“If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful at all.”
Michelangelo
It strikes me that the worker of today focuses on an ever-narrower field of specialisation. Cross-functional teams offer a means of cross-pollenisation of ideas between specialists in their fields but does each individual in the team still have their own blinkered view of the situation?
By contrast, where are the Michaelangelos and Benjamin Franklins of the modern technology world?
Michaelangelo was an inventor, sculptor, painter, architect, author, bio-mechanist, poet, and engineer.
Ben Franklin was an author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat.
Thomas Edison’s inventions ranged from the fields of Electric power, Lighting, Batteries, Phonograph, Cement, Telegraphy and Mining through to creation of the Stock Ticker.
Perhaps they do still exist. Kia Silverbrook has an impressive array of innovations to his name.
Could cross-domain thinking bring breakthrough innovation / simplification to the OSS world like Henry Ford brought to the motor vehicle industry?