IT must address its identity crisis

23.02.2009
A celebrity caught breaking traffic or substance-abuse laws is apt to haughtily ask the arresting officer, "Do you have any idea who I am?" It's hard to imagine any IT professional doing the same. (A very good thing, too, since I doubt that query has ever done an offender an ounce of good.)

But it's not just IT workers' lack of celebrity that keeps them from playing the "Do you know who I am?" card. Sadly, the vast majority of IT professionals can't answer the question themselves. We've lost our occupational identity, and we need to get it back.

Occupational identity used to be a no-brainer. Everyone knew who the king was. In England and other countries, medieval tradesmen took as their surnames the labor they did, a practice that accounts for all the Smiths, Coopers, Cooks, Bakers, Brewers and Wrights in this country.

Today, with surnames long established, there is no need to revive the practice, but that means there are no Gretchen Project-Managers or Adam Sysadmins in the phone book.

Some professions equip their practitioners with uniforms and props that serve as identifiers: Lobbyists in Washington have their footwear of English leather and suits of Italian cloth, and gas pump jockeys can be identified by the shirts they wear with their own first name and the name of an oil company embroidered on the pocket.

And here is a story of fluid, mutual recognition: A sociologist working in Mexico pulled out a pad and pen, telling his interview subject, "I'm a writer." Before he could proceed, the interviewee cheerfully responded, "I'm a mechanic," and held out his hands, the tools of his trade, to display the oil underneath his fingernails.