Entries by Tom Johnson

In my last post, Hacker Mentality and the INTP (Jack of All Trades) personality, I left off with a quote about INTP's and the distinction of competency vs. proficiency. Recently I saw a job ad for a junior level systems engineer with a couple years experience, but what I found interesting was that the candidate "must have" experience with some particular system management software package, mentioned not just once, but several times!
How's that for pre-screening applicants? I would venture to say that more than a fair percentage of junior level system engineer types would have very little issue with using the package and becoming a valuable employee without having ever even heard of the software package before, but maybe my own definition of junior level or systems engineer is off. Anyway, this particular ad led me to thinking about a few things (being the INTP I am, I think alot and it doesn't take much to get me started down a track with a train-load of thoughts).
Is having a ton of experience and knowledge of similar software enough to override some HR keyword filter? For the average applicant without some type of personal connection, particularly given the current market, probably not.
At what point does the need to have experience with application X become irrelevant for any given position?
What's the average percentage of IT pros who have the ability to successfully work with practically any computer system or software package without specific prior experience or training and can be 'up to speed in no time,' anyway?
Where does the point of being an expert come into play and what really makes one an expert?

An Academic Definition of Expert

Interestingly enough the INTP traits cited in the quote mentioned above could also be called "self-assurance and confidence in their knowledge" and "capability to improve themselves," placing them among Marie-Line Germain's primary attributes in defining an "expert."

Relative to a specific field, an expert has:

• Specific education, training, and knowledge


• Required qualifications


• Ability to assess importance in work-related situations


• Capability to improve themselves


• Intuition


• Self-assurance and confidence in their knowledge

- From Wikipedia

While there has been a fair amount of research and speculation in defining 'what makes one an expert,' it doesn't seem there has been any real conclusive, definitive criteria agreed upon. I believe this is because it is a pretty subjective term and such a title is generally bestowed upon someone deserving of the distinction by others, rather than just one day stating "I am an expert." In fact, the Generalized Expertise Measure (GEM) pyschometric developed by Germain is actually made up of mostly subjective items. It's a somewhat philosophical topic.

Someone claiming to be an expert at something has either been called one enough times that it sticks, or to paraphrase from a blog post by Dustin Wax entitled How to Be an Expert (and Find One if You’re Not), is just an expert at passing themselves off as an expert. I think one defining trait of an expert is, along with the requisite knowledge and experience, that they can truly say "the more I know about [field of expertise], the more I realize how little I know about [field of expertise]."

Computer Expert?

An oft cited measurement for expertise I have seen is "10 years experience or 10,000 hours deliberate practice." For something like work-based experience considering 4 hours a day and 5 days a week for 10 years would be right around 10,000 hours give or take, depending on time off and such. Well, my first computer was a Timex Sinclair, later being replaced by a Tandy 1000. So that gives me about 20 some years worth of computer use with at least 15 years of that including work experience. Does this simple fact make me a "Computer Expert?" Hmmm.. Maybe, or maybe not. Just based on that information I could probably be called an "Expert Computer User" at least. If I've assembled, upgraded, repaired, and installed all the software on countless computers over the course of 20 years, does that make me a Computer Expert?

Internet Expert?

I first started 'surfing the web' when AOL was becoming big and used time-based access billing. I also started using internet connected email, Usenet, ftp, and a Unix shell account in the early 90's. That's over 10 years of internet experience under my belt. Does this make me an "Internet Expert?" Again, maybe an "Expert Internet User." What if I said that over those 10+ years I've used probably a dozen email clients, a handful of different browsers, a few ftp clients, and created and maintained some web sites? How about that I've setup and managed numerous different web servers, email servers, ftp servers, DNS servers, firewalls, routers, VPN connections? Am I considered an Internet Expert now? Hey, I got 10 out of 10 right at the Internet Expert quiz. That's gotta count for something, no? Still, I'm no Al Gore. You know, the guy that invented the internet?

Network Expert?

