Kevin Vogelsang

Everyone should be an expert on something (anything!), and they should know more about that topic than anyone they know.

By investing even a little more energy into their area of expertise than the rest of us, they can build a lot of value.  Building expertise creates channels that allow knowledge and ideas to spread through our social networks. And the real source of knowledge on a topic is the community focused on that topic.

But there’s simpler, immediate benefits to you when you and others buy into this concept.

Think about it.  If everyone you knew had some level of expertise in something, you’d be much better off and have far greater resources (that’s why it’s called social capital.)  Need your car fixed?  You’d definitely know someone that can point you in the right direction.  Need help with your paper on The Civil War?  It be awesome to have a Civil War afficionado by your side.

There’s a few perplexing aspects of “expertise” however:

1) Most people aren’t aware that they have an area of expertise, which keeps them from making that expertise useful.

If they don’t know they possess any level of expertise, they won’t self-identify with it.  And if they don’t self-identify with it,  they won’t invest that little extra that makes their knowledge level really valuable and sustainable. Furthermore, they’ll be much less likely to chime in when people need to know about their topic of expertise…..

2) People don’t know what each other’s expertise is, until by happenstance, the subject comes up.  If you’re smart, when you have a problem that Google or Wikipedia can’t help you with, you’ll go to another smart person and say, “Hey, Mark, do you know anything about the Civil War?”.  And if you’re lucky, he’ll then respond, “No, but Rob Utz loves the Civil War and knows a lot about it.  Ask him.”  You’ll then go to this person, and they’ll either have the answer, know how to figure it out, or be excited enough that they’ll work with you on it to get it figured out.

Since people often aren’t completely conscious of what their expertise is, and we surely don’t know what their expertise is, we’re left with a bit of needless friction, a loss of potential so to speak.  You’re both missing out on knowledge.  So what can we do about this?

One thing is certain: people like to share what’s on their mind.  If you ever need to make conversation, ask them about what interests them or test the waters to try and  figure out what they like to think about.  There will be no shortage of things to talk about.

With this in mind, the answer is simple, although rarely carried out: figure out what the people around you know. Learn their story and figure out what their interests are.  Interest is the first phase of expertise, so someone’s interests are a good indicator of what their expertise is, or what it could someday be.  (This all goes back to why it’s important to find a passion–passion and expertise have a very close relationship.)

By doing this you gain an understanding of which friend to talk to when you have a problem some day, and your friend gets positive feedback for gaining knowledge in their area of interest (thus pushing them forward!).

But more than that,  you’ll also make more friends, and be much more interesting to talk to.  People will walk away from conversations with you thinking, “what an interesting and awesome person,” even though they probably did the majority of the talking.

-Kevin
1.20.2010