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“Country Doctor” W. Eugene Smith 1948
While the photo above isn’t literally Dr. Smith, the family doctor that took care of my family when I was a young boy, it could well have been. Dr. Smith delivered babies, removed appendixes, treated infections, set bones, and made house calls. He was a true generalist.
There are few Dr. Smiths anymore.
Increasingly complex procedures and demands by patients for experts have resulted in doctors focusing on smaller and smaller slices of practice. Even where we once had heart specialists, we may now have pediatric, coronary, surgeons. In much the same way, the CRM generalist is going the way of the old, country doctor.
Only six years ago, I started concentrating my career in the sphere of CRM. At that time, I knew pretty much all there was to know about my system of choice—Salesforce. I could configure any object, write validation rules, build an S-Control that would make your head spin, and train users like a college professor. There was very little from rollout to customization to troubleshooting that I couldn’t do.
Not so, today. I’m still a Salesforce certified administrator and I can fix 95% of what breaks, but when it comes to the most complex functions, I find myself turning to experts or spending hours combing through documentation. I have a broad knowledge of the system, but truth be told, I find it more and more difficult to keep up with the brutal, three times a year, release rate for new versions. I am a country doctor in the coming age of specialists.
That’s not entirely accurate. In reality, I’m a family doctor, not a country doctor. The difference is, the country doctor was expected to do everything, but today, the family doctor needs to have the ability to “fix” everyday problems, but even more importantly, to know when it is in everyone’s interest to engage a specialist for the good of the patient.
In the care of people, the family doctor is a highly skilled diagnostician, excellent basic caregiver, and able to coordinate treatment in the same way a conductor leads the orchestra. That’s the role for the person who was once a generalist in regards CRM systems.
If you’re a specialist, I salute you and your dedication to your craft. If you’re like me however, don’t be ashamed. Just like a hospital full of surgeons, oncologists, and ophthalmologists isn’t the optimal mix for life long health care for people, integration specialists and coders need people like us who can see the big picture. Hold your head high and go read the new release notes so you can keep everyone on the same page!
What do you think? Am I right? Wrong? Missing the point entirely?
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