Short Snapshot #3: Milestones for Transforming me from Phase 2 to Phase 3

Note: This is a summary draft with a main focus analyzing myself (myself is the main use case). 


Technical Skills - Practicing (Cp)/Researching(Ci)

Good at Practicing Technical Skills: Being in jobs that most duties correlated with technical skills, I mastered a specific field in Business Intelligence and Big Data to such a point that I am able to deliver insights into a deliverable more productively while always aiming on high quality standards.

Bad at Researching Technical Skills: For my good traits, I had to take a toll on spending less time on research and development. In most of my job responsibilities, I maintained things instead of creating new things and tried to have a deep relationship with the domain knowledge of the corporate environment. I worked with whatever the current flow of technologies was introduced by others and exhaust all the features that environment provided.

Story: I haven't grasped yet what other skills I should also follow to learn. I am sure though that what I choose will change my direction of what I will become later. After graduating from college, I was looking at any job where I could learn the basics of an IT environment. I ended up with working on data. Luckily, data is a really important concept not just career wise, but cognitive wise. There are many fields within data that you can delve on and expertise your skills. On the other hand, other skills which compliments the skills of the data, are important too, as the cross collaboration of them creates a synergy effect. I do not regret I spent my time researching on general skills instead of technical skills, because they will give me a more straight direction what R&D Technical Skills I should head hunt that I should enforce for myself.

Perception Effect:

Note: There are two different type of people: People who start things and people who end things. I may generalize that people who start things are Exhorter and people who end things are Contributors or Facilitators. But seriously, there is a lot of overlap with those cognitive modules. They may take more than one responsibility at a time. So in my opinion, there will be a lot of misconceptions if we make such absolute gestures about it. In contrast, if we split Contributor thought into Ci and Cp and if Ci and Cp can feed itself general knowledge or technical knowledge, we can have a more clear picture what is happening behind the scenes. 

However, I will conclude that there are people who create new innovative products and are successful at it "if there are the right people who can end the task" and then there are people "who do the perfect product, error/bug free and will know anything about that environment" but the environment is at high risk as it is not competent with its rivals in terms of productivity/output as the process has not been researched well enough.

For people that have technical skills, sometimes it is good to look at the big picture and step aside what you are doing. For people who do research and are main developers, do not think about adding always features and follow on understanding the model and giving some time of making things work. There is no need to catch up with the latest thing as long as you catch the most important things that will have a huge impact and implement them effectively.

Lesson For me #1: It is time to start for me to do some head hunting of the technical skills that will transform my persona to a new me (research technical skills) and use that skill as a routine/habit on an interval basis by reading the situation of the whole environment. Technical skills that I have practiced a lot have made me become too comfortable  to not venture in other fields due to knowing the outcome in the start will not be productive in the first moments I work on those new things (low confidence, not strong mental networks). But hey, I learned that education never ends, to diversify your skills, embarrassment of being stupid and novice is the new face that will make you look cool. At the same time, do it with a grain of salt that you still bring deliverable to the table so that you bring the biggest impact to your stakeholders. Allocate your time to balance both your stakeholders and your competitiveness.  

General Skills - Practicing (Cp)/Researching(Ci)

Good at researching General skills: And the work of art is this blog. The end result is that my decisions have a direction with expected consequences for me and others, it is where you can connect the dots from patterns (But as you can see, it is more rough than it seems. Writing is important for that reason. I doubt anybody can have a clear mind set only by conceptualizing things into their head and do that decision all in one day. Identifying all this web maze pattern is as deep as the rabbit hole can go.)

Bad at practicing General skills: At the toll of devoting most of my time at researching general skills.

Story: First of all, I didn't want to spend my luck on something that may not work. And truth to be told, I was lucky that I did not venture in practicing something that will not work out for me and shows up as a dead end. If I started practicing general skills, I would have ended on the same dead end with my practice of technical skills. Yes, I would have created good results. Yes, I would have created a lot of revenue and would have been more ahead than what I am now. But, is this the model 100 years later people will value because I practiced mainstream articles that show me the effect and not the cause for how to be successful in life? Should I be really motivated by a real theory or only be motivated by the end result of "how to make money articles" because it works? Anyways, most graduates first job responsibilities relates on technical skills. General skills are usually handled by upper management where they learn it through experience.

