Linisus Blog

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There was an article posted on Monday July 17 on Computerworld that, in summary, stated that “The IT worker of 2010 won’t be a technology guru but rather a ‘versatilist.’” - more involvement with the finer points of presentation and people skills.

Talk about huge applause and backlash! Once this article was slashdotted and dugg, it was amazing how polarized the internet became - through comments alone, people revealed their programming backgrounds and business perspectives on the issue. Membox on Wednesday of the same week posted a counter article, detailing a perspective that boils down the importance of the nuts-and-bolts programmer role:

In almost every successful IT project I’ve ever been involved with it’s been a nuts-and-bolts techie that’s had the most important impact. More often than not, the “business skills” types were more hindrance than help. Many times their superiority and arrogance led to project failure.

This reminds me of Does IT Matter? by Nicholas Carr - remember that huge uproar? It is strongly related to what we are hearing today: how important is the work that the business-oriented people do? Is it becoming more important than the hours of blood and sweat the hardcore programmers are doing?

The main difference lies in the fact most people lie on one of those two extremes. CEOs (I am stereotyping CEOs here, for simplicity sake!) are entirely business oriented, yet most would not consider their company’s CEO useless. On the other side, cutting edge programmers materialize the direction of the company, and are considered just as valuable of a player as well.

CEOs provide the direction and strategy that only a few can envision. Programmers lay the concrete to get there.

However, CEOs would not be able to lay the concrete themselves - most are not skilled enough to, and they are the first to admit it. And without direction, programmers lay a concrete path that travels in the path of whoever is pouring it.

CEOs can’t communicate their direction to programmers. Programmers can’t tell CEOs what are possible and impossible. They speak different languages entirely! What do you do?

You hire someone who understands both languages! Similar to the ‘versatilist’ Computerworld was speaking of, this is who understands both sides of the coin. Someone who understands the significance of the project he/she is involved in, and understands the potentials and limits of the languages that the programmers work with.

In an ideal world, the nuts-and-bolts techie would have these business skills and perspective - that is an unstoppable combination. But in reality, most programmers love to program and craft something out blueprints and raw materials, and they wouldn’t have it any other way. Programmers can’t program for the sake of programming - their efforts need to be channelled into something strategic, something the company can use to leverage money and competitive advantage… something that a business person sees.

The emerging position is someone who is ambidexerous with the art of business and the language of coders. I don’t agree with Computerworld entirely, nor do I agree with Membox.

They know why they want to build the bridge, and you know how to build the bridge. We’ll tell you where to put it and what to use to make it: you need us as much as we need you.

(And if you know exactly where and exactly how, you’ve got it made!)

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