Are Technical Skills enough?

So, this is a question which has been asked to me many a times. In my post How to Sell a Plot, I was asked this question as well. Why do IT people, the technical ones, need to be a part of organizations which would enhance their non technical skills only? Why do they need to learn how to coordinate things? Why do they need to have leadership and management skills? Why do they need to have marketing skills?


Well, I am sure as I had been asking these questions, no one of you would have thought that a technical person won't need the things mentioned above.


In my blog, I always share my experiences and thoughts. So, talking about today's experience - I had a guest lecture on Information Security in my college. Information security, cyber security, ethical hacking - these are the terms which I have been listening to a lot nowadays. The guest lecture  - How do you find a lecture? The word 'lecture' itself makes the thing boring. 


But, sometimes I do act like weird people and I find lectures interesting; if they really are. So, talking about today's lecture - it should have been very interesting and informative. Informative  it was, but interesting?


The guy from the company knew everything. He really seemed to be an expert. The presentation - wow! Though by looking at the slides  my mind started haunting me of the presentation which I need to give a day after tomorrow and for what I haven't even started preparing. :P


So, everything with that Expert guy was perfect, but still, that one hour was one of the most difficult time for me. Do you know why? Because that guy knew everything, he could have told me many things which would have left me awestruck for a day or two. But the guy lacked in one very important thing - the skills to present his knowledge to others.
He had been telling us about Information Security, about his Institute and many more cool facts but what he made me feel was - he didn't actually know what he wanted to say. After spending two hours there when I was told that the lecture was over - I had nothing to tell how it was. Why? Because it wasn't presented to me properly. It didn't give me its motive. It didn't give me the very much required clue about what it wanted me to do.


So, here lies my answer - why does an IT professional need to go into organizations like AIESEC and need to learn skills which were never ever made the part of his curriculum. Because knowledge isn't everything. You might be an expert  in a subject  but if you don't know how to use that knowledge, if you don't know to present that knowledge to others in a way it would give benefits to you - your knowledge is almost useless.


This is what I think. 

Google it - Are Technical skills enough?

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Comments

  1. Hey! That's one of the thing I was talking about when saying IT is preferred over CSE! We weren't even asked or told there would be a guest lecture and we could attend it instead of getting bored in class! and we were in the next class the whole time!

    and yea.. that's one of the benefits of non technical skills, which can only be done right through experience! but thats such a minor part of IT industry that the technical skills dwarfs it by a large margin..

    first we get a project, then using our awesome skills, we complete it in the given deadline- and only after that, 1 or 2 people from the team who developed that project have to present it to the clients.. so, I think, till we are at least decent in whatever technical skills, we should not waste much time on developing the non-technical ones..
    ofCourse If you want to do MBA or something similar after bachelors, then these AIESEC-like skills become more important..
    also from what I've seen, students who are artists, musicians, really social, extra passionate.. they join groups like AIESEC..

    still its awesome that you take the time to post these..'posts?

    ReplyDelete
  2. First of all, the expert lecture was for IT students. We do not have projectors in our classrooms so that was happening in your department. :P Ask your H.O.D if you want guest lectures too. We did. :)

    And I totally accept your views, but just a little question rose in my head - what if you spent two years to develop a program - an amazing and extremely useful program - but no one is ready to commercialize that product of yours?

    ReplyDelete
  3. hmm... true that!
    i guess it'd be a big disappointment... and I'd need really awesome skills to sell the program to someone, which can only be refined by these non-technical programs..

    ask HOD, huh! lets see.. I tried talking myself into asking him a while back.. but it seems like begging you know.. and of course what I want is beg for some non-theoretical stuff, but after some asking around in my class and general CSE, I came to the conclusion that majority of the students don't want things like that! they are happy with school type teaching method with a few bunks in between... and how do you even ask this-
    "Sir, arrange some guest lectures.. we're getting bored with everyday classes"?
    or "Sir, how about quiz next friday?"..
    They sound really weird to me..

    ReplyDelete
  4. Well, in that case, I do feel IT people are lucky or we made ourselves feel lucky :P
    Our department recently had a quiz competition :P
    You just need to express your desire for these stuff to the higher authorities. But the actual trick is show them value in what you say. Tell them how it would help you all (They know it already. Its just that they don't want to work). Still, give it a try else ... try another way ...
    Well, I tried to sought this issue by asking the management for all these stuff. You wanna try?

    P.S. Begging ? You are paying a huge amount here. Its your right to ask for what you want.

    ReplyDelete

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