Re: Are you in the Red Ocean?

Dstadler — Mon, 18 May 2009 18:45:53 -0000

I fear I can't claim expertise in the rarified area of business strategy, but this red-ocean - blue-ocean analogy does have certain applications to certain things I have learned about career strategy as an IT expert.

In this view red-ocean is the realm of commodity skills, what your base skills are. In my case Java. They need to be up to snuff, near enough to perfect in the current environment.

Then come your differentiators - the things which make you stick out from the pack. These can be 'commodity' skills which aren't commonly found in combination with your core skills. In my case these may be Javascript and SOAP/Web Services/SOA skills.

But a secondary level of differentiation also exist, really rare, bleeding-edge skills which aren't widely present in the market. These skills can be considered as 'blue-ocean' skills. Often these skills aren't directly marketable. What they do is make you stand out from the crowd to some of the sharper managers around.

Last year I learned several things like this, mostly out of curiosity. But the existence of these skills got me interviews (and a job) from companies who noticed them, even though they were not listed on the formal job specification. I know this because the first question in each case was 'what do you think of XXXX?'.

In the toughest job market in a generation it was both my red-ocean and blue-ocean skills which got me noticed and hired. Needless to say I am devoting part of my spare time to acquiring more blue-ocean skills as well as sharpening my red-ocean skills!

So how to stay in blue ocean, at least in part? For me it means keep learning new, exciting stuff. Make my profession into a hobby in part.

For a business I would guess it means continue innovating, innovate at all times.

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Re: Are you in the Red Ocean?