Fads, Knowledge Management and Identity Angst
Venkatesh Rao over at Forbes has a perceptive article on the recent trend of the enthusiasm for “big data” resulting in everybody laying claim to the title “Data Scientist”. But his comments have strong resonances with all sorts of hype-responses – KM suffered from this in the early years and every claim for a replacement therapy/technology for KM ever since has done so too. Here’s the relevant section of Venkatesh’s post – sound familiar?
“At any given technology conference, you will find the following types:
- People with chips on their shoulders about being marginalized by the new trend.
- Long-ignored people who suddenly find that they’ve turned into stars, blinking in the spotlight.
- People who feel under-appreciated and powerless.
- People who cannot believe how much power they suddenly have.
- People who secretly feel like fakes and are feeling either gleeful or ashamed about it.
- People who are cleverly switching out their titles from the last hyped fad for the closest one they can find in the new one.
- People upset that other people are taking credit for their old wine by putting it into new bottles.
- Older people insisting nothing has changed (read: “therefore I am still the expert” ).
- Younger people insisting everything has changed (read “the old fogeys know nothing; hire me instead” ).
- People excited by anything new and shiny, whether or not they understand it.
- Jaded people on paid-for junkets.
- Uber-sociable types for whom it is all one big party.”
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Hi Patrick - long time since we communicated. Yeah. I know these people. I’ve been some of them. But embarrassed to think which one others might think I am./Rob
Posted on May 18, 2012 at 09:37 PM | Comment permalink