I agree with your points, Irina, particularly the 10,000 hours needed to learn a skill of any consequence. What concerns me today is how many people believe in the multitude of skills. Since the early eighties, companies have encouraged multitasking/multiskill as a way of reducing costs (no secretaries, no mail room, no printers, etc.). We all bought into this, especially with computers (I worked in offices before computers for 15 of my 38 years). My problem is: I’m seeing too many people today taking pride in their number of skills, yet not having any one proficient skill. Copywriters today, for instance, know all the programs, all sorts of things they can do in Acrobat, yet they can’t write a simple strategy (or understand how to find a product’s real point of interest (what differentiates it from others; what makes it most saleable). I’m seeing a new Apple campaign that everyone calls “brilliant.” The production values are amazing, but there’s no “idea.” Nobody knows how to sell with words anymore (I mean persuade). I’m not against different interests, different disciplines, different hobbies. I just wish I could find people who are actually “skilled.”