No, they are not superstars, or all-knowing super-powerful CEOs poised to control the world. Although one reader, and letter writer, thought that’s what I meant in my latest IEEE Software editorial titled The seven traits of superprofessionals.

The letter writer states that he has been researching the reasons of  the recent economic crisis and states that he’s found a strong indicator of what kind of management behavior the future requires. Apparently, it’s not exactly what my editorial describes (never mind that my editorial was not about management behavior at all). The letter writer attaches to the term “superprofessionalism” — which I coined to describe a set of behavioral traits that represent a sort of high-order professional conduct — the same connotation as the false, shallow stardom associated with the kind of people featured in reality TV series like Supermodel, The Apprentice, or  The Bachelor.  (As a synopsis, the traits mentioned in the editorial are: focus on individual responsibility, acute awareness, brutal honesty, heightened sense of fairness, resilience under pressure, attention to detail in perspective, and pragmatism first). He alleges that those kinds of media programs and my article represent the last dying attempts to revive an old-economy thinking in which all-knowing individuals hold and dispense all power. He adds that my article advocates individual and central decision making at the expense of group decision making, and is counter to holistic team behavior and denies the emergence of information and collective intelligence from decentralized interactions in social networks. But the best stretch is when he puts the blame for the current economic crisis on the kind of thinking my writing encourages, like, say brutal honesty (he picks on this trait in particular, stating that it’s socially unacceptable).

Oh? Interesting perspective, although it completely beats me how any of that can be inferred from my editorial. If it could, that perspective would represent a truly curious internal paradox given my links to the the agile software development community, and in light of my previous column on The role of diversity in software development.  But one can never underestimate the intellectual depth of those who can with great facility read the sub-sub-subtext between the lines. Honestly, can anyone detect any nuances in that writing,  implanted with the idea to recreate or preserve old-world power? And me at the center of the conspiracy?

Cheers