I guess by some lights, though I don't think I am a systematically deep enough thinker to qualify. I'm smart, I know a lot of "stuff," I read all the time; but also I don't think of myself as original enough to qualify. I'm a great synthesizer. I can draw on many different sources when I am sorting out a problem whether that is with something I am working on with an organization or something I am writing.
I once was told that I was "too academic" by someone as a reason not to hire me. Don't know if that was just the "nice" reason they were using to blow me off or whether it had substance to it. I've also been told I was not academic enough for another role. So who knows?
I think of myself as being very practical when working on a problem or project. I try to do things that will work in the real world of the people who have to use the systems I design or the solutions I help them to develop. I may go about it in a more thoughful way or a more deliberate one, but the solution is still aimed at the practical. I designed something for an organization recently where they had no structured way of managing what they were doing. Without saying what it was--anonymity, remember--I gave them a more basic and structured approach than what they had been fantasizing about based on the most recent airline magazines they had read. Their front line managers needed baby steps and guidance, and the system I built supplied it, much to the relief of the people I designed it for: those managers and supervisors and employees, not the executives.
It's a mean world where being smart gets you excluded from places you could make a difference to, but their loss...
Yeah, so maybe I live in my mind and thoughts a lot. Doesn't make me impractical or not worthy. I have gotten things done. I do have accomplishments to point to.
So, Nyaahhh! Nyaaahhh!
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