Take Your Niche and Shove It, I Ain't Workin' There No More.

I'm going wide, deep, and long. Silos suck, and they will hold you down.

Have you ever heard this statement?

“Jack of all trades, master of none.”

Becoming a ‘Jack of all trades’, or at least a few trades will be the power move for all creatives in 2024. Photo of the author by the author, as all of the images on this post are.

(Well, for some reason, I am not able to edit this article. Ain’t tech great.
At the bottom is the line “… software, I am NOW able…” is the correct wording.
And the title of the piece is “Moments for Contrabass”. I guess the tech gods are angry with me.)

We’ve heard this a million times. It is usually never used in positive terms. A throw-away insult indicates that someone only has little information about several tasks or subjects. This supposed “Jack” is thought of as not nearly as competent as a specialist.

But, see… we’ve kinda been lied to.

The entirety of the quote is not used. The part we get is taken out of context. In fact the context is exactly the opposite of that statement.

Here is the ‘Jack’ statement in full:

“Jack of all trades, master of none, is oftentimes better than master of one."
- Robert Greene

So not only is a ‘Jack of all trades not a bungling dolt, he is actually preferred over the specialist, who only has one passion or knowledge point.

This is not new to me at all.

I have always preferred folks who had multiple passions, a wide knowledge base and were constantly inquisitive.

I hired inquisitive jacks of all trades at the agency. I had coders who were also passionate about photography, art, music, business, cultures… you name it.

We probably had the most eclectic group of people by skill set in the valley.

We recruited ballet choreographers, cooks, accountants, sales and business experts, and a wide variety of working people onto our board.

And it was amazing.

A bit of history on where we are with this nonsense of specialization:

Before the mid-1700s, people were all jacks of all trades. We farmed, cooked, invented, fixed, repaired, and took care of livestock. Everyone did.

But enter the Industrial Revolution and the need for workers who did only what they were taught to do. Worker bees. And worker bees need better worker bees to keep them in line and at peak performance.

As we entered the era of the university, those schools found that they could create more and more ‘specialties’ for which they could sell degrees and multiple certifications.

Corporations that didn’t change much in their basic structure kept the model of the specialist because, well, that’s always the way it’s been done, kept the tradition alive.

And the money just kept rolling in based on the fallacy that people could only do one thing well.

And for some types of gigs, a person who has a specialty interest may indeed be right. But not necessarily all. Not nearly all.

---

Every man gets a narrower and narrower field of knowledge in which he must be an expert in order to compete with other people. The specialist knows more and more about less and less and finally knows everything about nothing.

Konrad Lorenz

---

The Trap of Specialization

Specialization, while it has its perks, can also be a trap.

Think about it: when you're so deep into a single area, you're like a horse with blinders on. You can miss the broader picture.

And today, being a specialist could make you vulnerable to becoming obsolete.

Why?

Because machines are getting incredibly good at specific tasks. If your entire career is built on being the best at something an AI can eventually master, what's your backup plan?

You do have a backup plan, right?

Right?

AI and Specialization: A Rocky Road

AI is an absolute game-changer. I feel sort of strange even pointing this out.

It.
Will.
Change.
Everything.

I’m not talking about robots taking over manufacturing jobs, or chess-playing software that never sleeps or shows up drunk for a match.

AI is now writing code, diagnosing diseases, and even creating art. I use DIVI for my WordPress development. It will now write code, including plugins, right from the module dashboard.

If your niche is something an AI can learn, guess what, my specialty-loving friend? You're competing with an extremely fast, tireless, and constantly learning productivity machine that doesn't need coffee breaks.

Or a 401K, or Social Security, or medical insurance, or a three-week vacation. It isn’t moody if someone is rude to them while they are grabbing a double latte from the local ‘specialty’ coffee store. No HR department, no recruiting bonuses, no primadonnas.

We’re getting a pretty impressive screwing, eh?

A specialist is someone who does everything else worse.
Ruggiero Ricci

Going Wide: The Generalist Advantage

So we’ve ended up here, and being here is where being a generalist becomes not just cool, but essential.

If you are niched in a silo, that silo is under attack. And you won’t win.

If you think of AI as being an “I”, generalists are “Ts” - verticle and wide. Yes, of course a generalist knows a lot of stuff, and maybe that stuff is in a silo, but they know other things as well. And that is the crossbar of the ‘T’. Width. Breadth.

Generalists have a broad view. T

hey can connect dots across different fields, think laterally, and come up with creative solutions that a specialist, usually stuck in their narrow lane, might never see.

This versatility is worth more gold than in a Rapper’s G-Wagon in a world where adaptability is key.

Flexibility and Innovation

Generalists are nimble. Inquisitive. Curious about things that are outside their domains.

