When I mention to someone I've just met that I major in Philosophy, the next statement usually follows: "Do you want fries with that?" The implication, of course, is that a liberal arts degree has little practical use. While this is a popular view, it overlooks some important advantages of the liberal arts education. As I will demonstrate, a liberal arts major carries unique traits that are useful in many professional positions. For this demonstration, I'll describe the traits that are useful in the a Network Administrator posiion. Granted, it would be an error to hire someone with a BA in Russian Literature who had no practical experience; but many liberal arts majors either have prior work experience or minor in a field that makes them highly employable.
Think first, then act intelligently.Often, information technology (IT) workers see themselves as an end result. Therefore, we have "IT Projects" that cost money. But an oft-overlooked and important rule is this: IT exists to serve its customers. A company that makes widgets will derive benefit when it automates its widget manufacturing capability. The IT workers in that company don't work to "implement sophisticated factory controls" or "automate customer reporting", they work to improve the efficiencies of and to protect the interests of the business - in short, increase profit by increasing revenue or increasing savings. Therefore, we have "business projects that have an IT component to them".
Majoring in liberal arts gives a candiate a "big picture" view of the environment (internal and external customers) and the role of IT in that environment. Starting from the top: is this a for-profit hospital, or a non-profit? What are the practical business, financial, legal, technological, and human resource needs? Will any given implementation of a network change help or hinder these needs? While planning new implementations, how can we best meet those needs? Even if it is not practical to spend an extended amount of time making these considerations for each project, the candidate will know enough about the environment (and should take the time when first starting a new job to understand all of these facets of the environment) to make a careful consideration.
The job of the candidate is to make business processes more efficient (therefore saving money or increasing revenue), and considering these attributes of the environment noted above is essential in this goal.
Of course, all of the philosophizing in the world won't help if the tire never meets the road, and that's another area in which the candidate should excel. In a technology position, it is common to "go with the flow" and, for example, just buy a Cisco router when needed. Instead, the candidate should consider the facets of the environment discussed above and work to find the most efficient end result. Usually, this is accomplished via Service Level Agreement. This agreement, a specification determined as part of the planning process, defines things such as:
- Availability. (Is this a mission-critical network that must be available 24/7?)
- Capacity. (How many nodes on the network? At what speed? Are there any special circumstances?)
- Contingency Plans. (What happens if the network goes bump in the night?)
- Human Resource Issues. (Do users require retraining? Will they need incentives?)
- Responsibility. (Who is responsible if the network goes bump in the night?)
- Psychological or Political dimensions. (While this is generally not a part of the written agreement, it is nevertheless an important part of any implementation. What rules or responsibilities must we define to ensure that management and the userbase is comfortable with our decision? What is the value of "go with BigBrandX because then there's somebody to sue if it goes bump" (even though licensing may preclude this), compared to a more financially cost-effective approach?
The last point is addressed by one of the strongest effects of an excellent Service Level Agreement: to make the "human factor" comfortable. If, given a defined set of specifications, one could either choose a BigBrandX solution for $25,000 or an Open Source solution for $12,500,
and both solutions fully met all requirements of the SLA, then justifying the implementation of the more cost effective (and therefore more efficient) solution is that much easier.
Think first, then act intelligently. This is my first post on hiring liberal arts majors, and it's a good overview. I'll continue to blog on this subject as I think of more ideas.
Cheers,
-JB
