The Myth of the Expert

Second semester of my junior year in high-school had started and I was fairly eager to return to classes and not do the homework that was assigned to me. My last class of the day was a math course, pre-calculus if I remember correctly. I sat next to my friends and we began talking when the teacher walked in and wrote this on the board, “mean what you say and say what you mean”. He then turned to the class, told us to take out a piece of paper and write about what this meant. I looked up and began questioning his sanity… What in the world did this have to do with math?!?

He told us that we would need to be able to express, clearly, the ideas and concepts that we had to in our lives. That understanding the meaning behind that phrase would help us to better ourselves. However, that he would help us to understand this through math. The remainder of the course turned out to be great and we didn’t talk much about this, but I would always attempt to tie what we learned back into it.

It struck a chord with me. Now, I can thank him for presenting the question. I’ve had to deal with a handful of very sticky situations that require the truth and brevity.

With this in mind, how does one manage being truthful and concise while doing something such as marketing or advertising? Both of these professions tend to lead to the twisting of words such that new and hidden meaning is applied. So, how can, in good conscience, people do these professions if they follow the rule of “mean what you say and say what you mean”?

Ultimately everything comes down to marketing and advertising does it not? If I have a task that I need done, I have to market the task to the person(s) doing it such that they feel an important role in the success of the task. If I have to mow the lawn, I can sell the idea to the neighborhood kid such that they can make a quick buck. But, how do I go about doing this? It’s easy enough to say, “Hey kid, you want to make a couple bucks”. However, I’ll likely have to make a second pass at some point because it has a higher chance of being done poorly.

If I now turn that into something like, “I’m looking for an expert grass cutter. Are you that someone”. The kid can take some pride in what s/he is now doing. Plus, they will make a buck and likely make more for doing a great job. But, does this really make them an expert landscaper? No. In fact, it would be absurd to say such a thing.

This being the case, I’m beginning to wonder why in the world we have so many “experts” in any field. Surely Einstein was an expert in his field, but what about the rest of us that are in the back 95% of the bell curve? Can we truly call ourselves experts? The obvious answer is no.

I remember when I graduated from college fully believing that I was a programmer extraordinaire. Man, I was good…I’m tellin’ you. In fact, I was one of those 5% in the world. Once I got into the “real world”, I realized that I’m probably at about 50%…and that is likely pushing it. But, I am expected to market myself in such a way that I portray an expert. I’ve always been confused by this.

Don’t get me wrong, I love coding. I love diving into a problem and coming out on top. But, that sure does not prove me to be an expert. I’m not sure whether it is a fad. that people have attached themselves to or whether it is just something that H.R. people eat up, but it seems to happen far too often. As a hint, when interviewing, don’t tell me you are an expert unless you are ready to prove it.

Be honest and upfront with what you know how to do, and be modest with what you do not. The vast majority of us are not experts by any stretch of the imagination and while you may fool someone into hiring you, there is a high likelihood that you’ll be asked to do something out of your ability. Modesty would have served you well in that case.

In addition to people needing to understand that overstating their abilities is taboo, people making judgment calls need to stop jaw-dropping over the ultimate. There are very few around and you are unlikely to see that resume. Provide a more granular view of the information they are providing to you so that you can assess the true validity of said “expert”.

What are your thoughts? Are experts overrated? Is there a myth? Am I just part of the inept 5% way to the left of the bell curve? Throw it at me. I’m curious to know what you think.

A Process for Web Application Development

A friend and I were sitting at lunch one day discussing web application development. He was talking about the models that a number of these “fresh ideas” start with, “it needs to make money”. His notion was that this is the wrong approach. His point was that you should build an application that you would want to use, and then let your users drive a number of your features. You can find his post at Offbrand Turnips. What I believe is that his fundamental idea is right.

So many new ventures fall into the trap of wanting to make money or be the next big social thing or get into advertising that they forget to produce a quality product. As my friend says, “Most of the new wave of Web 2.0 apps are just social media spinoffs waiting to be bought out rather than building apps…” What is the point of making an application that doesn’t work. Sure any press is “good” press, but what about the users that expect your product to work? Thus, the idea is that while you need to make sure that you have a sound business idea, don’t jump the gun on wanting to make a profit or blowing your cash on marketing gimmicks. Make sure that you have a good sound product first. Make sure that your application can stand on two feet before sending it off to “fight the Persians”.

So how does one, or a small team, do this? Easy. Prototype your product. Put it into a closed alpha/beta. Generate feedback. Rework the application. Expand the beta or even do an open beta. More feedback. Rework once again. Then launch. By this point you have accomplished a couple of things. You’ve delved into viral marketing, you have some branding, and you have a userbase. If people come back for your expanded beta then you have a pretty good idea that your product has something to it. If not, time to hit the whiteboard.

This is the way I look at it. We developers view software development from a couple of perspectives. There is first the waterfall school of thought and then the agile school of thought. I’m a fan of agility. Thus, I feel it’s appropriate for many parts of a company, including product launches. If you look at the steps above as sprints then you involve people in fast paced ever changing iterations where they feel that their contributions are being taken seriously. When that happens, people will stick around to see what the next chosen feature is that will be released. Your clients, aka users, will be able to tell you what they like and dislike about how you do things. And, by working in these sprints they will see results almost immediately.

So, by the end of this post my goal was to point out that monetizing your product is not the most important thing when creating a web application. Making sure it works and that it is something you’d like to use is equally, if not more, important. Without the product, you get to monetize nothing. And, paying huge advertizing campaigns can be a waste with the social media market. Thus, closed betas are likely more productive in attracting the “easly-adopter” crowd. Once you have users and some feedback you can rollout your pay-for products/features and begin to pull in some revenue.