How to Be an Expert I. Background information about the

How to Be an Expert
    Hi, everyone. I’ve been thinking lately, what makes someone an "expert" in his or her field, which is also the topic of today’s lecture. As far as I know, Lorelle has been thinking the same thing, because she recently wrote a post called What Gives You the Right to Tell Me? at the Blog Herald that explores the issue of expertise in some depth.
    For me, this question started to occur to me when I was invited to speak at an academic conference on anthropology recently. Apparently, I have become an expert on the topic, someone people look to when they want more information.
    How did that happen? This is not a topic I studied at school or the subject of my dissertation; in fact, it wasn’t even really a topic at all until the US Army released their new counterinsurgency field manual last year and started for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Thinking about how I came to be a "go-to" person on this topic has gotten me thinking about how anyone becomes the person to call when you need help, about how people become experts in their field. In fact, anyone who thinks they have learned everything there is to know about a topic probably isn’t an expert—I’d call them something closer to "rank amateur".
    Let’s start with this question: What’s an expert? While knowledge is obviously an important quality of expertise, it’s only one of several factors that make someone an expert in their field. I’ve come up with five characteristics of real experts: knowledge, experience, communication ability, connectedness and curiosity. Now let’s come to them respectively in detail.
    Clearly being an expert requires an immense working knowledge of your subject. Part of this is memorized information, and part of it is knowing where to find information you haven’t memorized.
    In addition to knowledge, an expert needs to have significant experience working with that knowledge. He or she needs to be able to apply it in creative ways, to be able to solve problems that have no pre-existing solutions they can look up—and to identify problems that nobody else has noticed yet.
    Expertise without the ability to communicate it is practically pointless. Being the only person in the world who can solve a problem, time after time after time, doesn’t make you an expert, it makes you a slave to the problem. It might make you a living, but it’s not going to give you much time to develop your expertise—meaning sooner or later, someone with knowledge and communication ability is going to figure out your secret, teach it to the world, and leave you to the dustbin of history.
    Expertise is, ultimately, social. Experts are embedded in a web of other exper|s who exchange new ideas and approaches to problems, and they are embedded in a wider social web that connects them to people who need their expertise.
    Experts are curious about their field and recognize the limitations of their own understanding of it. They are constantly seeking new answers, new approaches, and new ways of extending their field.
    Then, let’s move on to this topic: How to become an expert? Sometimes becoming an expert just kind of happens, which is how I became an expert in anthropology and counterinsurgency without really trying. But most of the time, we carefully pursue expertise, whether through schooling, self-education, on-the-job training, or some other avenue. There’s no "quick and easy" path to expertise. That said, people do become experts every day, in all sorts of fields. You become an expert by focusing on these things:
    Firstly, that is perpetual learning. Being an expert means being aware, sometimes painfully aware, of the limitations of your current level of knowledge. There simply is no point as which you’re "done" learning your field. Invest yourself in a lifelong learning process. Constantly be on the lookout for ideas and views both within and from outside your own field that can extend your own understanding.
    Then, build strong connections with other people in your field. Seek out mentors—and make yourself available to the less experienced. Also, learn to promote yourself to the people who need your skills—the only way you’ll gain experience is by getting out and doing, which is what’s we called networking.
    Furthermore, not just in the "gain experience" sense but in your the "practice what you preach" sense. You wouldn’t trust a personal organizer who always forgot your appointments, or a search engine optimization expert whose site was listed on the 438th results page in Google, right? Your daily practice needs to reflect your expertise, or people will not trust you as an expert. So, practice is necessary.
    The fourth thing is presentation skills: Learn to use whatever technologies you need to present your expertise in the best possible way. And by "technologies" I don’t just mean web design and PowerPoint, I mean writing, drawing, public speaking—even the way you dress will determine whether you’re taken for an expert or a know-it-all schmuck.
    Lastly, remember to share: 10 years ago, nobody knew they needed expert bloggers on their staff to promote themselves. 5 years ago, nobody knew they needed SEO experts to get attention for their websites. A handful of early experts—experts that, in some cases, didn’t even know what they were experts in—shared enough of what they knew to make people understand why they needed experts. Share your knowledge widely, so that people understand why they need an expert, and you don’t become a one-trick pony who is the only person who can fix a particular problem.
    To sum up briefly, we’ve discussed what an expert is and how to become one. Hope all of you have enjoyed this lecture. Thank you.