To me this is the crux of the breadth/depth issue. Matt Might deftly distills the problem in his visual description of a PhD program [1]. The SEALs getting Osama, or knowing what the company Path does, or seeing Christopher Hitchens and William F. Buckley sit down together [2] won't affect most people's daily lives, but for someone working in the intelligence, startup, or political criticism arenas, respectively, missing these events could potentially be career suicide.
I struggle with this a lot, as active filtering takes work [3] (and I'm clearly not the only one [4]). Curated news aggregators and preferential browsing suggestion (StumbleUpon) try to address the problem. Mostly I think it's a matter of dedication and of degrees. To what extent do you maintain a laser focus (but are boring to hang out with) versus being a worldly-wise life-of-the-party type (but spread to thin to innovate on any one thing)?
I struggle with this a lot, as active filtering takes work [3] (and I'm clearly not the only one [4]). Curated news aggregators and preferential browsing suggestion (StumbleUpon) try to address the problem. Mostly I think it's a matter of dedication and of degrees. To what extent do you maintain a laser focus (but are boring to hang out with) versus being a worldly-wise life-of-the-party type (but spread to thin to innovate on any one thing)?
[1]: http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/ [2]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0LR2mxqMNM [3]: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3470282 [4]: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3602407