I recently watched the movie "2012" and that was the question that popped up in my head. For those who hasn't watched the movie yet, I recommend it.
Ok, since I am neither a very influential person in my field of work and I don't have the skills to navigate myself through massive earthquake in a car, nor a boss who happens to own a jet, my chance of being selected or forcing my way into the ark seems small, but what about the others?
In the scenario described in the movie (or the bible, whichever you prefer), there will be a massive destruction of the world and the only "thing" that is meant to survive is Noah's Ark along with whatever it manages to carry onboard. In the bible version, Noah took along all possible animal species (one male and one female) and plant seeds, and whoever who believed in his doom talk. Well, the world was a lot simpler back then. In a world as complicated as today, what else do we need?
Instead of just having Noah's family we may have to have representatives from all countries and races in the world, there are also far more species and books to carry, along with more tools and machines (Solar power I hope) that will speed up the rebuilding process. Of course there will now be books (or maybe ebook as they are far easier to carry) and art. There will also be a number of professionals each with expertise in their own field to either maintain the Ark during the waiting period and to direct the rebuilding process (Luckily the Ark in 2012 is far bigger than the one of Noah's). So what kinds of professionals do we need?
To name a few, we need farmers who can sustain the food supply, doctors to care for the sick, probably pharmacists to go along. Police to enforce order, but not much need for lawyer at this point. A bunch of renewable energy specialists would be good to quickly bring the power grid back up. Along with some telecom workers to bring up the corresponding telecom system. Without any of these there will be no need for IT specialists.
Though I think some people in the field of IT will need to be around in order to recreate the world, but not all field of IT is needed. If we are to look at all the softwares, hardwares that are designed and implemented today, 99.99% of them can easily be let go and we won't ever have to feel bad about it. It may even be a better idea to start from scratch. The rest can be stored in a revision control system, so specialists in that field would be good, to go along with some DBA. Now, to recreate all the bad hardwares and softwares that was let go, we need architects (the good ones of course, but that's not easy to define) who can direct the recreation once the rebuilding process starts. It would be nice to bring some business analysts to help defining the new batch of software so that they will be meeting the demands of the new world.
On the other hand, it is most likely that the general programmers will be waving the ark goodbye in tears as it is much lower cost to bring programming books. I am also not sure if we will need project managers as the space in the ark is precious (There can be an endless debate on that). As for the "luxury" systems that are good to have, how about all the BI, CRM, Sharepoint, Mobile App developers? Though I am a BI/CRM developer myself I really can't see the world to prioritize us.
So for us BI/CRM consultants who believe in the end of the world and would like to join the Ark, time to switch :)
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