Perception Effect:

Definitely following self help books and articles that have only instructions will not give you the big picture of general skills. However, don't devote your life only to research if it won't have any impact in the end. Yes, you will be starting something. Yes, it will disrupt the environment. But your actions and implementation are buggy and not as expected. They will be like the developer who focuses on researching technical skills without practicing them at all. Who can see that vision if its not "deliverable" in the end? I can give a thousand more situations how my research can apply to other topics in life within this blog (i.e. "Our current culture in the data golden age dictates value as the brand identity that is trusted and quantified by how much time it captured from each citizen in the world - Pros and Cons" sounds an interesting topic to analyze). The insights can be unlimited, some of which are good and I may plan to post in my blog. However, if there is not a point where this research gives impact to the main world, all efforts are not important, as in a satirical way, the research I have posted so far has no results if you don't start to do something about it. It is all about applying it on the situation and evolving that research based on the results of that situation. In conclusion, it is like not following the research results of what you are currently doing.

A lot of people were able to do some research of their general skills. When something big fails, they go back researching their general skills instead of asking a mentor to help them. Most likely, a lot of people who research general skills are successful, but sometimes they stop and apply practicing general skills to a point they become too comfortable with it because the current generation shows us that we are doing fine with what we are doing. Think of the slavery of black people in the old times. People were too comfortable that it was the right thing to do. But go some generations later and it shows that current feedback may show that currently things are bright, but it may not be bright forever, maybe it will be the opposite quite later.

This is the problem with people today that they think they are successful when they are not in terms of the general public, but only successful for their own self interest, which may not last for long unless they do general research often. When these people face me and they see my motivation wrong because I don't practice what the current generation follows in some of the parts, what can I tell? I guess its fine for people to do it for their survival and blend in with the current situation first (this is a must), but to illustrate it as the ideal paradigm? Although this sound like a counter attack, that is where I see that hey go off limits on my end.

Lesson For me #2: I have to apply the general skills in this blog and other research once and for all more dramatically, more boldly. I am still focused more on my cognitive mindset and I am not empathetic too much. I do not build mental networks to promote my paradigm. Although I listen, I do not participate actively with other people and take a chance on situations that I can make an impact (realistically, we have to start with small responsibilities after all and spread the example) appropriately to the gifts I possess. I am glad that my motivation is in the right direction instead of the wrong direction, but its time for that train to run small steps at a time to wherever I really want to go.

The 3 phases 

Introduction
Phase 1: Memorizing things in school
Phase 2: Being an expert on a technical skill
Phase 3: Having respect on Knowledge

Why I wrote this post? One to express myself and be more open about it. I think many people are in the same place as me (Phase 2), but it is very hard to reach on Phase 3. In order to reach Phase 3, it requires a big transition.

The first thing is trying to conceptualize the mental symmetry model or any model that interprets our world in the most accurate way as possible as how this world in general functions. This may take a lot of years through my experience to adjust (its not only cultural adjustment, but also physical, as our mind starts within mercy mental circuits naturally), and chances are, you may not get the correct idea at first. There may be a lot of back and forth reading this material and many may just ignore it later on. What matters is to take the most important messages.

The second thing is to put that material into your own words. Hence, this blog. Its pretty evident that the most successful people write books and have a hundred of pages talking about stuff that they learned and failed. It is no mystery that writing main purpose is not to sell books or to gain fame but to manually program yourself, self reflect, control your own persona.

The last thing is to blend that research in your personal life. Over time, you will represent the actions of that research.

