Unprofessional and Undisciplined

After reading “ESRI and Google and major uphill battle”, I was certain that Berlin Brown didn’t know much about GIS or ESRI so I dismissed him as a cranky malcontent. James Fee has taken the time to illustrate the errors so I won’t rehash those points. I am interested in the human psyche and was curious to understand why someone who obviously didn’t know the GIS industry would take the time to post about something in which they were ignorant.

A few web searches blew away my assumptions when I learned that Berlin has extensive technical knowledge of ESRI’s products. It appears that he is currently working as an intern for an ESRI customer (City of Atlanta). My curiosity was satisfied when his resume mentioned that he wasn’t interested in following stupid business processes or rules. He realized that his resume was unprofessional but it didn’t matter because he was a programming genius who was also a team player. Yep, that’s the kind of young talent that I’m looking to hire—an undisciplined free spirit with no regard for the processes or rules of the corporate team. In sum, he is unprofessional and wears it as a badge of courage. Today’s blogosphere has an overabundance of these folks. With time, I expect that the voice of the professionals in the “center” will drown out these voices in the fringes.