Companies have begun a shift towards hiring and training more generalized workers instead of the more expensive specialized workers so highly sought after in the past.  This is especially true in the IT market.  Companies are hiring individuals with a breadth of knowledge instead of depth.  This means that the worker is capable of doing more and handling a wider range of tasks, but it also means that the individual might progress through a task slower than the specialist would.  But the advantage over the specialist is that the generalized knowledge makes them capable of doing the task in an area that the specialist for another area would no be able to find a starting ground.

The biggest tool in aiding this sift has been the vast knowledge base that is the Internet.  You don’t have to know all the answers, so long as you know where and how to find the answer.  Companies are increasingly using wikis, knowledge bases and document repositories to record the wealth of knowledge that they have access to through their employees.  The biggest drawback to this situation is that there isn’t an easy solution to the problem solving road blocks that are produces by having individuals with a shallow understanding on the issue at hand.

This was the entire reason I went with a general Computer Science degree instead of specializing in Software Engineering.  Small businesses can’t afford to have specialists in every area that they work in or deal in, and larger corporations are dealing with similar circumstances during hard economic times.

If you were having pains in your sides, but had not idea what the cause or alternate symptoms are then you wouldn’t know which specialist to go to for the answers.  The same situation applies to both large and small businesses now.  The more we depend on the Internet for knowledge and other resources, the more our knowledge has the be generalized.  The cultural interactions with other companies in other countries, the systematic interactions with a breadth of devices, and the legal and political issues related to doing business with other states and countries, make every business large and small require an almost infinitely broad knowledge of the world and everything in it.

The big problem isn’t the breadth of knowledge though, it’s being able to access and manage the depth of knowledge available at our fingertips.  We have unlimited amounts of information instantly available to us, but there isn’t a good way of find the information we’re looking for without already having the depth of knowledge of the situation at hand.

With generalization, we know where to take the first step, but the following steps are the journey and blind adventure.

That is the entire reason why I founded Simplified Solutions.  There are already tons of tools out there that are great at storing and securing your information and knowledge, but forgotten and inaccessible information is lost information.  How do you search for the answer you’re looking for when you don’t know exactly what the problem is or the terms used within the realm of your problem?  Right now you have to do a lot of research.  Right now you lose critical time and resources spinning your tires while you race around the world’s boundless information resources.

For many businesses their information resources and repositories have already reach the point that it is difficult to find the information that is already stored there.  The issue is made worse by the recursive destruction of the system’s on handicaps when managing and maintaining the information.

Current information stores are broken.  Search terms, tags and indexing will not help solve problems for a more generalized workforce.  It is time to start making the data and systems work for our workforce instead of increasing the work load as a result of these systems.  Because of this handicap Simplified Solutions is going to begin developing what I call Intelligent Knowledge Repositories (IKRs).  Simplified Solutions’ Assisted Knowledge and Troubleshooting Repository will be the first IKR developed for the IT market.  While the system will work for other markets and industries with little-to-no adapting, it fits best in the IT market where finding information and solutions in the fastest possible means available means saving thousands of dollars and hours of lost productivity.  The system could easily be adapted to the medical industry to help doctors find and research health conditions and ailments.

Simplified Solutions

I'll start off by saying, I already use Vista.  I use XP.  I use Windows 2003 Server and Windows 2008 Server.  I beta tested every version of Windows since Windows95, so I've had my experiences with beta operating systems.

Windows 7 is nice.  The taskbar takes a little getting used to, but it works.  The updated versions of the included apps aren't anything to really write about, they are still too under featured to evaluate in comparing operating systems, but they are nicer looking and work very well.  Mind Sweeper now requires a GPU for it's fancy effects, but they aren't required to play the game.  The HomeGroup feature looks kind of nice, but I'll have to setup another VM to see how it really panes out.  MediaCenter updates are nice too, but it crashed while I was playing with it.

 All in all, it is nice and stable, but I think I'll install the 64-bit version on one of my laptops to give it a fly one a more general usage, including some development work.  My experience in the last three hours hasn't differed from that of the 98, XP or Vista betas.  A couple of "oh cool" moments and very few problems setting it up, but it will need to be really used before the real evaluation occurs.  Windows98 beta worked great until you selected a video in explorer.  XP beta worked great until you tried to install certain apps.  Vista's beta was actually on of the more stable betas, but driver support and some legacy apps didn't work.  Windows 7 looks like it will be more like the XP beta since there are fewer architecture changes.