What Makes Me an Expert
Failure is the mother of success
Assaf just published his expert opinion on the nature of experts. Since I DO consider myself an expert in few areas, I feel that I have to explain what makes me an expert. It’s not the amount of reading (there’s always one more book) or opinions I’ve heard (where I’m coming from everyone is highly opinionated and has more than one opinion). It’s not the amount of studies I had (it took my wife less time to complete her DVM then it took me to get my B.sc). What makes me, as well as many others, an expert is the fact that I did many good mistakes and learned a lot a long the process. Thomas Edison once said, “I make more mistakes than anyone I know. And eventually I patent them.”
Experts 
will tell you that we tend to learn more from our mistakes than from our successes. At our best, we turn mistakes to our advantage. Fast Company analyzes Google success. Checkout rule number 3:
Failures Are Good. Good Failures Are Better.
In the search business, failure is inevitable. It comes with the territory. A Web search, even Google’s, doesn’t always give you exactly what you want. It is imperfect, and that imperfection both allows and requires failure. Failure is good.
But good failures are even better. Good failures have two defining characteristics. First, says Urs Holzle, “you know why you failed, and you have something you can apply to the next project.” When Google experimented with thumbnail pictures of actual Web pages next to results, it saw the effect that graphical images had on download times. That’s one reason why there are so few images anywhere on Google, even in ads.
But good failures also are fast. “Fail,” Holzle says. “But fail early.” Fail before you invest more than you have to or before you needlessly compromise your brand with a shoddy product.
In my vocabulary, early failure is an option. a SECOND failure in not.
Failure is critical to success. But IMHO, a good expert is one that who’s experience in failures and successes exceeds their own experience.
I think that everyone has their success/failure stories which may resonate around a campfire. But a good expert can tell you not just how their success/failure worked out but also how twenty others had worked/failed, and how this experienced has been shifting over the years.
My best influencers were people like lawyers (the good ones, not the lamers), who have seen 10’s or 100’s of other companies. Some of the investment bankers, who were able to detail what success/failure looks like and even our previous CFO, who had exited 3 other companies before us.
Take each of their expert advice where it fits, and where it helps you bring the situation in focus.
Lastly, the least useful experts were the ones who brought in their own limited experience. Like the ex-Sales VP who’s last job was in ‘99 and still lives in a world of bubbles. Sure he had his stories of success and failure, but they were utterly useless all throughout 2001-2003.
assafl
4 Oct 08 at 1:25 pm