Obscurity, the curse of being a person who is isolated and without connection. Did you know that you may only be six degrees of seperation away from someone of real influence? Probably, BUT I bet you didn’t know that you can build a wall around yourself that makes you feel like you are the only one who knows something about something. Well, I can say that through this blog I have learned that you aren’t the only that knows something about something. Others do and chances are they may be equally as interested as you in finding that stuff out.
How do we box ourselves into obscurity?
The way I did it, was primarily through three ways.
Way # 1 – The language we use
A colleague pointed out to me the other day that I had reduced my potential on the academic market 400% (not his words mine) because I kept referring to the work I was doing as methodology rather than applicability. He encouraged me to use more general terms accepted by the wider community and find more acceptable language to promote myself. So instead of saying, “conceptual frame shifting” which is academic language I could use, “changing your perspective”. Now my audience of interest is about 400 times wider than it was before.
Way # 2 – Having a bad attitude
Another thing that I did which boxed me into obscurity was the idea that everyone didn’t have a clue… but me. This is stupid. You are not the only person who knows something about your area. Chances are, you feel alone and rightly so in some cases… maybe even out of place. However, you are the not the only one. A paper I wrote recently was published in a journal that most people, or so I thought, didn’t really read. After it was published I received several emails from people all over the world saying how the core idea of the paper was helpful to them. They were from agricultural science, information systems, technical and management backgrounds to name just a few. Now, I never thought I would ever get an email from anyone about anything I had written, let alone someone in agricultural science! The people are out there, you just have to patient and look for them. Most people are not going to hunt you down, you have to find them.
Way #3 – Refusing to network
This one is particulary hard for me because I am not an out-going person. I don’t like going to parties and I certainly don’t like swapping business cards! That’s me. However, if you want to work with interesting people you have to build bridges here. It’s hard, but the world is not external to us, we made, co-create and develop it. Without people there are no partnerships, no buildings, no work, no progress … only nature! Now unless you worship the sun or don’t need a network to take your ideas and use them, then you need to find partners to work with. This is hard but the fact of the matter is people support other people, there is no magic here, it’s a simple matter of maths!
There are many more things we do to box ourselves into obscurity. However, these are the ones that I have used and more recently realised were attitudes that were hampering my development. I have to be honest here and say more often than not, I will avoid people. BUT I am learning and getting better at this, and I hope you are too.
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Guilty on all three counts here! Plus I kid myself that I’m happy in obscurity…
That is a good point. We think we are happy but who do you know that doesn’t like a bit recognition every now and then?
I think that sometimes we are forced to box ourselves into obscurity; for example I’ve talked with many people who think that the IS field is almost the same as IT. Therefore, I thought that people who are not from the area of IS are not aware of the major differences.
A few days ago, I got a call from an old friend, and I started talking about the major differences between the two fields. At the end, ‘after taking a long breath’ my friend said that he already knew the major differences between IS & IT. I felt so stupid lol, but I’ve learnt my lesson..
Hi Sameer,
I think those boxes are what hold us back. I mean I know people in IS that would be called, “management” in Europe and “operations research” or “education” in other parts of the world. I think we need to move beyond these definitions and focus on the value we offer and present in the best way we can, our external value. If we don’t we run the risk of winding up at the dole office!
By the way I have been trying to convince people for the past 12 years what the differences between IT and IS are… still so many people don’t seem to get it.
Thanks!