The Overlap: Questions
Do you agree this is where we are headed?
What are the upsides?
What are the downsides?
Who will thrive?
What do we have to do to be ready?

Notes:
How are people silo-ed into a role? Why is being specialized preferred over being a generalist?

Is it good that things are being specialized? Are there upsides to the overlap of those that are generalists? (The conversations have spun it to this question)

It's an interesting quandary that I (Susan) has to be a jack of all trades and then these new people out of college have graduate degrees in it.

Even if you have generalist skills there are doors for you.

Even as a consultant early on (for Steve) it took a long while as an apprentice before being accepted as an "ethnographer".

John: At IBM, there are local practices there are stamped out from standards done at a global level. This is removing the ability for the local groups to innovate.

?: However, you could be a 3rd shift worker in Poughkeepsie and you can do what a marketing manager in Hong Kong does. Or do you mean that in Hong Kong you can't do that anymore?

John: Just with large multi-national companies, you have to be able to adapt to local cultural situations.

Dan: I've working in 3 countries and 4 languages and found its mostly social networks that get things done. These social networks come from likes and dislikes. Diversity is crucial, but it's hard to make an environment. It's hard to make those connections between people who they don't perceive as like them.

? I’m curious that IBM doesn't pay attention to it. IBM's multicultural grouping of thinking, individualism vs. grouping. It's curious that they wouldn't use something that they created in cultural consequences. Things like Yahoo or Google, if they are acculturating their sites. They are doing it for economic realities. I don't see how you can get away from it and you do at your own peril.

Steve: This reaction could just be an oscillation and it may swing back the correct way.

There was a podcast being recorded.