The Pakistani Spectator

I’m always hearing people say, “Such and such has 25 years of experience in so and so…” or “Welcome such and such, who has 15 years of experience working in so and so …” For a disruptive business model like Information Technology, too much experience works against your ability to succeed.

In IT the expert of today is the novice of tomorrow. The technology is replaced as quickly as it is innovated, the people who know one tool have to be ready to un learn it without hesitation and move on to new vistas. Its so vibrant and dynamic, its difficult even to get time out to complain. The new work force required by any dynamic and progressive company has to has some key characteristics such as; they don’t need to know open source or closed source, but they need to have an open mind, they need to have a global mindset, and they must be ready to abandon old practices, because the software industry has, over the last twenty years, built some procedures, practices, and principles which just don’t work anymore.

So it is dangerous to hire somebody who has too much experience. You need the guys who ask why and ask why not, people who are ready to question things and who are not bound by tradition. . . . You have to have your mind set on the future and not on the past. So if IT becomes a norm in Pakistani public institutes, where the old birds would go, one wonders