There appears to be trend that shows greater acceptance  in the fact people may not only be multi-skilled but also multi-rolled. In the  Renaissance  period such a concept would have been termed as a polymath. Someone who is good at doing many  things, recently the  “ jack of all trades” was the  common phrase.

The developing term now appears  to  be a ‘/’  (slash) person. i.e. “meet Dave  he is a mechanic-slash- painter- slash- singer.”

In recent years, life-time careers were spent in a single role or at a single company, but the pace at which the global economy has developed since the 1960’s had  driven some very large socioeconomic changes. Many of us now have multiple skills and roles.

The Internet is proving to be a great enabler  in allowing the individual  to capitalize on their  ‘/’ talent and expose that to a broader audience. But there is also a downside, many of the online  social networking or profiling sites still link you to a single role or  worse  still   amalgamate those  those roles into a single  profile and potentially divulge skills  that you may not wish to share.

We need to see further developments in managing  online identities,  personas and roles, where  we have the ability to control  which skills from which roles  we  wish to share.