I began learning about Local Area Networks using LANtastic between two machines that I was in charge of for maintaining CAD drawings around 1993 and shortly after that assisted in setting up a Novell Netware network which I ended up inheriting the vast majority of administration duties and essentially all of the onsite tech support for. Since then I've been involved with computer networking in some form or fashion and for the majority of that time have maintained a home network of my own. Is this what makes one a "Computer Networking Expert?" Is it maintaining countless different networks ranging from a couple machines up to thousands of users, hundreds of PC's, and dozens of servers across multi-location WANs, for all types of entities? Starting to see a trend here?

Linux Expert?

In the late 90's I started playing with and learning about Linux, around the time of Slackware 3.2 and Redhat 4.1, which I still have on an InfoMagic CD set, BTW. For quite a while I used a machine with Redhat 6 as the firewall for my dial-up connection and for file sharing between my Windows machines. I've used Linux exclusively for my primary desktop machine for at least 5 years and prior to that I used a dual-boot setup as I migrated from Windows (the apps that kept a Windows partition holding out so long were games FWIW). I've either worked on or used myself a number of Linux distributions including Slackware, Redhat, SUSE, Mandrake, Ubuntu, CentOS and a handful of others over the course of 10 years. "Linux Expert?" Well, I've also configured/supported a number of linux based firewalls, setup dozens of VPN's between FreeSWAN/OpenSWAN and various other endpoints from Cisco routers to Windows client machines, setup/configured/supported things like BIND, DNSMasq, LAMP (Apache, MySQL, PHP/ Perl/Python), etc. I've done a basic Linux From Scratch build, recompiled kernels for optimization or other reasons so many times I've lost count, compiled countless software apps from source code packages, worked on customized Ubuntu builds, tested development builds in a virtual machine, resolved libc issues, been to dependency hell and made it back alive, found and reported bugs (including a couple fixes) in software packages, made modifications to open source software, created and maintained a custom router firmware based on OpenWRT. I have even completely screwed up an upgrade on my own machine by accidently formatting my home partition, not having made a recent backup, and had to resort to forensic recovery methods to salvage data. Does any of this qualify me as a "Linux Expert?"

Observations

I could go on pretty much the same way about databases, Netware, Windows, a desktop environment like KDE or GNOME, any number of particular software packages, or certain programming languages... but I've already digressed and traveled a bit too long down the road of my side tangent and should get back on track. Since you've made it this far, I will say congratulations - I didn't lose you along the way and we're over half-way to the end of this post.

So, I may have a much greater degree of expertise than the average Joe Computer-User and probably the vast majority of the, for lack of a better term, clueless Geek Monkey types for just about any given area in the Computer/IT field, but I'm no Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Linus Torvalds, Kevin Mitnick, Richard Stallman, Eric S. Raymond, etc. So what's the point? For any example such as I've given, some number of people would most definately say "Yes, now there's an expert if I ever saw one." Others might say "Well, I've been around the block a few more times, have more experience, dealt with more/bigger/etc., wrote the book, and can say there's potential but that person is not an expert yet." Then we get to the group that would say there just is not enough information upon which to make such a determination.

A few notable traits I've seen cited by others in my brief internet research on this topic include:

• Experimentation, Open-Mindedness, Creativity, or "Out-of-the-box" Thinking - I lump these together since they are all related and somewhat interchangeable. Basically the expert isn't bound by rules, tries new approaches based on past success, doesn't dismiss the input of others as invaluable (isn't a know-it-all resting on their laurels), etc.


• A Different Approach To Problem-solving - This one usually isn't so noticable and sort of falls into the above category, but I think it deserves its own bullet point. The novice will begin by using the basic rules of running through whatever standard checklist, much like any Level 1 tech support does over the phone, and move onto the shotgun method, drop back and punt, or any combination of what is simple trial and error. Whereas, the expert has a pool of deeper knowledge and experience to draw from and generally will go straight to the application of their depth of understanding regarding what the core of the problem might be or some past similar issue that matches the pattern observed. In the Wikipedia article, previously mentioned, can be found this quote regarding expert systems by Dreyfus & Dreyfus:
  

  If one asks an expert for the rules he or she is using, one will, in effect, force the expert to regress to the level of a beginner and state the rules learned in school. Thus, instead of using rules they no longer remember, as knowledge engineers suppose, the expert is forced to remember rules they no longer use. … No amount of rules and facts can capture the knowledge an expert has when he or she has stored experience of the actual outcomes of tens of thousands of situations.

