Jaa

Niche Professions

  • Artikkeli

I have been thinking about “niche” professions – those that only appeal to a relatively small number of people in the world. Often, these professions are looked down upon by those in similar professions – or by those who don’t know much about the profession in the first place (one example would be the veterinarian who takes care of my dog vs. the guy who has to inseminate an elephant.)

The advantage of being in a niche profession is that there’s plenty of room at the top. The problem, of course, is that a ton of dolts and wannabees self-proclaim themselves as experts and leaders and assume they’re at the top. They come up with new ways to describe what they do (e.g. sanitation engineer), and tell everyone who uses the old terminology that they’re idiots. Meanwhile, the real experts are the ones usually advancing the profession. The connected world we live in enables the loudest voices to be "experts" regardless of ability to do the job.

Interesting world we live in – isn’t it?

Comments

  • Anonymous
    September 22, 2009
    Just wondering by any chance are you referring to the Self Proclaimed expert testers who are creating a lot of buzz ( exploratory Testers ...)
  • Anonymous
    September 23, 2009
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    September 23, 2009
    I know this is a testing blog, but I never said I was talking about testing.My garbag.."sanitation engineer" has been a bit cocky lately. He called me a bully because I wouldn't use his words and it hit me the wrong way.
  • Anonymous
    September 23, 2009
    How does one advance the profession of 'sanitation engineering'? Discovering garbage in places previously unchecked? Increasing the frequency of garbage pickup? Offering to come into your home and take out the trash for you? Sounds like testing to me (sometimes).Thing is, I want you to be talking about testing terminologies in this post. It so encapsulates the "whatever" moments I've been experiencing while reading the next big controversy. Who cares what its called; framing the internal conversations means markedly less to the people I serve externally.No sir. I am officially re-purposing your blog post. There is nothing you can do about it. :)
  • Anonymous
    September 24, 2009
    The weather here is really nice for late September - but I bet it will get cold soon.Now <u>there's</u> a repurpose!
  • Anonymous
    September 25, 2009
    yeah, its really true niche profession has got much advantages