Having a diverse skill set can be an asset in today’s economy, not just for us Web-workers but for many professions. That specialized expertise you built up through the years in a seemingly secure field can suddenly seem to be not such a sure thing after all if that field finds itself among those suddenly rendered obsolete through the “creative destruction” of innovation, or even if the field simply suffers a temporary downturn due to the recession.

Scott Hepburn at Media Emerging posted today about the struggles that journalists find themselves in these days. With the overall economy the way it is, and traditional media facing challenges from online competition, offshore outsourcing, and well, you know, bloggers, the profession and its members find themselves at somewhat of a crossroads. Among the recommendations in Scott’s Journalist’s Survival Guide was this one which struck a bit of a chord with me:

…You can’t be just one thing anymore. You have to hedge your bets. Sure, be a journalist, but be a news reporter AND a columnist/blogger. Do some PR work, too. And freelance writing. And…whatever. You’ll need multiple income streams to survive in a decentralized information economy.

What he’s talking about here, about journalists needing to branch out and use their core skills not only as “journalists,” but also in innovative and diverse ways applies to those of us in the Web profession as well. While it may well be worthwhile to become ever-more-the-expert in your core discipline, there’s no telling when and where the ax might swing next. Being well-versed in and promoting a diverse range of related skills could prove the difference between a quick job search and a long, exhausting slog to find just that right fit. While a gig you land in a related but not-quite-your field may seem like a diversion from your One True Path, if you keep your eyes, ears, and options open, that sidetrack could very well function instead as a path to where you want to be.

For example, I once took a job as a technical writer. Although at first I didn’t see myself as either qualified for or even interested in a techwriting gig, the fact that I had previously spend a number of years working closely with a group of tech writers had exposed me to enough of the work and issues that I was able to pretty quickly learn what I needed to become competent. That got me in the door; once it became known that I also had design chops, more and more little design assignments started coming my way and before long, I had become “their” designer.

Image: “dodo bird at the Field Museum” by Jeremy Burgin on Flickr

There. I’ve said it. In public. Out of the closet. Forever to be branded with the identity of being “not a Specialist.”

Guess that means I’m now a second-class citizen, career-wise, huh? After all, if you look up “specialist” at Thesaurus.com, synonyms include resume power-words like “professional,” “authority,” “consultant,” “veteran,” and so on. “Generalist,” on the other hand, doesn’t even return any results. Ask around what the term means, though, and you’ll get a whole lot of grief along the lines of “Jack of all trades, master of none.” If you want to pull in the big bucks, we’re led to believe, you have to become an expert in some specialized field. Depth of expertise is and should be the primary indicator of your value in the marketplace. Generalists are nothing more than shallow dabblers – leave the real work to the pros.

I disagree.

Broad Knowledge = Big Picture Vision
I believe the issue is not whether one approach or the other is better; it’s apparent instead that each is ideal depending on the particular circumstances. While the depth of knowledge of the specialist is certainly called for in situations where execution of a task or set of tasks intrinsic to a given field is required, it is often the generalist who, calling upon a breadth of knowledge gained across many related fields, is the one who identifies the problem and prescribes the task that is ultimately given to the specialist. The specialist is ideal for solving a narrowly defined problem, while the generalist is better equipped to see the big picture and its cross-disciplinary connections.

In my career, I have held many job titles: Graphic designer, web developer, technical writer, project manager, and more. Outside the workplace, depending on when you catch me, I might be an artist, a musician, a producer, and so on. And if at a given time I’m not actually practicing one of the above activities, chances are good I’ll be reading something for the sake of nothing more than intellectual curiosity. Archaeology? Check. Military history? Pretty weird for a liberal, I suppose, but I find the subject fascinating. Alternative energy, ancient religions…you get the picture.

Universal principles cross boundaries
The benefit I have noticed over my years partaking from the sampler platter of knowledge is that what I learn in one field often applies in others and yields insights that I may not have realized had I focused exclusively within one area. For example, while studying the construction of bass lines in music composition, I was introduced to an approach where, through a sort of stream-of-consciousness improvisational method, you come up with what amounts to a first draft of your part in the song. Then, through a more left-brain oriented analysis, you systematically remove components of the part that aren’t absolutely necessary to convey the rhythm, harmony, and overall spirit of the song. What you are left with after this process of reduction, often taking place over many iterations, is THE fundamental bass line for that song. The parts that don’t make the cut can always be used for embellishments and such in performance situations later on, but those extras always come across better when the foundation is solid.

At the time, I was working as a web designer. I tended towards what would be considered “busy” designs. Back then, I thought these were cool and sophisticated, with plenty of layering, decoration, and assorted pizzazz all over the place. This was in the ‘90s, so I suppose I wasn’t alone in using (abusing?) this aesthetic. But one day it struck me that the principles I had been employing in bass line construction were in fact universal design principles that could also be applied to visual design problems. I started stripping away the fluff in my web design practice, and discovered that the results were much stronger and flexible that what I had been producing before. This isn’t to say that I exclusively use this approach in all visual and musical design work since – depending on the situation, I’ll sometimes build up rather than pare down – the point is that what I learned in one field provided insights into another, ultimately strengthening my practice in both.

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In this blog, then, I’ll be exploring topics of both professional and personal interest with an eye toward how they interrelate and inform one another. As a confirmed Generalist, I’ll be advocating for the view of generalists as vital to the balanced functioning of project teams, core staff, and of course, for the progress of civilization itself.

But back to that “Jack of all trades…” crack that we hear so much.

I prefer “Renaissance Man.”

Or “polymath.”

Much more positive connotations there.

Can I put that on my resume?