Polymaty is the wisdom that encompasses knowledge about various fields of science, art or the humanities. A polymath, is an individual who has knowledge covering various disciplines.
Polymatics (from the Greek πολυμαθία, learning a lot -from μανθάνω, learning and πολύ a lot-) is the wisdom that covers knowledge about diverse fields of science, art or the humanities. A polymath (in Greek: πολυμαθής), is an individual who possesses knowledge that encompasses various disciplines.
Polymaths will be the most demanded professionals in the new digital era
Deusto Business School and the company of innovation 3Mhan presented a report aimed at deepening in the importance of a phenomenon that took the human being to its highest levels during the Renaissance and that already shows a key piece in the digital era: polymaty . Polymaty is the ability to achieve excellence in two or more areas of knowledge belonging to different expressions of human genius, with a combination of structures that can come from fields as diverse as the arts, sciences, business, sports, technology or the humanities.
Technology alone does not advance the world but its adaptation to the lives of people. This key step does not depend on engineers or programmers, but on a new professional profile that resembles that of the great Leonardo: that of polymaths or people capable of mastering two or three divergent knowledge. Great changes are coming.
1. Science & Humanities
The recognition of this new professional profile arises from the report “Innovation requires a deepening of the so-called <Medici effect>”, published by Deusto Business School. It explains that the last years of the twentieth century saw polymaths appear as Steve Jobs or Elon Musk, who owe their success to their passion for design, technology and science together with their entrepreneurial skills. “If we look at the career of the great popes of Silicon Valley, we see how they coincide in the desire to explore opportunities at the hand of technological evolution without sticking to a specific sector,” says innovaspain.com. Musk himself – Physicist and economist – talks about taking us to Mars while revolutionizing the automotive industry. ”
Many philosophers of antiquity were polymaths, says cincodias.com, as well as many of the most relevant people of the Renaissance, and especially Leonardo da Vinci, the best known of all. People who dominated various fields of science and the arts. Today, polímata is a professional with technical and humanistic knowledge (or business or scientific), a flexible mind and the ability to provide creative solutions. In the labor market, engineers or programmers with the capacity to understand the needs of the company and its clients are already being demanded, to solve complex problems, with critical thinking and negotiating skills, among others.
Questioning reality, connecting knowledge, restlessness to learn are the new values on the rise. Favored by the universal access to the knowledge platform that is Internet, with its multiple learning formats and the MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) taught by professors and top level experts. Regulated education will have to end the traditional dichotomy sciences / letters, and focus on hybrid specialization or the mastery of several converging specialties. And towards the interconnectivity of the two areas of the brain, the creative and the logical, to stimulate a creative mind.
“Polimatía is the ability to achieve excellence in two or more areas of knowledge,” observes observatoriorh.com, “belonging to different expressions of human genius, with a combination of structures that can come from fields as diverse as the arts, sciences, business, sports, technology or the humanities. ” And the digital economy is a great driver -like the Renaissance at the time- of great polymaths.
2. Hybrid companies
3M – also according to observatoriorh.com -, is the first company to publish a study on polymatics from its own experience, which concludes: “The specialists have contributed to 3M the most influential innovations; the generalists have generated new ideas and patents; and the polymaths have contributed not only generating innovation, but also applying these inventions to different areas of the organization, integrating them with different technologies and thus becoming the most valuable scientists of the company “.
Techcrunch.com, in its analysis on the subject, advances that the sectoral barriers between technological entrepreneurial companies are blurring: innovation emerges at its intersections. This is what is known as the “Medici effect”, since this Renaissance family supported the connection between researchers, artists and thinkers, creating new disciplines. “We return to the Medici effect because
, connected and related, these disciplines make us stronger – he states in his article innovaspain.com-. Disciplines such as Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, Automation or the Internet of Things, with Philosophy, Law, Management, Sociology or Art, able to explore new ‘blue oceans’. “Companies must start to consider a structural change, in which technicians , managers, designers …, or groups of experts, collaborate in search of multidisciplinary solutions. A polymath profile can be the key to the flow of dialogue and innovation among them: professionals with a good technical level and a solid humanistic base. Joan Clotet, Digital Humanist, is a good contemporary example of this profile.