The author (Nathaniel Whittemore) states that the conventional wisdom in Silicon Valley that "ideas don't matter and everything comes down to execution" is the result of the reductionist thinking that is common nowadays.
Reading this article brought to mind some of the peeves that I have been carrying around for a while now. In our desire for sound-bites, pithy one-liners and smart sentences that fit within 140 characters, a lot of the nuances and complexities that are associated with each of these issues are lost. The folks who originally coin the sentences may well be aware of all sides of the issue, and may often choose a one-sided (controversial?) headline to pique interest and attract readers.
However the issue is that their followers and others just see the tweet or the headline or first few lines of the blog post. A number of them are unwilling (unable?) to spend time to understand different aspects of the issue and instead choose to repeat this sentence as the gospel truth. And given our fascination with being connected or up-to-speed with all that is happening, a person who can string together a few catchy lines picked up from various popular sites can pass himself off as being knowledgable.
Another reflection of this problem is commonly seen in software companies; every now and then you run into a senior person who portrays himself as a rebel by making statements such as "documentation is useless", "CMM is stupid" or "there were too many issues so I rewrote the whole program a day before the release". Many of these senior people are often passionate about their work and good at what they do. However the juniors who work with them, pick up the attitude and not the skills or knowledge that are part of the package. These juniors then grow up and turn into insufferable loud-mouths without any of the mitigating qualities that their idols possessed.
I suspect I am beginning to echo the arguments made by Nicholas Carr in his article "Is Google Making Us Stupid"; the article does make interesting reading and I suppose the author can be forgiven for using an attention-grabbing headline to get us to read his work.
Reading this article brought to mind some of the peeves that I have been carrying around for a while now. In our desire for sound-bites, pithy one-liners and smart sentences that fit within 140 characters, a lot of the nuances and complexities that are associated with each of these issues are lost. The folks who originally coin the sentences may well be aware of all sides of the issue, and may often choose a one-sided (controversial?) headline to pique interest and attract readers.
However the issue is that their followers and others just see the tweet or the headline or first few lines of the blog post. A number of them are unwilling (unable?) to spend time to understand different aspects of the issue and instead choose to repeat this sentence as the gospel truth. And given our fascination with being connected or up-to-speed with all that is happening, a person who can string together a few catchy lines picked up from various popular sites can pass himself off as being knowledgable.
Another reflection of this problem is commonly seen in software companies; every now and then you run into a senior person who portrays himself as a rebel by making statements such as "documentation is useless", "CMM is stupid" or "there were too many issues so I rewrote the whole program a day before the release". Many of these senior people are often passionate about their work and good at what they do. However the juniors who work with them, pick up the attitude and not the skills or knowledge that are part of the package. These juniors then grow up and turn into insufferable loud-mouths without any of the mitigating qualities that their idols possessed.
I suspect I am beginning to echo the arguments made by Nicholas Carr in his article "Is Google Making Us Stupid"; the article does make interesting reading and I suppose the author can be forgiven for using an attention-grabbing headline to get us to read his work.
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