Smart Generalist

The multimedia industry is made up of either gifted techies or smart generalists. The latter is the people who were bored with highschool; the sort of people to whom the tutor was always saying: "John, you could get an A if you really wanted to."

It is suggested that companies seek and employ these people. They peruse marketing, IT, and sales jobs but aren't quite good enough at anything in particular.

Once in a company, and there are a few companies that encourage it, throughout their career, they zip between every department on secondments, think tanks, short-term projects and spontaneous, unauthorised MBWA (managing by wandering about) jaunts.

They usually leave behind a better situation than they found, but they don't remain anywhere.

They make good project and product managers, with bossiness, insane attention to detail and a new lightbulb over their heads every 5 minutes.

These people's insight, contacts and knowledge is great for the boardroom, as long as the old school can keep up with them.

- from JacksonFront