One of the issues that I’ve encountered that causes endless frustration is when the owner of a project has a vested interest in making it fail. That is, they worry that a successful project will make their services irrelevant. There will probably always be people like this and it’s something that we’ll all just have to deal with. But are we doing the same thing?
An article in Smashing Magazine argues that many web professionals view themselves as owners of digital content, when in fact they should view themselves as transfers of knowledge. We’re not there yet, but eventually the word “digital” will be implied when companies consider business, marketing or support strategy. Just as companies no longer need a strategist to tell them how to use electricity effectively, it will simply be how it’s done. Our role then, is not to jealously guard the information and skills that we have, but to dispense it.
“By facilitating others and focusing on knowledge transfer you will become the go-to person for innovation and the next big thing. Become so concerned with your own job and you will be the roadblock everybody has to work around to get things done.
“Even after 20 years of the Web, we are still at the beginning of a transformation from an industrial to digital economy. Adapting to this change is a huge undertaking for most organizations and we can either be facilitators of that change or we can isolate ourselves as some kind of digital elite.”
