I just read this article by Michael Simmons and it was really interesting. It states that that simply being in an open network instead of a closed one is the best predictor of career success.
The idea is that people in open networks have unique challenges and perspectives. Because these curious folk are part of multiple groups, they have unique relationships, experiences, and knowledge that other people in their groups don’t. These views lead to more and better opportunities.
The chart for this is:
It also interesting to see how this played out with Steve Jobs. He always advocated for diversity of experiences. In a Wired interview in 1995, he said:
Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something.
It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people.
Unfortunately, that’s too rare a commodity. A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences.
So they don’t have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have.
I love this position. The experiencing of different industries, different cultures and different perspectives is a great goal to have.
