[FRIAM] !RE: A million tech jobs unfilled

[Steven A Smith]

Glen -


On 3/16/17 10:18 AM, glen ☣ wrote:
> But I'd like to toss some words at your idea of coherence.  First Marcus' distinction would play a role.  Polymaths, as long as they're on board with a specific context, look exactly like specialists.  Generalists would have fewer specific domains into which they could do a deep dive.  So, yes, too many generalists presents a problem for coherence.  But too many polymaths may not.
I think this is a reasonable model, however, I think I attribute another 
quality to polymaths than has been alluded to here.   I've rarely found 
someone I consider a true polymath to be tractable to the organizations 
goals... they tend to use their high-bandwidth broad-spectrum abilities 
to keep their organizations happy (enough) with them, but in my 
experience, they rarely harness their full skills to the organization 
they work for.   I don't judge that as bad, but it makes me suspect that 
the discussion here assumes that a polymath will actually be 
contributing to their full ability to the organization they work for.
>
> That discussion probably conflates the organization vs. sub-organization, though.  It seems reasonable to think that a conglomerate (Red Cross or Intel) could have variable coherence depending on the domain of the measure.  I used such an argument recently when trying to think about the disaster response of the Feds vs. the local CERT group (in which Renee' participates).  The coherence of the Feds is fundamentally different from the coherence of the local CERT group.  Either or both could cohere more or less, but even if they both do, the coherence of the super-org is of a higher order than that of the sub-org ...  it's like a coherence of coherences of coherences, etc.
I do think that coherence distributes across scale... but I'm not sure 
of the appropriate language for that concept.
>
> The "serial entrepreneur" becomes an interesting case, I suppose.  These are people of high variance, but who don't look for a home.  They're like spittle bugs, they abandon their artifacts, move to a new location, and build new artifacts.  But the distinction between a "serial entrepreneur" and a nomadic hippie seems like a very thin distinction to me.  Only people who fetishize power or money would see a difference.  Neither seems employable.  Yet they both cohere by some measure.  And both (probably) contribute to higher order coherence of various super-orgs.
I suspect that we could look to ecosystems for some analogies to help 
think about this... just as you reference with spittle bugs?

- Steve