Memexer by request

Unbelievably, today I have had *two* people actually ask me to blog about stuff I've said on twitter. This is akin to saying 'that's very interesting' to a lawyer - you shouldn't do it, because they WILL TELL YOU MORE. And nobody wants that.

With that in mind...

The question of job titles for knowledge workers came up today. Everyone in (or near) the field know that this is sticky territory. The titles themselves are often meaningless, or so industry-specific/ambiguous you can't say what you do at a dinner party without sounding ridiculous. The language, sub-sets, actual fields of practice, they're all very amorphous both within and outside the knowledge worker community - about the only widely recognised job title in the bunch is 'librarian', and there aren't that many of them. It's useful in some ways, but there is enough ambiguity that charlatans (hello, 'social media experts') can creep into the system without raising any red flags. What is it, exactly, that we do? What is it called? What's the difference between my job and your job?

An analogy: Chronic fatigue syndrome.

There's definitely something going on with CFS. There are really real people who have terrible symptoms of constant fatigue ('syndrome' being 'a collection of symptoms'), who have been told by their Doctors that they have CFS. The thing the doctors call CFS can be life destroying.

...and then there are these other people who say they have CFS, some of whom have been diagnosed by doctors, others not so much, who are basically fine.

Here's my little point - no-one knows what CFS actually is.

Here's my big point - no-one knows how many things CFS actually is.

CFS is currently used as a blanket term for what is emerging as a whole spectrum of disorders. We have to use it as a definition, because there's no other more meaningful set of definitions available.

Talking about CFS under the current definition is like talking about 'headache', and assuming that 'headache' is a sufficiently good term to cover 'headache', 'migraine', 'hangover', 'brain cancer', and 'stroke'. But it isn't, which is why we have the terms 'headache', 'migraine', 'hangover', 'brain cancer', and 'stroke'. (Yes I know most brain cancers and strokes don't hurt, that's part of my point. Did you know there are no pain-receptor nerves in the brain? Surgery for Parkinsons is done under a local. Amazing. I digress.)

Here's what the NHS has to say about CFS:

Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) causes long-term tiredness (fatigue) that affects everyday life. It does not go away with sleep or rest.

CFS is also known as ME, which stands for myalgic encephalomyelitis. Myalgia means muscle pain and encephalomyelitis means inflammation of the brain and spinal cord. Both terms are commonly used.

There is no cure for CFS, so treatment tends to focus on easing the symptoms. These include muscle pain and headaches.

http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/chronic-fatigue-syndrome/pages/introduction.aspx

Ambiguous, no?

That stretches from 'I get tired more and faster than other people' to 'I'm lazy but I'm down with blaming that on something other than myself' to 'I can't get out of my bed' (follow @stroopwaffle for someone facing this circumstance with dignity).

Clearly these people have different things going on. Clearly, some of them are suffering terribly, some a little, and some are self-deluding.But they all carry the same name. They all have - or say they have - CFS.

That means there's something wrong with the term 'CFS'.

But as of right now, the term CFS (along with it's sister-diagnosis ME) is still the best we have. And until something better comes along, it's still useful. For describing true sufferers, it's better than 'lazy', 'tired all the time', and 'sick', which are the only other options on the table.

We're finding out more about the conditions currently aggregated as CFS all the time - and the more we find out, the more it will get broken into useable, recognisable, identifiable chunks, things sufferers, doctors, and the public can understand and communicate with each other about. The better the definitions, the easier it will be to explain (not cure, unfortunately) and the less wiggle-room will be available for the charlatans.

The same goes for job titles when you're a knowledge worker. There's only one real difference: we don't have doctors. Doctors are experts in their field. We're the experts in our field. We're the doctors.

Knowledge work is not well-defined yet, and it's facets haven't been teased out. But if anyone is going to define us, if anyone is going to identify and communicate the different things that we are, it's probably going to be us.