Specialise to survive?

[jnavtx at gmail.com (John Navarro)]

I'm glad you brought up the Jerks of All Trades! I wasn't slamming Jacks by
any means, I've know a LOT of badass guys that are generalists. Don't take
what I said earlier as an insult to those who are able to do a lot of
everything!

On Sat, Aug 15, 2009 at 9:35 PM, Michael Douglas <mick at pauldotcom.com>wrote:

> > jack of all trades messed up the environment
>
> OK this is the one area where I wasn't too clear on the earlier
> thread.  I'm assuming that you are competent in everything that you
> say you're going to do.  Unfortunately, this isn't the case.  There
> are many Jerks of All Trades who will mess things up badly.
>
>
> For those who mentioned it above, yes being a generalist does tend to
> get you in the small and medium sized businesses... but there are
> exceptions... take my day job for instance.  For those of you who
> don't know, I work at OCLC -- a non-profit library coop.  We're what
> I'd consider large.  We have over 72,000 libraries in our collective.
> We have a database with holdings information on about 1.2 billion (yes
> billion) records (books and other stuff).  We have a few thousand
> servers... yet they hired me...  A generalist!
>
> I'm a generalist... but a big part of my ability to get things done is
> admitting what I don't know.  For instance, a big part of my skill
> with forensics is how I DON'T mess up data.  If things get to hairy
> for me, I can wrap things up and call in folks who are better than me
> (and remember, there ALWAYS is someone better than you -- thinking
> otherwise is the first step on the path to destruction)
>
> knowing when to sit down and hack or when to walk away is probably the
> greatest skill anyone in computers can have!
>
> - Mick
>
>
> On Sat, Aug 15, 2009 at 2:42 PM, John Navarro<jnavtx at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Good point Tim!
> > Robert, I do think that a "jack of all trades" type will fit in better to
> > smaller companies, whereas the specialized, from my experience, seem to
> have
> > a better chance at getting into larger corporations. It was never my
> > intention to be "specialized", but having worked at a firewall vendor it
> was
> > just easier to find those opportunities that required a specific
> skillset.
> > Of course it could be that the jack of all trades messed up the
> environment
> > and they needed someone specialized to come in and clean it up ;)
> >
> > On Sat, Aug 15, 2009 at 8:16 AM, Tim Krabec <tkrabec at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Don't forget your specialization does not have to be computer/program
> > > related
> > >
> > > You don't have to specialize in "forensic analysis of devorak keyboards
> > > for AS/400 systems
> > > emulating Apple IIc systems"
> > > You could specialize in database recovery for small businesses.  Or BCP
> &
> > > DR for law offices or real estate companies.
> > >
> > > --
> > > Tim Krabec
> > > Kracomp
> > > 772-597-2349
> > > smbminute.com
> > > kracomp.blogspot.com
> > > www.kracomp.com
> > >
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