Being an IT professional is like the coyote character in a Warner Brothers Road Runner Cartoon. For those of you not familiar with the cartoon, there are two characters. There is the Road Runner, a ground bound bird that runs incredibly fast. The second character is the coyote, a hungry animal, constantly racing after the Road Runner, hoping to capture his next meal.
In every episode of the cartoon, they coyote tries everything he can think of, and yet, the road runner continues to elude him. As an IT professional, I often feel like the coyote. The road runner is all the different technologies and programming techniques I want to conquer. I stretch my arms out in front of me. The road runner is centimeters from my grasp. With a burst of speed, the road runner dashes away from me, twice as fast as I am capable of going.
This is a topic I return to frequently, because it impacts all of us dramatically. The more you focus on developing IT systems, the farther behind you become with the capabilities that are being developed at ever increasing speeds. Even if you are dedicated to continuous learning, it is impossible to keep current.
What options are available to us when addressing this impossible solution? Share your perspective and strategy in a comment, or drop me an email at btaylor@sswug.org.
Cheers,
Ben