The Demise of the Professional
Wednesday: August 13, 2008 6:05 AM
What is a professional? Well, if we use sports as an analogy then a professional is someone like Tiger Woods or Phil Mickelson who get paid for being in the top of their field. Interestingly, Chris Wood who is an amateur placed fifth in this years British Open. Simply put, if you get paid to play then you are a professional. Another definition might be one of certification or a degreed professional. We consider Pharmacists and Medical Doctors professionals because they are licensed by some governing body. That is assuming that you don’t want me to operate on you without a license. In other cases, a person’s place of employment is an indication of professionalism such as journalists who work for the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times. Finally, we might look toward a class of worker to label them professional such as an executive, a blue collar worker or a white collar one. Nothing really wrong with these definitions of professional until you look at them through a 2.0 lens.
Getting paid seems like the easiest definition of a professional. If you perform a function for another you should expect to get paid but we see example after example where people are doing just the opposite. Take open source for example, thousands of people contribute their time and energy and expect no financial reward. Slim devices utilizes an open source model for designing their audio products. Wikipedia enables authors to complete one of the largest bodies of knowledge in the world and they happily do it for nothing. To say one is a professional based up an exchange of currency doesn't really hold up in today's environment.
There is no way around the certified professional, correct? Well, one of the most successful sites out there is WebMD where millions of people research medical issues every day. In fact, some of the TV shows are making fun of people that walk into the doctors office and seem to know more about the medical condition than the doctor themselves. Medical wikis and collaborative communities are forming around specific conditions like Diabetes which allow patients to form a community for sharing information and emotional support.
The place of employment is interesting in that we have a wonderful example with Mr. Edwards where the traditional media didn’t seem to want to get involved but the bloggers/National Enquirer had a field day. The authenticity of the Killian documents (Dan Rather, RatherGate) was challenged within hours on Internet forums and blogs, with questions initially focused on alleged anachronisms in the documents typography. Are the people that break these stories professionals or are the professionals the ones that replicate their investigative journalism?
It really wasn't that long ago when the person at the top of the food chain was the most knowledgably. The manager was the most experienced person in the group and leadership provided through a predictable cycle. With the Internet, the volume of information, and the speed of change this model has been inverted. The most knowledgeable person in the business is the person on the front line. It has to be this way in order for the business to be an agile and responsive to the customer. Class means so little now in the definition of professionalism that it hardly requires mentioning. So what is a professional? If not by pay, not by experience, not by class, and not by a certification then how do we define a professional these days? They refer to this phenomenon as the Rise of the Amateur.
What is a professional? Well, if we use sports as an analogy then a professional is someone like Tiger Woods or Phil Mickelson who get paid for being in the top of their field. Interestingly, Chris Wood who is an amateur placed fifth in this years British Open. Simply put, if you get paid to play then you are a professional. Another definition might be one of certification or a degreed professional. We consider Pharmacists and Medical Doctors professionals because they are licensed by some governing body. That is assuming that you don’t want me to operate on you without a license. In other cases, a person’s place of employment is an indication of professionalism such as journalists who work for the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times. Finally, we might look toward a class of worker to label them professional such as an executive, a blue collar worker or a white collar one. Nothing really wrong with these definitions of professional until you look at them through a 2.0 lens.
Getting paid seems like the easiest definition of a professional. If you perform a function for another you should expect to get paid but we see example after example where people are doing just the opposite. Take open source for example, thousands of people contribute their time and energy and expect no financial reward. Slim devices utilizes an open source model for designing their audio products. Wikipedia enables authors to complete one of the largest bodies of knowledge in the world and they happily do it for nothing. To say one is a professional based up an exchange of currency doesn't really hold up in today's environment.
There is no way around the certified professional, correct? Well, one of the most successful sites out there is WebMD where millions of people research medical issues every day. In fact, some of the TV shows are making fun of people that walk into the doctors office and seem to know more about the medical condition than the doctor themselves. Medical wikis and collaborative communities are forming around specific conditions like Diabetes which allow patients to form a community for sharing information and emotional support.
The place of employment is interesting in that we have a wonderful example with Mr. Edwards where the traditional media didn’t seem to want to get involved but the bloggers/National Enquirer had a field day. The authenticity of the Killian documents (Dan Rather, RatherGate) was challenged within hours on Internet forums and blogs, with questions initially focused on alleged anachronisms in the documents typography. Are the people that break these stories professionals or are the professionals the ones that replicate their investigative journalism?
It really wasn't that long ago when the person at the top of the food chain was the most knowledgably. The manager was the most experienced person in the group and leadership provided through a predictable cycle. With the Internet, the volume of information, and the speed of change this model has been inverted. The most knowledgeable person in the business is the person on the front line. It has to be this way in order for the business to be an agile and responsive to the customer. Class means so little now in the definition of professionalism that it hardly requires mentioning. So what is a professional? If not by pay, not by experience, not by class, and not by a certification then how do we define a professional these days? They refer to this phenomenon as the Rise of the Amateur.
