Expertiness
Nassim Taleb defines two kinds of experts in "The Black Swan." Taleb's distinctions are based on research by James Shanteau.
1. Experts who tend to be experts: these include surgeons, car mechanics, and livestock judges.
2. Experts who tend to be not experts: these include clinical psychologists, economists, and intelligence analysts.
The members of group one have demonstrable technical skill and knowledge which can easily be assessed by how well they accomplish their jobs. Group one members are bona fide experts. The members of group two are generally involved in interpreting a lot of soft data and making judgments about things which they may or may not be held directly accountable, and for which there is no particularly accurate or agreed upon yardstick by which to measure the utility of their conclusions. They are not experts, but rather exhibit the quality of being "expert-y."
Expertiness. It's like Colbert's truthiness.
A couple of days ago, I got a call from the indefatigable folks at the Theatre Communications Group. It seems that in a fit of web-based form filling and coffee-driven hubris, I had proposed a breakout session on social media for the TCG National Conference coming up in June, and they were calling my bluff.
I got pretty excited. I also tried (gently) to talk them out of having me present on the subject, explaining that I'm certain there are people out there who know more about the subject than I do - in fact, considerably more. But the nice woman from TCG on the phone persisted and I acquiesced, and now I'm about 95% sure that I'm going to be standing in front of a bunch of my peers and betters trying to deliver some kind of valuable knowledge that I might have by then about Twitter, and Facebook, and Ping and Tweetdeck and whatever else might be the iHotcake factory of the minute when June rolls around.
I'm afraid that in regard to the TCG Conference, I fall into Group 2 - I'm not an expert, I'm "expert-y" - like most members of the philanthropic-consultant industrial complex. I'll try to provide accurate and useful facts and conclusions that are less misleading than not, but in the end, no one is going to hold me to much account if what I say doesn't produce immediate and quantifiable results.
What I'll be delivering is a shipment of expertiness.
I like to stay abreast of the up-and-coming leadership of the nonprofit arts universe, and the younger members of the nonprofit sector in general. I've seen some budding leaders emerge, and I've hired some consultants that are younger than me (for those of you who are counting, those are people born after late 1974.) These are smart, dedicated people, many of whom will become the real next generation of leaders in the field.
I reckon this crowd (which includes me) needs some guidance and good ideas and that kind of jocular-yet-incisive shot in the arm we get from hiring consultants and attending breakout sessions. And I suppose we're asking people to believe that we might also be able to provide some in turn. But in our age of easy-access-to-soap-box and imploding taxonomy, let's keep one foot on the ground and listen to someone who really does have useful answers: your HVAC guy.
1. Experts who tend to be experts: these include surgeons, car mechanics, and livestock judges.
2. Experts who tend to be not experts: these include clinical psychologists, economists, and intelligence analysts.
The members of group one have demonstrable technical skill and knowledge which can easily be assessed by how well they accomplish their jobs. Group one members are bona fide experts. The members of group two are generally involved in interpreting a lot of soft data and making judgments about things which they may or may not be held directly accountable, and for which there is no particularly accurate or agreed upon yardstick by which to measure the utility of their conclusions. They are not experts, but rather exhibit the quality of being "expert-y."
Expertiness. It's like Colbert's truthiness.
A couple of days ago, I got a call from the indefatigable folks at the Theatre Communications Group. It seems that in a fit of web-based form filling and coffee-driven hubris, I had proposed a breakout session on social media for the TCG National Conference coming up in June, and they were calling my bluff.
I got pretty excited. I also tried (gently) to talk them out of having me present on the subject, explaining that I'm certain there are people out there who know more about the subject than I do - in fact, considerably more. But the nice woman from TCG on the phone persisted and I acquiesced, and now I'm about 95% sure that I'm going to be standing in front of a bunch of my peers and betters trying to deliver some kind of valuable knowledge that I might have by then about Twitter, and Facebook, and Ping and Tweetdeck and whatever else might be the iHotcake factory of the minute when June rolls around.
I'm afraid that in regard to the TCG Conference, I fall into Group 2 - I'm not an expert, I'm "expert-y" - like most members of the philanthropic-consultant industrial complex. I'll try to provide accurate and useful facts and conclusions that are less misleading than not, but in the end, no one is going to hold me to much account if what I say doesn't produce immediate and quantifiable results.
What I'll be delivering is a shipment of expertiness.
I like to stay abreast of the up-and-coming leadership of the nonprofit arts universe, and the younger members of the nonprofit sector in general. I've seen some budding leaders emerge, and I've hired some consultants that are younger than me (for those of you who are counting, those are people born after late 1974.) These are smart, dedicated people, many of whom will become the real next generation of leaders in the field.
I reckon this crowd (which includes me) needs some guidance and good ideas and that kind of jocular-yet-incisive shot in the arm we get from hiring consultants and attending breakout sessions. And I suppose we're asking people to believe that we might also be able to provide some in turn. But in our age of easy-access-to-soap-box and imploding taxonomy, let's keep one foot on the ground and listen to someone who really does have useful answers: your HVAC guy.
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