Experience is Earned, Expertise is Granted

This title is meant to be a little provocative, and some may disagree with it, but I've been thinking about this topic quite a bit recently. First of all, I want to say thank you to Ryan Arsenault and the folks over at uTest for showcasing me in their first "Ask the Expert" blog entry. The questions I was asked centered around career choices for testers and ways that we can succeed, or at least do better than we are now.

I cannot help it, part of me feels very strange using the word "expert" to describe myself at anything. I'm happy to use words like experienced, educated, practiced or even proficient, but "expert" carries a strange weight to it. It's so subjective, and it feels like, once you've been branded one, that there's only one way to go from there, and that's down. Moreover, I don't really believe there is such a thing as an "expert", because that implies that that person has learned all there is to learn and has mastered all there is to master... and that's just fundamentally wrong on so many levels.

I've come to realize that we all own our experiences, and that we all have opportunities to learn from our successes and our mistakes (oh, how much I have learned from my mistakes). This is why I have no problems talking about my experiences or my observations. They are mine, and as such, are certainly open to interpretation, or debate, or scrutiny, or even outright ridicule at times, but they are wholly mine. Expertise, however, is a judgment call. I personally have very little trust in people who proclaim themselves to be "experts" at anything. However, I place a lot of credence on other people who tell me that someone is an expert. Why? because they are witnesses to the skill, acumen and judgment being displayed, and they can then decide if the term "expert" makes sense.

It also often comes down to "expert compared to who?" I have many interests, and things that I spend a lot of time getting into. When I tell people I was a competitive snowboarder for several years, it conjures up an image in their minds; I must be an expert snowboarder. They may even watch me ride, and come to that conclusion because of the technique I can muster and the terrain I can ride on. Yet put me alongside other riders I used to compete with, and any questions of my so called "expert" level goes right out the window. That doesn't take away from what I have learned, the events I've participated in and the medals I won, but to use those hallmarks to say I am an "expert" is, in my mind, misleading. Still, to others who have never raced, or are newcomers to the sport, to them I am an expert, insomuch as I can show or teach them things that they do not know.

Again, I thank uTest for giving me an opportunity to share my experiences, and I am honored to be part of their "Expert" panel. I don't know if I deserve the moniker, but they seem to think so, and so do their readers, and ultimately, I guess that just means it's up to me from here on out to either prove them right, or prove them wrong. Here's hoping my actions and efforts do more to strengthen the belief in the former, rather than proving the latter ;).