The New Polymath, Vinnie Mirchandani’s first book, is due for release sometime around June. The book is a journey through some of the most amazing innovations in the world today. Regular readers will know that Vinnie and I are good friends separated by around 4,600 miles of (mostly) Atlantic Ocean. Stat freaks will know I’ve referenced Vinnie 184 times out of 3,221 posts on this weblog.
Over the coming weeks you’ll see a number of references to The New Polymath on these pages. Why? Management, business and marketing books are two a penny. Most are of questionable value. Few hit the spot. What makes Vinnie’s shot at the Wall Street best seller list worth attention? Check this from a post discussing the opening:
Polymath as in Greek for someone who excels in many disciplines like Isaac Newton, the English physicist, astronomer and philosopher and Hypatia of Alexandria who was a mathematician, astronomer, philosopher, and teacher.”
“The book asks: what would Da Vinci do today in the midst of our technology bounty? How wide would his vision of AND not OR be today? Which disciplines would he choose to focus on: Nanotechnology? Biochemistry? Would he work on architecture of next-generation, green cities? Prepare for the Mars shot? Or would he be told to quit dabbling and be good at one thing – like plastics a la Dustin Hoffman? Given the Grand Challenges have grown exponentially in the 5 centuries since Da Vinci lived, The New Polymath can no longer be just one person, but a collection of many.”
There is an element of self serving as Vinnie has written something about myself. From the same summary:
There are hundreds of innovator companies and their products profiled including large companies like Best Buy and Starbucks. But we also have much smaller companies like Schumacher Group with its aggressive deployment of cloud computing. We have startups like Altimeter Group. We also profile individuals like Karin Morton and Dennis Howlett and technologies which are allowing them to be extremely productive and connected with the world for a pittance.
Ahem – pittance in comparison with years past maybe but costs all the same that have to be met and growing as services expand. Taking the elements of friendship and self promotion out of the equation then why would I put effort into talking about this?
From day one, this blog has been about innovation. Much focus is put on the technology aspects and how they can help professional services organizations. But technology is only an enabler The 21st century will see the most disruptive seismic shifts that professionals will witness in more than 500 years.
The days of being a tax, audit, consulting…you name it…specialist are done. In the future, professionals will have to be polymaths or see their businesses wither. Large chunks of what we have held sacred are being eroded as technology brings with it a rustbelt of commodity and utility that take complexity out of the bread and butter compliance we have come to rely upon. I expect Vinnie’s book to serve as an inspiration for those that want to embrace the discipline of becoming the new polymath, the New Renaissance man or woman.
