11–20 of 37 posts
Four stages of competence[1]: * Unconscious Incompetence: The individual neither understands nor knows how to do something, nor recognizes the deficit, nor has a desire to address it. * Conscious Incompetence: Though the individual does not understand or know how to do something, he or she does recognize the deficit, without yet addressing it. * Conscious Competence: The individual understands or knows how to do some…
An expert is someone who is sought out by others for their skill and paid well for it.
Or 'sought out' and 'paid well' has a more restrictive meaning for you than for the thousands of big businesses that spend tons of money on IT Consultants.
"Researchers (Bloom (1985), Bryan & Harter (1899), Hayes (1989), Simmon & Chase (1973)) have shown it takes about ten years to develop expertise in any of a wide variety of areas, including chess playing, music composition, telegraph operation, painting, piano playing, swimming, tennis, and research in neuropsychology and topology. The key is deliberative practice: not just doing it again and again, but challenging yourself with a task that is just beyond your current ability, trying it, analyzing your performance while and after doing it, and correcting any mistakes. Then repeat. And repeat again."
It's not a black and white thing; there are varying levels of expertise. The more people there are that think you're an expert, the more of an expert you are.
By the time you know a shitload in details and depth of some subject, you also know another shitload of related things that you know you do not know yet, so you still keep considering yourself a half-newbie. And because you're interested in things you don't know, you rarely talk about the subject with people who know less than you, which distorts your field of vision.
Indirectly, perhaps you could consider it a sign of an "expert" to have been so alienated from what is generally considered normal that people label you as a geek.
But then again, you can never declare yourself an expert or you're just selling to be something you aren't.
An expert is someone who is sought out by others for their skill and paid well for it.
Four stages of competence[1]: * Unconscious Incompetence: The individual neither understands nor knows how to do something, nor recognizes the deficit, nor has a desire to address it. * Conscious Incompetence: Though the individual does not understand or know how to do something, he or she does recognize the deficit, without yet addressing it. * Conscious Competence: The individual understands or knows how to do some…
If asked... I feel I can't answer. If interviewed I'll probably fail. Yet I also find that when put in front of a problem the solution just presents itself.
What's weird about this is that in feeling I know so little about things that I've 15 years experience in, I feel like I need to learn. So I expose myself to all opportunities to learn only to find that all tell me what I feel is evident and obvious.
This is close to what I take to be the meaning of "forgotten more than I've ever learned".
Whether this makes me an expert is debatable, I'd say no. I'd say that there was a re-learning stage after the last stage in which you acquire the means to understand deeply and to be able to communicate and pass on those skills. I'd say that an expert is someone who can pass on their skills, someone who can mentor others.
(I also find it uncomfortable writing a post implying I know anything)