I’ve seen the word “expert” tossed around a lot lately. It seems to be one of the biggest deals pretty much since ever to have an “expert” visit your blog (something I still don’t understand fully) and write a guest entry. From what I can tell, this person sends you a load of tripe, you post it on your blog, then tell everyone that you are being visited by the online ghost of some corporate guru, marketing maestro, or writing deva. This term keeps popping up on Twitter as people try to get me to follow their links to read what other people have to say about whatever their blog is about. Why they don’t just link to that “expert’s” blog and save us all a step, I’ll never know.
I’m already getting off topic, though. Right now I’m trying to figure out how one becomes an expert. To me, the term calls to mind Highlander in a can-be-only-one sense and I think it should always be accompanied by the as in “the expert on” whatever… bathtub flatulence or something. I don’t think this is the rule, though, because there seem to be a crap-ton of experts on viral marketing your book or the promoting your self-published foot-photo coffee table topper. Most of these people, I’ve noticed, don’t really even have that great of a resume to support their elite status. A lot of them just have their own blog. Personally, I think it should be a bit harder to earn the title of expert on something and it should probably involve a point system where you save your score using a 3 digit name. You’ll be tempted just to use your initials, but it’s cooler if you make it into an abbreviated curse word or scatological term.
There are very few areas that I would even consider myself to be close in… actually… I can’t really think of any. I’m a go-to guy for Star Wars, Pokemon, myth, and Marvel Comics trivia, but I wouldn’t dare give myself the title of expert. The closest I’ve ever come to holding the position was when I was 13 and it was on dinosaurs.
However, I think it’s my new goal – become an expert, that is. The best path I can figure right now is that of the Doctoral Degree… so here goes. I’ve been meeting with program advisors to plot the course for the next 6 years of my life as I seek my PhuD (as it is colloquially known in some parts of Arkansas). So now my task is to spend the summer proposing to an unknown collective of suits a research/creative topic that will one day be my expertise. I'm more than a little intimidated by this mostly because I really want it to be something awesome. That way, when I do write a guest blog, it will be as THE expert on... um... teaching children how to gain super powers through self-induced microwave radiation treatments. Yeah, that sounds good.
1 comment:
You're right about the whole expert thing. It doesn't make sense to have umpteen million experts on whatever, but I think the whole point of these self proclaimed experts on marketing is shameless self promotion. If you call yourself an expert enough times, people will start to believe it. It's kind of like a Jedi mind trick.
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