Could it be only 8 years ago that a friend of mine struggled with finding an advisor for her bioinformatics PhD? She was in a space in between two departments, and neither seemed to offer much guidance. Probably that’s an interdisciplinary area that has enough authorities now to guide students. But there are always new areas of expertise emerging, and the newest areas are usually between disciplines, not strictly within one area.

It’s always been true, in IT, that it is a big field, and people come up through the ranks in different patterns, and when teams assemble they have work to do to establish common vocabulary and methodology. But it seems every other field is experiencing a similar explosion, and expertise is getting narrower and deeper all the time.

We need to access the spaces in between the silos, or the departments, or the disciplines, or the careers. It is the spaces in between that generate the new knowledge, the new ideas.

The job of translating, of being a multidisciplinarian, is a really important one . . . eliciting participation, hearing from all parts of a team. Because it is context that is paramount, everything depends on context. We need more and more eyes and participation because more interpretations and participation lead to more intelligent organizations.