Expertise... because I'll want something to read later after moving house all day.

[ewt]

What do you consider yourself an expert at? Why?

Studies show that most world-class experts in any field have spent at least 10000 hours working on the related skills. No, I don't have a citation to hand... What have you spent 10000 hours or more learning or practising? That's 3 hours a day for 10 years.

How much overlap is there between these categories?

Do you consider yourself a specialist or a generalist? Why?

Is expertise absolute or relative?

Comments

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

Expert in astrophysics - and I have the certificates to prove it. Probably expert in physics as well. I'd claim that astrophysics is a generalists field since you need to call on a lot of different skills and techniques to get the job done, but some might not see it that way.

I'm probably also an expert in science fiction in some way if your 10000 hour figure is right as I've been reading it in a fairly dedicated way for most of my life. Don't know if this makes me any better at writing the stuff though...

Plenty of overlap between physics and astrophysics, less with SF but more than you might expect, at least from my point of view.

Hope the move is going okay!

[devvie.livejournal.com]

I'm an expert at failure. Why? I prove it all the time.

I've spent 3 hours of time a day in prayer and questioning where I fit into this world, why I exist.

Expertise is always changing in this world so I would have to say it's relative. I'm sure even in music, there is always change...basics start you off but change keeps you fresh and creative.

[bob]

im an expert generalist at the specialism of systems administration.
or i should hope so after 7 years of doing it.

[ksta.livejournal.com]

if that's all it takes, then I'm a piano expert. ha. ha.

[martling.livejournal.com]

I guess I am probably a computing/electronics expert by that metric.

That's a hell of a broad field to be expert in though, so in that sense I would consider myself a generalist.

And I like being a generalist. I think that sort of expertise lends itself better to adaptability.

Expertise is absolute in the sense of "what can you do?", but relative to what others can do in the sense of "what skills do you have that are valuable?"

[wildcelticrose.livejournal.com]

I consider myself a generalist. And given a choice, I'd rather do several things well, than only one thing extraordinarily.

I'd say I'm a good writer (not that you could tell from my typos and raw unedited journal entries) and photographer, and get paid for both. So I'm a professional but am far from being an expert.

I'm very good at my job because I have a knack for investigative work. But I'm in no way an expert. (yet I know enough to teach/train others and give presentations)

Others call me an expert on outdoor activities (I work for the largest outdoor retailer in the world and among them am considered an "expert", it was even my job for a time to advise customers and phone reps on the technical aspects of products)

But you see, I can't consider myself an "expert" in that because technology is always changing and no one (in my opinion) can keep up on those changes unless that's ALL they do.

I'm happy doing a lot of things well and not having to limit my time and energy to just one or two things.

I think life is more interesting that way.

[403.livejournal.com]

Um... I'm an expert student? (Or at least, it's been my primary occupation for the past 18 years..) Being a skilled Learner of Stuff is a huge advantage in most fields - sometimes more important than prior work experience.

Aside from that, I'd probably have to say that I was an expert in literature in general, and science fiction in particular. Not so much writing about it as reading it, though. (This one also exceeds the 3h/day over ten years criteria.)

I consider myself a generalist because there's so much of the world to study, and I'm interested in most of it. If I expected to have a long enough lifespan for it to be practical, I'd study everything and just call myself a "natural scientist" like they did before the knowledge explosion.

Expertise is highly contextual. It's relative to the knowledge and skills of the people you're working with, and the goal you're trying to achieve.

[psych0naut.livejournal.com]

3 hours a day for 10 years? I don't think there's anything I've done for exactly that long. If we count 6 hours a day for 5 years, then put me down as an expert ferret-cuddler. :)

[daneres.livejournal.com]

I worked in a field where the term "expert" was used a lot - a coin and medal auctioneers - where the specialists were often referred to as experts, and based on your definition, they most certainly were. They also fitted my internal definition of "people who know almost all there is to know on the subject of .... coins". Each has their own specialism, be it islamic coins, Renaissance plaquettes or English war medals, but is well versed in the subject as a whole
Myself, I have no desire to be an expert in anything as I crave variety in my life and would rather know a little about a lot of things than a lot about a few things. Some might say I was an expert cook, and as I've spent most of the last couple of days cooking for 40 people for a christening, and am doing the same again for my niece's dedication, there might be enough evidence to either prove or disprove this! I should think I've chalked up enough hours in the kitchen to qualify, but I wouldn't be comfortable with describing myself as an expert.

[gigglingwizard.livejournal.com]

By that measure, I'm an expert in patrolling. My experience is spread over police, Army, and private security patrols, but I've got more than the 10,000 hours just with the police.

Fat lot of good it's doing me as a farmer. :)

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

By that coin I would have to be an expert at surfing the internet, whinging and physics. Not an expert at sewing...at the moment my sleeve skills are really annoying me. But that just put my whinging skill level up some more :D

[self-etcetera.livejournal.com]

I'd say that I'm an expert in protein biochemistry and mass spectrometry. It's taken a long time for me to feel comfortable with the label 'expert' and it is only recently, when people I consider experts have recognised me that I think 'yes to some extent I am an expert.'

