Fringe IT
I’ve always wanted to be at the fringes of IT and the boundaries it pushes, whether that be automation, cloud, etc. Conceptually, I think about being at the edge of a fence and having the will and desire to cut the wires, dig out the posts, and move them further out. It’ll take some effort, but the reward is worth it. My worst fear is getting complacent in a group or application, and then building an entire career around a single specialized product or service area.
It really makes people stuck; I’ve seen this over and over again across industries, not just IT. People end up going years and years with very little professional growth without even consciously realizing it. This puts them in an increasingly powerless situation, where they are at the mercy of their employer or of a technology coming out that replaces their product or function.
In IT, maintaining and more importantly expanding your knowledge in the technical field is essential. This goes all of the way to the CIO and CTO, because technology is only doing one thing consistently: CHANGING. My thinking is that you basically have to continuously adapt and grow, or become expendable. It’s really pretty simple and also the truth from what I can tell.