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Specialists

Versus

Jack-Of-All-Trades

Nicole Schwartz

@CircuitSwan

Shmoocon Firetalks 2019

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@CircuitSwan

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Who am I?

  • Owner tea company, blender & educator, Online, retail and wholesale
  • Food Cart (entrepreneur)
  • Pet Sitter (entrepreneur)
  • Babysitter (entrepreneur)
  • Party Planner (entrepreneur)
  • Romper Room Attendant
  • Secretary
  • Cashier
  • Checkout Bagger
  • Cheesemonger
  • Florist
  • Meat Department Clerk
  • Seafood Department Clerk
  • Prep Chef
  • Manager Cafeteria & Cafe
  • Business Analyst
  • Quality Engineer
  • Project Manager
  • IT helpdesk (phone)
  • Windows System Administrator
  • Microsoft SQL Server DBA
  • Technical Product Manager
  • Scrum master / Agile Coach

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All items I discuss are generalities and of course that means there are always exceptions.

@CircuitSwan

@CircuitSwan

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History of I.T.

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@CircuitSwan

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Single Use Computational Systems

  • Owners & Users
    • Mostly military
  • Availability
    • Custom
  • Training
    • You had to go to the inventors
  • “Information Technology”
    • Not really a department...

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@CircuitSwan

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Business Computer Systems

  • Owners & Users
    • Business
  • Availability
    • Some Commodified, Some Custom
  • Training
    • Vendor, Some general
  • “Information Technology”
    • IT person with broad responsibilities

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@CircuitSwan

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Early Personal Computer Systems

  • Owners & Users
    • Anyone with money
  • Availability
    • Mostly Commodified, Some Custom
  • Training
    • Vendor, CS Degrees
  • “Information Technology”
    • IT department with some specialists, & hobbyists

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@CircuitSwan

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Currently...

  • Owners & Users
    • Most people
  • Availability
    • Utility/Ubiquitous, limited Custom
  • Training
    • Vendor, CS Degrees, Bootcamps, Certificates
  • “Information Technology”
    • IT organization with mostly specialists, Kids & up!

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@CircuitSwan

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Specialization Scale

Knowledge Breadth

Jack of All Trades

Expert

Knowledge Depth

@CircuitSwan

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Why bother to get Breadth?

  • Better at assessing risk

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  • Improved triage

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  • Faster troubleshooting

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  • Easier to locate blind spots

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@CircuitSwan

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How do other fields get knowledge breadth?

Medical Student

  • Rotations monthly for 3-5 years
  • Leave with having briefly experienced areas outside their carrier but in the field, and depth in their area.

MBAs

  • Diversified classes over 2 years
  • Leave with having 1+ classes in each business field, and depth in a specialization.

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@CircuitSwan

@CircuitSwan

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What about us?

  • Information Technology and Information Security lack a shared understanding of core curricula
    • IT & Security for Business
    • Security & Business for IT
    • IT & Business for Security
  • Security awareness is everyone’s job
    • Variety in perspectives will get better results

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@CircuitSwan

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How do I get knowledge breadth?

  • Socialize with other business departments

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  • Socialize in the industry at conferences

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  • Read blogs, wikis, books

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  • Take classes

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@CircuitSwan

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Where do you see yourself?

Jack of All Trades

  • Smaller Company
  • A few areas of some depth
  • Always keep researching new stuff
  • Watch out for being outgrown

Expert

  • Larger Company
  • Be familiar with tangential fields
  • Keep digging deeper
  • Watch out for being pigeonholed / deprecation

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@CircuitSwan

@CircuitSwan

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Take Away - Seniors

  • IT does not have a good onboarding experience
    • Work within your company to improve this
    • Work with colleagues to create common core standards
  • Do not penalize people who are returning after a break
  • Embrace those changing careers / jobs

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@CircuitSwan

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Take Away - Juniors

  • Figure out where you want to be on the scale of Breadth and Depth
    • Find ways to get there DIY

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@CircuitSwan

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Thank You

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@CircuitSwan