Dear Reader,

in the last centuries, particularly in the last one, academia and job markets veered more and more toward specialisation.

However, more and more disciplines are calling for a multidisciplinary approach: robotics, artificial intelligence, managing epidemics and political crisis, behavioural economics…

I think there is something fishy going on here. Let’s stop looking at problems and knowledge from just one angle, and let’s try to go to the hearth of the matter at hand, whichever it is, whatever we need to pursue.

A quick story as an example: a week ago I was in a brainstorm meeting which aimed at dealing with a new business process. I was there as “the only guy from IT”. Suddenly everybody started babbling about flags, database fields, drop-down menus. I had to ask explicitly to stop imagining what the IT solution should be, as a way of keeping the focus on the problem as a whole.

The result?

No database fields were ploughed. We dropped drop-down menus on the web page. Flags were lowered and burned. We nailed the (substantial) matter more than we modelled the (supposed) form. Specialisation will be brought back to fruition to check the assumptions and to build the final product.

Until next time, try to stop bothering about specialistic and holistic. Do good work, and only then you are free to analyse which adjective is best. “Nomina sunt consequentia rerum“, not vice-versa.