  
  
• Communication & Knowledge Sharing - having the listening skills to gather relevant and sometimes very important information in order to provide an expert solution to clients, co-workers, peers, etc. and being able to communicate what many times consists of complex concepts without it being jargon-filled goobledeegook that means nothing to the layperson. Perhaps, more telling than the basic communication skills is that there seems to be agreement in saying that an expert actually shares their knowledge instead of guarding it. Of course we're not talking about proprietary company data, items of national security, or the secret formula for Coca-Cola here. The expert recognizes that their job is made easier by disclosing their knowledge and methodologies, giving them more time to invest in honing their skills.


• Dedication, Commitment or Simply They Love What They Do - This may go without saying, but I don't think I've ever heard of anyone being called an expert that didn't at least like their field of expertise and actually enjoyed it. If one claimed to be an expert but hated the particular field, or it was only a job/paycheck to them, I would seriously doubt their "expert status." How can someone be an expert without their heart being in it?

Learning & Practice

A theme that is fairly common throughout is learning. This brings me back to what I believe really defines an expert - they can truly say "the more I know about [field of expertise], the more I realize how little I know about [field of expertise]." Though it goes beyond just the "capability to improve" or learn, it requires participating in the practice of learning. It is within a process of learning which never ends that one reaches the status of being an expert. The point at which this actually occurs may be impossible to pinpoint with metrics, will undoubtedly vary from person to person, and may in fact be a moving target as who's to say that an expert today is no longer an expert tomorrow? This is certainly quite possible in technical fields that are in a constant state of flux such as computers/IT, renewable energy, medical science, and the like.

For example, quite a few years ago I may have been called an expert in say Paradox databases, Access databases, or maybe Novell Netware (not so sure that I would have really been an expert in any of these, but this is just an example). Does anyone still use Paradox as a database system? I guess so, it does seem to still exist as of the 2008 release of Wordperfect Office. I've heard that people still use Access quite a bit, though I still wonder why anyone would use it for anything more than something like an ad-hoc recipe or home CD/DVD collection database. Novell is definately still around and I'm sure Netware is still in use in many places because it worked and was a fairly solid NOS, but Novell has since embraced Linux and integrated their products with it.

So to wrap up this rambling example and what has turned into a rather lengthy post, I haven't used Paradox or even seen anything of it, with the exception of the books on my shelf that I refuse to get rid of and have moved around a bunch of times, in years. Access is almost the same, I found it to be a poor substitute for a 'real' relational database system and was rather disgusted when MS made a major change with what was it, the 2000 version? Netware itself likely hasn't really changed much since I last worked with the latest full version release and I was testing out some of their new Linux based apps, the first release of OES, etc. However, I just haven't kept up to date with Novell. So whatever expertise in these areas I may have had is rather obsolete now and I would very likely not be called an expert in such. Not necessarily just because I haven't worked with them for years, since the knowledge, experience, lessons learned are all still tucked away in my grey matter and if thrown into working on any of them I could do so probably just as well as, if not better than, any junior level pro, but I'm out of practice and haven't encountered the issues of how they work with other new systems, etc., etc.

So would it be safe to say that if learning stops with regards to a particular field of knowledge, or in the case of my example here - a specific software product, then the status of being an expert of the same has also ended? I think so. It would make sense that obtaining that status again would generally not take as much as it did originally, but it would still take some work.

Am I an expert? I don't know, maybe. It seems that I qualify based on the what the common attributes and definitions are, but I really don't know what I'd be considered an expert of/in. I usually just call myself a Consultant or IT Generalist.