This past weekend, I attended PodCamp Boston 3. This was my first PodCamp (read my guest post on MediaBullseye for a wrap up of “PodCamp Boston - The Newbie Perspective“), so there was a lot to take in.
One thing that I was surprised by was that everyone there, from hosts Chris Brogan and Christopher S Penn, to presenters like Mike Langford and Leslie Poston, to the hundreds of attendees, was that no one portrayed themselves as the utmost expert on any given subject. There were even jokes and questions. What, exactly, makes on a Social Media Expert?
Then, on Sunday, during last break between sessions, Loic Lemeur texts in a tweet:
“An expert is someone that knows more and more about less and less.”
From 3,000 miles away (roughly the same, whether he’s in San Fransisco or Paris) Loic’s simple phrase summed up the overlying them of the weekend: Social Media is changing and growing so fast, that to call yourself an expert is to begin limiting yourself.
At the PodCamp wrap up at the end of Sunday, Chris Brogan asked us what we learned. I rose my hand and spoke up. “Everything I know fits on a thumbtack.” This was not to minimize what I know about Social Media, but to highlight fact that there is so much to learn. It’s a daunting task, but it’s one I’m up to.
Are you?
p.s. - I’m working on compiling my extensive list of PodCamp tweets into an organized list. I’ll have that up once it’s ready.
I had fun this weekend, and learned quite a bit from everyone there. Like a roller coaster, I wanted to “go again” when it was over.
I’m a big believer of NEVER being the smartest guy in the room. Being an expert or having expertise is one thing but I never want to be THE expert.
Thank you for helping to make my weekend a great experience.
This crazy web/social world is changing so fast, and growing so exponentially, that it’s already fracturing into different sub-specialties. No one can be on top of every single one of them. I think this is because the web-enabled, connected world is pervading all aspects of our current lives, which is quite diverse.
Here’s a cool chart that can be useful for seeing the current categories, and already the impossibility of being an expert at all of them. Of course I give it 6 months before it looks completely outdated.
My advice is to try to pick one area of social media to specialize in, and have a general knowledge of the rest of the space. Then use your social media contacts to the find the right guru for a specific piece of the puzzle when needed. I mean, if you tweeted “Anyone in here know of, or is a twitter/blog/podcasting/presenting/videocasting/fill-in-the-blank expert?” you’d probably get a deluge of response.
Social media is just like Business. You always need to keep your self informed about everything. By any chance for one second you stop, you will be right at the beginning all over again. Just like everything else you always have to keep yourself informed.
Does that make any sense?