They're not married to a single way of doing things. This flexibility allows them to pivot when industries change, which, let’s face it, is happening at warp speed these days.

They're also the innovators and the problem solvers. They can look at an issue from multiple angles and come up with solutions that a specialist, with their depth of knowledge in one area, might not think of.

Three examples:

1. Hedy Lamarr - Known primarily as an actress, Lamarr co-invented a frequency-hopping spread spectrum technology that would later become the basis for modern technologies like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Her contribution to the field of wireless communications was significant, despite her primary profession being in the arts.

2. Michael Faraday - Although primarily a chemist and physicist, Faraday's contributions to the fields of electromagnetism and electrochemistry were profound. Not formally educated in these fields, he discovered electromagnetic induction, diamagnetism, and the laws of electrolysis.

3. Richard Feynman - A physicist by training, Feynman made a significant contribution to biology. He was instrumental in solving the structure of the protein shell of the bacteriophage, a type of virus, while working with biologists at Caltech.

The Human Touch

There's one thing AI can't replicate (yet), and that's the human touch.

Empathy, human understanding, and creativity born from diverse experiences. AI can not even begin to understand the human experience, although it can tune a race car in 2 seconds.

Generalists often excel because their varied backgrounds give them a wider perspective on the human experience. Their domain hopping can help give them a grander, more complete view of problem-solving.

None of the great discoveries was made by a 'specialist' or a 'researcher'.
Martin H Fischer

Sometimes taking the generalist road can, for reasons that seem almost upside down, be a lonely one. Pushback can be tough. You have to be tougher.

Embracing the Width

(OK, sometimes we have to fight the width, especially after finding a particularly good and inexpensive taco shack out on the road near our homw. But that is a different sort of width. More of a girth matter, actually.)

So, to all those out there thinking you have to choose a niche because someone is telling you to, ask them exactly why. Why do you have to limit your creativity? Why do you have to be forced into doing only one thing?

I follow several artists on social media.

One is a photographer, curator, writer, traveler, and maker of books.

Another is a videographer, writer, entrepreneur, podcaster, and teacher.

Still another combines motorcycle camping with teaching, writing, Vlogging, and cooking.

They aren’t locked into silos, and neither should you be.

The future belongs to those who can think broadly, adapt quickly, and apply diverse knowledge to solve new and complex problems. Problems that didn’t exist when they woke up, but by noon they are screaming for attention louder than a 2-year-old when you are on an important call to your biggest client.

And AI is too siloed up to do more than general research that doesn’t scale.

It sounds like we need a lateral thinker who can look into disparate domains and find commonalities or global challenges. Or the fact that none exist. Curiosity is the most powerful and underrated emotion we have.

Don't let AI corner you in a narrow alley. Spread your wings, go wide, and be the kind of thinker this fast-changing world needs.

It’s no longer "Jack of all trades, master of none." While you may master one or two domains, you should be very strong in a few others. Even those that are not ancillary to your master domains.

It’s about being "Jack of all trades, master of some." So take your niche and shove it. The world’s too big and too interesting to do just one thing anymore.

Be more than the master of one.

---

Taking a big gulp here and sharing something else that I do.

I have composed modern music my whole life. Unfortunately, most of the music I have written since my mid-twenties has not been played.

I just write the music, and hope that someday… ya know.

Well, thanks to a software named Musescore, I am not able to hear some of my works.

I am busy an hour a day entering the music of my younger self into this software and being able to hear it in at least a fairly faithful way.

One day in the mid-seventies, I was haunting the halls full of practice rooms in the ASU music building. A lot of bass players were filling the practice rooms and as I would walk between them, I was struck by the sound of this cacophony of deep-sounding contrabasses.

I took notes and later wrote a piece based on these random sounds from instruments not usually thought of as soloists.

The result was “Momentum for Contrabass” for Solo Contrabass.

Now before you click it, I need you to understand that this is modern music, full of dissonant harmonies, melodies, and rhythms.

I hope you enjoy it, but understand if you don’t. And there is nothing wrong with that at all.

So, here it is for the first time since 1974, Momentum for Contrabass.

In The Frame is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

---

There are clients in your area.
They need you to make photographs for them.
They want to hire you… but…

They don’t know who you are. And they don’t know how to find you.

And you don’t know how to find them.

This goes beyond marketing. We know how important marketing is. Even photographers who are not marketers know how important it is.

This is a system that will help you build the right portfolio, look for the right clients, get the work done, and keep them coming back for more.

This isn’t rocket science; it is a system. One designed to be scaled and built on as you build your business.

For more information and to register, visit this page.

Client Acquisition Workshop.

See you all soon.