Unfinished: Fear of Dumb

[From time to time, I’ll start writing a post, and never complete it.  After enough time has passed, I’ll just post the fragment, because I don’t believe in leaving ideas in a drawer to die - if I haven’t built it or used it, maybe the fragment will inspire something else.]

I don’t mean a fear of actual stupidity.  Fear of Dumb is something that’s visible all over the tech industry - it’s not a label or a trend, it’s the beginning of a sentence.

Fear of being dumb labour.  Fear of selling ‘dumb pipe’ (in the case of ISPs).  Fear of conducting a service, without providing value beyond execution.

Because Fear of Dumb is really just fear of irrelevance.  If all you do is put input through a process that outputs a result, you’re essentially a placeholder for a future robot, program, or younger cheaper version of yourself.

No one wants to be irrelevant.

Watch and Learn.

Because actually doing it should come far enough after that it doesn’t get to be in the saying.

I understand that the best way to learn is often by doing. But the Internet creates a complex problem in that regard; doing it in public should, in professional situations, come after the learning.

Will the separation be between private and public, or personal and professional?

Either way, the first step should be watch, until you know what you’re doing.