Rui CarmoI’m still surprised at being able to spend a significant portion of my time tinkering with technology.
Considering that a few years ago I used to spend most of my waking hours shuffling e-mail, drafting presentations and other mainstays of the Marketing métier, it never ceases to amaze me that as the years progressed I’d dive further into coding (which I do now on a regular, if mostly tactical basis) and some rather esoteric pieces of technological plumbing.
The good thing about that is that it’s absorbing enough to allow me to take the current economic and political situation in stride. Well, mostly.
The bad thing is that I miss a lot of the decision-making behind technology products - that is only natural, as specialization will inevitably bring with it a certain narrowing of viewpoints, and of course I’d feel that more acutely where I employed the most of my skills previously.
This is, of course, a survival trait of sorts, since I’ve mostly managed to keep moving and doing interesting stuff largely by dint of spotting cul-de-sacs from a distance. But that’s a luxury I can’t enjoy anymore, so I’ve been coping as best I can with the loss (or, at least, mental parking) of my former skills and retooling myself over the past couple of years.
And yet, I feel like somewhat of an endangered species. I’m not sure yet if that’s due to the exodus or to lacking contact with a wider range of folk in the local technology industry, but it’s rather unsettling either way.
But we’re nearing Codebits, so with luck I’ll be able to regain my confidence as far as Portuguese technological acumen is concerned - and have some fun, to boot (I’ve been doing as many blog posts as I can over there, in between regular work and the digital signage system we’re preparing for the event).
And now, if you’ll excuse me I’m going to ponder other, hopefully more far-reaching stuff. My survival sense is tingling, and I want to stay ahead of the curve.