the decline as well.
You're right to point out that we live in a system of interconnectivity. And to call all connected parts a part of an ecosystem. Even better, you made no mention of a machine. There is a pervasive inclination in our post-industrialized world to see our planet's systems as well as our social structures as mechanical. This just isn't accurate. A machine requires all parts to operate within their set function (and nothing else) or else it breaks down. This is not true of life. Creativity, spontaneity and changing roles are keystones to evolutionary progress and have benefited individual species as well as the planet as a whole. This applies to society as well as a changing force, progress towards social justice was made by prominent individuals who wanted change- real change, not obama-style, vote-for-me lies about change!! There is something to be said for exploration and diversification in life - be a functioning cog in a machine and you are only around for as long as the machine remains intact and unchanged; be a diversified living being in a system, receptive to changing roles and you will bounce from one job to another, from one function to the next and always find a place where you are rewarded and valued.
The lessons I learned from a year and a half of looking for fulfilling work without requiring a completed university degree opened my eyes to the importance and value of both specialization and adaptability. I am back in school, about to complete a Bachelor in Communication, Media and Film. What a wide, vague, open field this is! Whereas I once aspired to work on artistic idie or big-money hollywood films, I find myself richly rewarded ($$!) for being more realistic in my ambitions and applying my production skills to educational videos on contract with various universities! A love of nature (which often made me regret that I didnt study in biology or environmental studies or even pursue the landscaping work I've been doing most summers) suddenly combines extremely well with a communication degree when parks Canada is looking to hire a communications agent for external and internal communication, guides and interpreters for park tours, research-analysis to compile data on fauna and flora, ETC! Or when the ecohouse movement on campus is looking for publications to be done using web-design, video, print, social media, smart phones, ETC (and a person who isn't scared to pick up a shovel) a nature-loving communications agent is really what they need! This vague open field has touched on so many things, though I don't feel like a specialist at any particular skill yet, I feel that the culmination and sum of all these basic-level skills makes me a specialist in the broader sense (the domain) without limiting the applications of these skills.
ReplyDeleteHere I am just beginning to understand the value of specialization but the importance and necessity of diversification and adaptability within a system! Let us hope we can change the system from within in time to save our planet and ourselves.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and allowing me to do the same! Just another step along the way…
Habilis!
ReplyDeleteWhat a joy to receive comments (intelligent, lengthy, thought-out and thought provoking no less) from someone I do not know! Thank you! (We don't know eachother right :)?)
It is obvious you've contemplated all of this alot and at a much deeper level than I. I love your connection with the sustainable species and evolution. It's mind-blowing and magical that we can make comparisons between animals and our economic systems (among millions of other connections)! That's what this blog post was about for me - the grandeur of things that unfortunately, some programs in certain universities make out to be so much smaller and more confined than they are in reality.
We are the makers of our paths - I completely agree that all we need is the ability to roll with the punches and adapt.
Thanks again for the insight. I love hearing thoughts from a fellow curioso - how did you find me/the post?
Good luck with Parks Canada! :)
Hi Erin, I think you might find this website interesting: http://hackaday.com/ It's a bunch of hackers who keep pushing the limits of how you can modify consumer goods and make things "talk" to one another.
ReplyDeleteI found this website when last summer when I realized how little we know about the stuff around us because we're too "specialized" and we don't value certain skills that would make us better humans.
Thanks for the comment and link Eric! I'll definitely check it out. Happy to know that my wandering thoughts actually apply to certain life experiences...
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