Bulldozer00's Blog

In “The Design Of Design“, Fred Brooks laments that he used to be able to track new developments in the entire field of software engineering – which was born in 1968. In the present age, because of massive innovation, expansion, and deep specialization requiring steep learning curves, he realizes that there’s no hope of anyone being super human enough to keep up anymore.

Since I used to try to keep abreast of all developments in the field, I felt the same way as Fred. Now, I have a strategy that keeps me from staying awake 24×7 reading books, papers, newsletters, blogs, and articles. I filter the tsunami of information down by trying to track developments only in my domain of focus; distributed and embedded real-time systems. I occasionally look into the fast moving enterprise IT technology space for cross-domain applicability of ideas, but it’s all I can do to keep abreast of my area while simultaneously doing some real application work that adds value to my company‘s products.

How about you? Do you find yourself overwhelmed by the rate and amount of information being created and disseminated in your field? Do you care about and pursue personal exploration and discovery, or do you just punch the clock and wait for the infallible geniuses in management to guide and train you in the new technologies that could keep you and your org viable? If it’s the latter, then you may (as the left portion of the figure below shows) remain stuck in the stagnant and boring “Waiting For Management Guidance” state forever. If you’re dwelling in this sad and potentially infinite state, there is still hope in the form of an “epiphany” of understanding – big daddy ain’t gonna help you grow personally or professionally.

Ideally, one never wastes any time in the spirit-sucking “Waiting For Management Guidance” state. The “Exploring And Discovering” state, which is a natural gift to all human beings, would be transitioned to right out of the box. When we are born, we actually do enter this state right out of the box – so to speak. As soon as we start going to school, the institutional indoctrination starts and before we can say WTF?, we’re well on our way to the “Waiting For Management Guidance” state.