{"id":1397,"date":"2008-11-11T16:50:23","date_gmt":"2008-11-11T23:50:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/?p=1397"},"modified":"2009-09-12T04:12:57","modified_gmt":"2009-09-12T11:12:57","slug":"the-technology-whitewater","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/2008\/11\/the-technology-whitewater\/","title":{"rendered":"The Technology Whitewater"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Innovations, a website published by Ziff-Davis Enterprise from mid-2006 to mid-2009. Reprinted by permission.<\/em><\/p>\n

One of the most valuable newsletters I receive is called Knowledge@Wharton<\/a>, an information-packed digest of the latest insights from the faculty and associates of the University of Pennsylvania’s famed business school.\u00a0 An interview this week caught my eye because it deals with tactics for adapting to today\u2019s very challenging business environment.<\/p>\n

Gregory Shea and Robert Gunther have written a new book called Your Job Survival Guide: A Manual for Thriving in Change<\/a><\/em> in which they draw a wonderful analogy to today’s chaotic business world and whitewater kayaking. The authors describe the current business environment as one of a permanent whitewater<\/a>, in which mass confusion reigns and few safe havens appear to exist.<\/p>\n

Whitewater is scary to the uninitiated, but to seasoned kayakers, it\u2019s the height of exhilaration.\u00a0 Whitewater is fun because, while frightening, it doesn’t have to be dangerous if you know what to do.<\/p>\n

Experienced kayakers know not to dive in to a whitewater and ride it to the end.\u00a0 Instead, they navigate the rapids in stages.\u00a0 Between bursts of activity, they pull off to the side in little pools called eddies, catch their breath and prepare for the next stage in the journey. The trip is basically a process of navigating between eddies.<\/p>\n

What a wonderful analogy! The technology world is unquestionably chaotic right now, even without the financial meltdown. Constant change frustrates predictability. The idea of building a career by mastering a single discipline and applying it for decades is as dead as the manual typewriter.\u00a0 Programmers know this.\u00a0 Anyone who has navigated the industry\u2019s migration from Perl to Python to Ruby on Rails, for example, knows that expertise in one discipline doesn’t guarantee long-term career success. However, a core expertise in scripting is valuable in all scenarios.<\/p>\n

The key is to understand your core skills and to learn to apply them in areas where there is market demand.\u00a0 Seek the eddies while constantly scanning the horizon for the next set of challenges.<\/p>\n

A Personal Story<\/h3>\n

I’ll tell a personal anecdote that’s relevant.\u00a0 I was trained as a journalist because that field was a natural outlet for my skills as a writer and storyteller. Early in my career, I discovered that the technology field offered the best opportunity to apply those skills.\u00a0 That served me well for nearly 20 years, but in the late 1990s, the market began to change.\u00a0 Print publishing was dying in the technology market, so I jumped to an Internet startup and spent the next six years learning the unique demands of that medium.<\/p>\n

Upon striking out on my own in 2005, I quickly discovered that yet another new opportunity was emerging in the field of social media.\u00a0 Millions of people, and many thousands of businesses, were going online to become, in effect, publishers. It was quickly evident to me that the disciplines I had learned in 20 years of technology journalism were very relevant in this new world.\u00a0 People had the capacity to publish, but most of them lacked the skill to communicate in compelling ways.\u00a0 The skills I had learned in 25 years of publishing were still relevant, even though the medium and the audience had completely changed. Today, I’m applying those skills in a manner that I couldn’t have imagined a decade ago.<\/p>\n

The process has been scary at times, but it’s also been rewarding never boring.\u00a0 That brings me back to the analogy of whitewater rafting.<\/p>\n

Learn to Roll<\/h3>\n

In the interview with Wharton, the two authors talk of the Eskimo roll, which is a maneuver that kayakers learn to adjust to tumultuous conditions.\u00a0 Instead of fighting rough water, veterans can strategically capsize their craft to protect themselves against obstacles.\u00a0 For most boaters, capsizing is a disaster. But for kayakers it\u2019s an essential coping skill, as long as they can fight the natural human tendency to panic.<\/p>\n

Many of us are feeling a little capsized right now, and the panic reflex is kicking in.\u00a0 Keep in mind that we are all wrestling with the same uncertainties and trying to figure out survival strategies. No one has the answers.\u00a0 Focus on keeping your core skills sharp and apply them creatively to whatever opportunities this tumultuous market presents.\u00a0 You will come out OK.\u00a0 Although it might not hurt to be ready to do a few Eskimo rolls along the way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From Innovations, a website published by Ziff-Davis Enterprise from mid-2006 to mid-2009. Reprinted by permission. One of the most valuable newsletters I receive is called Knowledge@Wharton, an information-packed digest of the latest insights from the faculty and associates of the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[143],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pTy95-mx","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1397"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1397"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1397\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1605,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1397\/revisions\/1605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}