random

1. There is a standing debate on whether to become a specialist or generalist. I guess sitting on the fence on that is called versatilist. I had an option once to move into a package specific group after working on it for years, but decided against it since I didn’t want to do that alone for rest of my life. Gaining enough depth is some things and enough breadth was more appealing – trick probably is to know what is enough depth/breadth and not end up knowing nothing. Jack of some trades and master of few?


2. My current project is doing a transition for 3 months and moved on from knowledge transfer to secondary support, we were discussing today morning about subtle differences in the way things were explained in classroom vs how they are actually done. Happened to see this article today on procedural knowledge – obvious stuff, but it is expressed well. Article quotes from the book The Design of Everyday Things by David Norman (had this book in my list for too long – ordered today):-

People function through their use of two kinds of knowledge: knowledge of and knowledge how.
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Knowledge how [is] what psychologists call procedural knowledge.
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Procedural knowledge is difficult or impossible to write down and difficult to teach. It is best taught by demonstration and best learned through practice. Even the best teachers cannot usually describe what they are doing. Procedural knowledge is largely subconscious.

3. Four levels of business knowledge:- 1. Data 2. Information – context of data and purpose of it 3. Insight – what information actually means 4. Wisdom – how to achieve a goal using insight and experience. Good framework to think about any knowledge.