Phase 2 Dead End - Time Flow

When we are born, we start learning by memorizing things. It always starts from our parents (i.e. mimicking), to high school, even in university. And most of the material learned is general skills based on research of others. After that, we go immediately to phase 2 in our work force (sometimes partially in our master degree or through technical certificates). It is all about mastering specific technical skills with practice. After some years, you are so specialized in many specific technical skills, that you can research technical skills (senior developer, lead team, high level manager, etc.). In life , you also try practicing some general skills in order to survive yourself, be marketable, support yourself financially, etc. Once you are at mid-age, you may start researching general knowledge because you notice all the technical skills and general skills follow a pattern and you are too old to learn the next thing and prefer to anticipate it beforehand. People call that instinct, gut, experience, etc.. So the end result will be as follows:

Memorization of General Knowledge (Phase 1) -> Practicing Technical Knowledge -> Researching Technical Knowledge (Phase 2 dead end) -> Practicing General Knowledge -> Researching General Knowledge

However, the "flow" of time matters in here. Once you start researching general knowledge, you are stuck with mental networks of what you applied in both technical knowledge and general knowledge. It is in some sense, more easy to twist the research of general knowledge to the needs of the existing mental networks, especially at an old age where the motivation of the brain is less open minded on things than at a young age.

Phase 3 Correct Path Way - Time Flow

Memorization of General Knowledge (Phase 1) -> Researching General Knowledge -> Practicing General Knowldge -> Researching Technical Knowledge -> Practicing Technical Knowledge (Phase 3)

The above time flow looks like it is impossible to do. First of all, after you memorize and finish your education, you need to make some money. But you cannot apply anything without researching general knowledge and it always takes quite a lot of time to master that. There are some that "do" research general knowledge and become very successful early in their life, but do not seek more of that general knowledge after they already become successful.

So in that essence, most people usually end up practicing technical knowledge after they graduate and then they can try to fit how the memorized general knowledge apply on their technical knowledge so they can research technical knowledge within the job market. But this is a dead end for them to be forever in Phase 2. That means that for their personal life, they will apply general knowledge without knowing the real motivation most of the time, without questioning about it, because they don't want to delve into it as they are not experts on that field. For them, "Researching General Knowledge" is always useless as its not as competent as "Researching Technical Knowledge" because it cannot be used for the market they are working for.

However, in order to be a real example citizen of this simulation (or however you want to conceptualize this universe), having respect of knowledge is essential. In such essence, you have to research general knowledge, practice general knowledge, and then research/apply technical skills. The order is important so the mental networks are driven by the correct motivation.

Lesson For me #3: I never was able to conceptualize that I used some Cp and Ci, but not completely Cp and Ci. I never was able to conceptualize that my past thinking would have lead me to be stuck forever on Phase 2. This blog post explains and enlightens me everything, for what I really am to what writer I have been so far in this blog. I used Cp but it was technical knowledge. I used Ci but it was only for general knowledge. There are many variations how anybody's Ci and Cp can be, but mine was on such mind set so far and they were using maximum resources on different segments of the sector (one only on technical knowledge and another on general knowledge). In any case, in order to fix myself and be closer to Phase #3, I have to follow Lesson #1 and #2 in this blog post correctly and in the correct order (so they do not get twisted by existing mental networks as follows):

Memorization of General Knowledge (Pass) -> Researching General Knowledge (Pass) -> Practicing General Knowldge (Fail follow Lesson #2) -> Researching Technical Knowledge (Fail follow Lesson # 1) -> Practicing Technical Knowledge (Fail not due to good performance but not evaulating chosen mental networks)

That means I still have a long road to go on this journey. Hope this was helpful and I find this blog post insightful for me (I hope for the rest it is too).

New Comment 4/7/2015: A reason this flow and many others can have my flow with the above flaws is because practicing general knowledge is the main focus and obstacle you have to tackle first before researching technical knowledge. However, you need to take care of yourself and earn your bread and live so you practice technical knowledge that is competitive enough and adds business value without knowing the source or reasons why it is valuable. For those who do not care about researching general knowledge, they directly go straight to researching technical knowledge and become great gurus and can talk technology day and night, but talk about externalizations from their impact of actions, and they will not have thought about it much for a second. As for those who did, they must have passed all the above phases, they must have a direction, but how well they researched and applied general knowledge depends on the level of how their words and actions hold under pressure. The bigger the pressure it can hold, the more valid the research it is. The bigger the attitude to self-correct the general knowledge and apply it, the more long lasting it will be.