There’s a saying “Knowledge is power”, I’ve been starting to disagree with it recently. I don’t know about you, but in my line of work a great deal of emphasis is given to skills and certifications. Do you know this package or operating system? The field of IT changes rapidly and it can be a full time job trying to keep up with it, furthermore it’s almost seen as an unforgivable transgression not to know something, you can never admit to that. But, I’m reminded of some old anecdotes from a friend in the industry of certified “IT Professionals” who were frankly useless at the job. They had the knowledge, they were certified, but still……

The Maasai people have a saying, “One head cannot contain all knowledge”, I think we need to take a different approach; not only in order to cope and keep pace with change, but to get past this fixation with knowledge.

I’ve found that the best approach is practise the basics, whilst taking the view “I don’t need to know everything, but I know how to find out if I need to.” You have to try to put aside the ego driven desire for more knowledge for the sake of it. In short, I’ve come to the opinion that it’s not knowledge, but the attitude of the individual. Knowledge isn’t power, the ability to apply knowledge is where the true power lies, this is why I admire the Zen approach of emphasising real world daily experience in the moment over abstract knowledge.

We apply knowledge in the moment, not in the past or the future, in my IT experience I’ve found a solid knowledge of the basics can go a heck of a long way when combined with good experience.