On Psychologists and Technologists

In my Business Strategy class on Saturday morning (!), I asked a seemingly harmless question about why economies of scale did not apply to the now defunct MBS-Melbourne Uni merger. The question apparently struck a nerve with both the lecturer and some of the students. One of the students expressed something I have long felt, not just about the merger, but during my time working at the business school.

We have great faculty in the leading edge of their field. Often, they are engaged in helping real organisations improve their business during the day while lecturing at night and somehow managing to publish their research. Why, then, did the merger fiasco play out the way it did given the business expertise within the school? Why weren't leasons from the Business Strategy subject, for example, applied?

This was the most frustrating thing about working at MBS in general. There was consistent pattern: what I had learned in class was not being applied in the business of the business school. In fact, to the best of my knowledge, the school made very little attempt to integrate the knowledge of the faculty with anything practical.

The lecturer in my class described the general phenomenon whereby those who are best equipped to fix a problem neglect their own problems to focus on those of others This is know as the problem of the problem of the cobbler's children.

This is, of course, no excuse. It's not an explanation. And it isn't generalizable.

Let us consider a counter-example very near to me. Those who work in the IT industry as technologists (as distinct from those in other functions such as project managers) almost always reserve the very best hardware and software for themselves.

Think about it. At a technical conference (say Java), a majority of participants are using Macs (widely considered to be the superior platform). Developers are usually early adopters of the latest and greatest. My peers were the first to use GMail and, more recently, Google Wave. We were the first to set up wireless networks at home. We do things with our laptops that are difficult and complicated, but that help enrich out lives through technology. We have bigger monitors.

Do you really think Sergey Brin, founder of Google, is really using Windows XP? Do you think Joel Spolsky is using Outlook? I don't.

Unfortunately, as I previously wrote, organisations are less likely to adopt the IT practices of their staff, much to their detriment. They are missing the opportunity to make themselves as productive as their most productive employees.

So what separates technology workers from some of the other professions? I'm not sure.

First, my underlying premise may be false. Are IT workers really different from those in other professions? Certainly my perception is that they are but I don't have the research to back this up.

Part of it may be that IT workers genuinely enjoy their field more than others. It is certainly not uncommon to use my leisure time learning new technologies and new ways of doing things; much more so than other professions who might attend a conference or two, and only when paid for by their employer.

Another explanation could be pragmatism. Is a psychologist really going to give himself therapy? Is a doctor really more inclined to diet and exercise? Installing a new Twitter client or learning a new programming language certainly seem much more attainable goals, and the costs are generally small.

The main thing I can conclude is that if you are in a profession or work for a company that doesn't implement the skills you market, your outcome is probably not going to be as successful as you want. That, and technologists probably enjoy their field, on average, more than others. Join us!