Generalism

The people that know me know how much time and effect I put into practising Viola. I started nearly a year ago now, and am looking forward to a grade 5 exam sometime early next year. I love it. I can’t get enough of it. I look forward to the day that I can play music and just have it melt people. I’m a long way off at present, but am definitely looking forward to it.

People who know me also know I don’t do things half-assed; if I can’t be good at something, I will go find something that I can be good at. So it is with great pain (and unfortunately copious amounts of pleasure) that I came across this today.

All of a sudden I feel like a Viola monkey desperately in need of finding something new to do…

I read this on Ralph Grabowski’s upFronteZine this morning, and it’s something I have a strong connection with. It’s an excerpt from Tom Peters’ “Design: Innovate, Differentiate, Communicate”:

“I note a steadily increasing drumbeat. A drumbeat of consternation around the issue of ‘outsourcing.’ “What is to be done? How can people cope with the specter of massive job shrinkage? My nutshell answer: Job shrinkage is inevitable. Whether because of outsourcing or automation (which, long-term, may be a bigger deal than outsourcing), you can’t count on any job being there for you. What you can do is find ways to move yourself and your company Up the Value Chain.

“A lot of yogurt has hit the fan. In the near term, globalization continues to be a mixed blessing — a worthy end point, but messy and uneven to the extreme in its immediate impact.“And yet, there is the New Economy.

“Would you change places with your grandfather? Would you want to work 11 brutal hours a day in yesterday’s Bethlehem Steel mill circa 1935? Not me.

“A workplace revolution is underway. Some call this shift the End of Corporate Responsibility. I call it the Beginning of Renewed Individual Responsibility. “The harsh news: This is not optional. The microchip will colonize all rote activities. And we will have to scramble to reinvent ourselves — as we did when we came off the farm and into the factory, and then as we were ejected from the factory and delivered to the whitecoller towers.

I read a blog by a guy called Larry Borsato. I don’t know how I came across his blog, I don’t know much about him, but I like him. He just seems like a really good guy. I like good guys.

Anyway, he posted a small article that just related to how I’ve been feeling recently, about life and work. From this, two questions sprung to mind:

1. Which is worse - too much choice, or too little?
2. What should people aspire to; focus on one single strength and work on it tirelessly, or be above average at a range of things but never an expert at anything?

I love to have choice, but right now too many choices are leading me to inactivity. Sometimes I just like people to order me around; the sheer simplicity that this gives is almost worth the disempowerment that inevitably goes with it.

And I love being able to do a wide range of things and pick new stuff up quickly, but I do sit and stare at these piano virtuosos with envious eyes.

I love coming across new things. I love it even more when those new things are just plain funny. Nothing complicated, just funny. I don’t know how long these guys have been on the circuit, but fantastic to have finally caught up with them. Ladies and gentlemen, please give it up for the Flight of the Conchords.

Its been a crazy couple of weeks work-wise, what with being bought out and all (my company, clearly, not me). Not crazy as in working fingers to the bone, but crazy as in, “do I have a job?”, “do my friends have jobs?”, “why isn’t anyone telling us anything?!”, “why can’t I make any decisions any more?”. I guess it’s the same thing everyone who gets bought out goes through, but doesn’t make it any less crazy.

Aside from that it’s been a slow news month. Since the iPhone was released in the states, there’s not been a whole heck of a lot happening. Sure I trialed a couple of new tennis racquets at the weekend and decided the woman’s one was my favourite (apparently giving women “everything they want”. Go figure!), and finished Charles Stross’ Glasshouse, which was a pretty good read. I even went to see Transformers at the weekend, and I actually enjoyed it loads! A good, fun, action film.

As for inspiration though, new views, new ways of looking at things, maybe I’m just a little tired…

I work for a software company, sharing a building with two other software companies. We’re all small in headcount (but naturally big in stature), but there’s a lot of clever people around, all into technology and the contents of Slashdot. So it came as a bit of a surprise this morning when, whilst making a cup of tea, out of a kitchen-full of hot-water prospectors, only one person had actually heard of Microsoft’s Zune. Simply astonishing.

I’ve also just spent two minutes trying to google Zune’s website / webpage / something that isn’t a general blog or review or press release. And what do I find? Nothing. Zip. Nadda. The wikipedia link above was the best I could do to find out more about this terminally elusive creature.

I have no choice but to put this product on the “endangered species” list and thank the gods of technology that someone is still pushing the envelope in the technology market. Oh Microsoft, where did thee go wrong…

Boeing unveiled their new 787 aircraft today. Their first all-new jet since 1995. Wow! I mean, look at it! Wow!!! Snooooooooooooooze.

Why on earth is this in any way interesting? Okay, it’s a great upgrade to their plane stock. Advanced composites, enhanced efficiency, more passengers, greater comfort, a good “incremental step”. But a “major” step? Maybe the cheering throngs are being paid to look so excited? Maybe they’re employees that are so damn happy to get this dull thing off their drawing boards so they can work on some real world-changing projects.

I got back last night from a lovely, sunny weekend in Norfolk with my folks, let down by only one thing: the travel. Norfolk is one of these strange places in the UK where the only way in and out of the place is via single-lane carriageway. Some might say “what’s wrong with the train?!” but most of the towns in Norfolk don’t have train stations, and my folks just happen to live in one of them. The nearest train station is 20 miles away.

So Norfolk, Saturday lunchtime, car, A17. And roadworks. And drivers that won’t drive at the national speed limit (45 in a 60? on long, open, wide, sweeping roads?). And lorries that overtake painfully slowly at any small piece of dual carriageway available. And, and, and…

Sometimes I love driving. Sometimes I really really hate it with a passion.