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.
