Hello. I'm Your Local Crackpot

When I work at Technology Strategy, Organizational Change Architecture, or Business Analysis, my job is idea synthesis. I'm not an expert on lower level details -- my job is to bring in experts and from their expertise form a cross-functional synthesis, a gestalt that they would have missed otherwise. Companies pay me thousands per day for this, and I like it. Many times I've been able to help experts find patterns and business leverage that were overlooked.

I'm not trying to toot my horn; far from it. Most of the time I'm just re-arranging words and remembering stuff from various trivial places. I can't remember my phone number, but for some reason I can remember Pi to 12 decimal places, or the laws of normalization, or the proofs of the existence of God, jokes from the last episode of Cheers, etc. Most of the time just being a dumb outsider who is neutral and friendly is all that it takes. Of course there are learned skills, but I ain't that great.

The reason my work is valued is because people pay for it. That's about it! When I freelance -- come up with new combinations of ideas that are just as valuable as the ones I'm paid to do -- the result has no value. That's because experts in the field like and appreciate the opinions of other experts. Not Joe SixPack. Oddly enough, this is the reason there are so many problems due to organizational complexity to begin with! No matter what your field, it's a cloistered world.

So I emailed the General and tried to explain what was going on. Would he gives us a chance to pitch the idea to him and interview him about his opinion of it? Heck, we could even seek to publish the interview if he wished. We didn't want much -- this was a part-time effort for us -- maybe a couple of hours of his time? We're all busy people. We just think we have some ideas that might help. Trying to do our duty and all of that.

Let's just say that I am not holding my breath waiting for the General to reply. Like most experts, not only is he busy, but he probably gave up playing in the bush leagues a long time ago. And let's face it -- any sort of analysis that outsiders could come up with at the level of military detail he is accustomed to, would not hold up. Sadly, that's not the point: the point is the synthesis of ideas, some of which he is not an expert in. But how do you convince somebody that there are ideas outside of their knowledge domain that have bearing on the problems they are experiencing?

This is a real problem with a complex society, and one I do not have the answer to. The best answer I can come up with is for people who synthesize to master the art of publicity. However, one's skill in public relations has nothing to do with the value of the synthesized ideas one has! These cross-functional conversations may be the challenge for civilized societies of the new century.

Maybe I am philosophizing too much -- it did kind of hurt my feelings that I haven't heard back from the General. Heck, maybe the General will email me any day now. But then again, maybe I have a point that has nothing to do with this particular situation. Your call.