Damn it, they gave it a name. Now we can expect a lot of pop-psychology/business media bullshit about this concept for the coming decade.<p>But yeah, this article generally captures my thoughts about the "T-shaped employee" thing, except that I personally want to be "bicycle-wheel shaped" human. First, a <i>human</i>, because my employment does not define me, and by "bicycle-wheel", for lack of better term, I mean many specializations in different areas that end up connecting with each other.<p>As for the feasability of the "T-shaped" vs "paint drip", I think the latter is better - sure, ceteris paribus, you won't be able to put as much energy into many things as you can put in one, but I believe there are diminishing returns in specializations - and since the job market, like most markets, is terribly inefficient, you can probably get away with multiple specializations up until robots replace us all.
This goes along with the notion that the typical STEM person is interested in music/art/etc. about as much as the average person, but the typical Nobel Prize winner has a vastly higher interest in these alternative activities than the average person:<p><a href="http://priceonomics.com/the-correlation-between-arts-and-crafts-and-a" rel="nofollow">http://priceonomics.com/the-correlation-between-arts-and-cra...</a><p>I think the idea of being an "expert in a field" is becoming less valuable today than it used to be. Because there are so many experts in so many fields, they all share the same knowledge, ideas, and preconceptions, and thus the only way to make further progress is to incorporate original ideas from other fields. It goes along with the study that showed that interdisciplinary research has lower citations in the short-term, but many more citations in the long-term.
The "paint drip" approach is great for people who can pull it off, and the opening account of Keith Adams is inspiring. But that same approach to life also is a pretty apt description of low-focus, easily distracted people.<p>I interviewed a job candidate once who had five masters degrees in unrelated fields. In the first five minutes, he sounded amazing. By about minute 15, I realized that his completion rate was very close to zero. And that made it hard for me to think of any job where he'd be effective.<p>Diverse interests can be great. A commitment to life-long learning is inherently a huge plus. But cohesion (even if it's slow and accidental) feels like it needs to be the third part of the formula.
A really good example of this would be TJ, who is known in the JS community as one of the authors of Express.js and has done a lot of Node.js-related stuff. But I follow TJ on twitter and he does a lot of unrelated work and has started a company recently [3]. Another good example would be Elon Musk, whom I think needs no introduction here.<p>[1] <a href="https://github.com/tj" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/tj</a><p>[2] <a href="https://twitter.com/tjholowaychuk" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/tjholowaychuk</a><p>[3] <a href="https://apex.sh/ping/" rel="nofollow">https://apex.sh/ping/</a>
Very interesting metaphor. I would say that skilled peoe don't <i>always</i> plan their next project, but I do on occasion.<p>I can strongly relate to having a lot of little side projects however. That seems to be where I learn the most stuff. I've even turned a lot of programming class projects into more ambitious side projects at times.<p>I've also found that I often have to attempt a technology or system more than once before I get properly comfortable with it. It seems to have worked that way with Go, Phoenix/Elixir, Postgres, Love2d, and so on. My ability to do well in programming has more to do with many side hours spent researching and playing. New stuff takes a bit to settle in.
A lot of the attributes of "skilled people" could apply to all people. For instance:<p>"Skilled people don’t plan their next focus area. Sometimes it seems completely unrelated to their previous focus area."<p>So does this mean we should not plan our next focus area?
What if someone is naturally inclined to plan their focus area, should they resist the urge?
Does anyone else think that these simplistic reductions/analogies are woefully inadequate for actually understanding the people you encounter and work with?
I guess this is a good place for me to ask how do people prioritize what to learn? Also what are your steps to learning something. My recurring issue is that most books/resources stop at this semi intermediate level, and then you are on your own. And figuring out how to progress is sometimes a bit too time consuming.
Interesting analogy. I think this captures the paths of creatives more than large company people. The T-model is great for consulting firms (like McKinsey who uses it) as well as conglomerates like P&G. Catching the interest of someone who can move from Operating Systems to compilers to website design is very different.<p>The one thing I'd add to this is Paint Drip people tend to bring what they learned from one area to others. It's not so just disjointed and random "let's see what drips."
It's worth reading some of Keith's posts about systems and OS on Quora, some of the most interesting stuff I've seen on those topics: <a href="https://www.quora.com/profile/Keith-Adams" rel="nofollow">https://www.quora.com/profile/Keith-Adams</a>