As for the generalist or specialist, well yes my subject area is specialist compared to all the vast knowledge and other subjects in the world, but within my little field I'm somewhat of a generalist.

Likewise with absolute or relative. It's only when I realised that I do know much more than most people about my subject that I felt the label 'expert' (SVO) was appropriate - and when other people had been applying it to me. Still, within the subject area I still feel (correctly) to be a bit of a novice - there are some world-class experts out there whose work and knowledge is leagues beyond mine.

[yady.livejournal.com]

I don't consider myself an expert on anything. I consider myself a good cook, but not an expert, and in certain environments I am the one, or one of those, who know(s) most about certain topics (like at school, I'm one of the most computer-savvy people, and I know more than most teachers about AD(H)D and related things. Actually, that brings me to one thing I *am* an expert at: 'being me'. No-one knows better what it's like to be me than I do, and no-one knows better how to deal with the peculiarities that come with being me. But I suppose that goes for everyone.

I suppose I have spent 10000 hours on things related to math and computer science. I am by *no* means an expert on that, though - there are always many people fairly close by who know more about it and/or are better at it.

I have no clue whether I am a specialist or a generalist. A bit of both, probably.

If expertise is relative, then I do classify as an expert in some situations. Defining 'expert' as 'the person available who knows most/can do it best' with regard to a topic (which would make it relative) makes more sense to me than defining it in terms of a number of hours spent, since the time spent may be much more effective for one person than for another, and perhaps in some fields there isn't enough to know to spend that many hours on before you know 'everything' (so even the most knowledgeable person in the world might not qualify as an expert). So, I am leaning towards relative.

[siderea]

It seems pretty obvious that 10k hours may be necessary to world-class expertise, but not sufficient. I've easily far surpassed it with "typing at a keyboard" yet I am manifestly not a world-class typist.

Meanwhile, I would be surprised if there are more than a thousand people on the planet who are more familiar with European dance music 1450-1650AD than I am. It turns out that's an easy thing to become an expert in with access to certain resources, a serious interest in the topic, and some time -- it's a very small field because it's mostly not interesting to most musicians/musicologists. It can happen to you (and most often does) totally by accident. I don't think I got 10k hrs in that field.

Also meanwhile, 10k hrs sounds lowish for world-class expertise to me. I mean, it's an hour and a half a day for 20 years. So we're talking every diligent music student who started a 5 and made it to 25. (Assuming by then you're making up for starting at a 1/2 hr of practice and ramping up.) I mean, I was probably creeping up on 5k hrs at piano when I quit at 15 -- and I stunk. Is every graduating conservatory student a world-class expert?

[skibbley.livejournal.com]

I've also heard the 10 years to good statistic. Not sure how solid it is.
I tend towards multidisciplinary.

[fjm.livejournal.com]

I get called an expert in strangest things--somone today described me as an expert in children's literature, which I find very funny.

I think this is because I *am* an expert at bootstrapping a topic from scratch. I know how to learn, and crucially, I'm very good at asking questions and then summarising things for others. This was first pointed out to me in a seminar when I was 20. I think it's from the schooling I received age 5-11 which was *very* keen on questions. But bootstrapping new subjects is a historian's skill anyway. We have no subject matter of our own.

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

I don't think 10K hours is always a necessary prerequisite or always sufficient to be a world-class expert. As a general guideline it can work well with appropriate specialization and sufficiently sophisticated study habits. As I know all too well, playing a scale 20 times the wrong way won't help me play it right the next, especially if the mistake is the same each time. The students of mine who play best are the ones who practise strategically, not the ones who put the most hours in. Of course, those who practise strategically are also the ones who are less likely to simply give up before the 10K hour mark.

I don't think 10K hours playing an instrument will make most people truly world-class experts even if they do have good practise habits, but 10K hours studying the work of just one composer might.

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

Expertise is absolute in the sense of "what can you do?", but relative to what others can do in the sense of "what skills do you have that are valuable?"

I like this answer.

[martling.livejournal.com]

I think it also highlights different strategies of acquiring and maintaining expertise, i.e. which do you attempt to maximise:

- your relative expertise (e.g. by keeping your knowledge secret)

- your absolute expertise (e.g. by sharing/trading skills)

- the combined absolute or relative expertise of some particular group of people (e.g. by sharing/trading only among those people)

- the combined absolute expertise of the human race (e.g. by sharing as widely as possible)

[keira-online.livejournal.com]

I'm an expert on "myself", something which is very important when dealing with psychiatrists. I also seem to have become an expert on numerous friends...being able to diagnose episodes far quicker than the professionals, and so on. I guess I've worked hard for both, keeping uptodate on current psychiatric research, learning the background, knowing the daemons etc. Its certainly a 24-7 job.

[elmyra.livejournal.com]

I have a documented and audited 6000-odd hours of project management, and that was some time last year, so it's a few more now. I don't really consider myself an expert at it, or anything else for that matter though.