A master of my trades

So I wanted to give my last post a practical sense and apply it to myself to show you a good example of how you might plan to focus your attention on the skills that matter.

As a recap, last time we came out with a conclusion that it’s neither practical nor possible to be a “jack of all trades”. We talked about the “T” model and then I showed you my version of that model where the skills are divided into 4 broad categories in order to better reflect the required depth of knowledge you need to have in each category of skills. Here’s that diagram again for reference:

Now let’s see how we can use this as a point of reference to brainstorm our relevant skills and put them all in perspective. As a bonus, I’ll be doing this exercise on myself and everybody will get to know, for the first time on this blog, what is my true passion!

Human Computer Interaction (HCI)

I wrote before that I always knew I wanted to do something in computer science. I did get my undergraduate degree in CS but then I kept wondering: now what? To answer this question, I eventually decided to get into the real-world, get a job, and see where it goes. It’s been 3 years ever since, and my interest has fluctuated in different areas of CS including web development, software engineering and software architecture (I’ve even considered IT management for a bit!). However, about two months ago, I’ve begun to develop a profound interest in assessing usability of human computer interfaces. After a while, it hit me: isn’t this what I should be doing! The more I read about it, the more I became certain that HCI is where my heart really is.

There’s so much more to say about why I’ve chosen HCI, but that’s the subject of an upcoming post. For now, let’s see how I plan to take on my newfound passion by first assessing the required skills I’m supposed to pick up until I reach my dream of becoming a recognizable usability engineer and actually contributing something to help make a difference in people’s lives.

I want you to understand though that this isn’t entirely about me. I’m just taking myself as an example to show you how you can make a similar analysis tailored to your dream.

1) We all need soft skills, don’t we?

Coming up with the skills in the first category was a no-brainer. I picked up some from a list of popular soft skills, and added some of my own. However, I made sure they are all relevant to my case. I can’t stress enough the importance of skill relevancy to this exercise. If you’re ever unsure of how relevant a skills is to you, consult an authoritative resource on your field of expertise or simply google it, appending the word “skill” or “qualification” to it.

In no particular order, here they are:

• Time management
• Leadership
• Team participation
• Communication (writing, presentation)
• Sociability
• Responsibility

Note: we won’t get into a discussion of why a particular skill matters. This will be lengthy subject that is better addressed alone (hopefully in future posts).

2) Getting wet and dirty: the skills specific to my industry

Next up is the what I like to call the industry-specific business skills. Essentially those are the skills that are both important to your job and within the boundary of your job’s industry. For example, as a fellow reader pointed out, a writer these days must possess basic web publishing skills in order to carry on successful online publishing endeavor.

As for me, I dug a little deep and gathered a list of the skills most usability engineers seem to have a background in these days. I also consulted job ads and found out what employers (notably Google) are looking for. I came up with the following list;

• Software engineering
• Project management
• Programming background (Web Services, .NET)
• Web technologies (HTML/XHTML/DHTML, CSS, JavaScript)
• Desktop technologies (Windows, UNIX/Linux)
• Database technologies (SQL Server)
• Prototyping tools (Photoshop, Visio, Director)

Sounds a lot right? Not really! Well maybe sort of. Remember though the trick is to know that you’re not supposed to be a master of each and every single one of those in order to realize your true passion. You have to pick and choose what you really need out of them and if you’ve missed something, you just fill in what you need to know. This largely depends on external factors such as your employer’s expectations, your peers and the country you’re working in.

I’m in luck though, because I already carry a strong background in most of these given my CS background. So I guess my quest just got a little bit easier.

3) Not so easy tiger, here are the skills to support your specialty

My luck just ran out when I found out that HCI is such a diverse interdisciplinary subject, relating computer science with many other fields of study and research. It’s mind-boggling! Look at the following list of disciplines involved:

• Aesthetics
• Anthropology
• Artificial intelligence
• Cognitive science
• Computer vision
• Design
• Ergonomics
• Information security
• Library and information science
• Philosophy
• Phenomenology
• Psychology
• Social psychology
• Sociology
• Speech-language pathology
• Behavioral statistics

You know: I just might end up like Leonardo Da Vinci afterall :)

Again, the rule is simple I’m not expected to be a full-blown psychologist, for instance, to achieve a respectable degree in HCI. Those are the disciplines involved, and I’ll get to know a little bit of each, some probably more than the other, but you get the idea.

So that wraps up the preliminary skills needed to succeed and now there’s nothing left to me but to focus on my…

4) Specialty: an HCI Usability Engineer

What this means is that once you reach a stage where you’ve pretty much acquired most of the preliminary skills, you’ll then have to pour your energy in getting involved into this as much as possible. This means you will likely:

• Further your specialization by tackling some very specific problems and trying to come up with innovative solutions to them.
• Keep your reading up-to-date on the latest developments.
• Participate in conferences, workshops and so on. Preferably host or get to speak in one of them. I myself would ultimately like to do that!
• Become a member of one or more related organizations.
• Publish articles, books or even start a blog in order to share your knowledge and help promote public appreciation.

Conclusion

This is just the start. A guiding light, if you will, to help you plan a direct route to living your passion and loving what you do. In the end, I want to state two points that are of uttermost importance:

1. Never expect this plan to remain valid for a long time. Times change, and so should you.
2. Never expect to reach the tip of your knowledge. It’s a never-ending endeavor.

Good luck!