On Becoming an Expert

Basically the key point of his article was that expertise should be viewed in terms of measurable goals and objectives. Research now agrees with that view. Dr. K. Anders Ericsson, one of the world's leading researchers on expertise has done some interesting research on this.http://projects.ict.usc.edu/itw/gel/EricssonDeliberatePracti... The pdf mentions some research that showed that plateaus in learning Morse code were not intrinsic to learning but were dependent on the training methods used to learn

Research does show that it matters whether you choose to focus on one specific subset of the activity, or whether you just practice the activity. Deliberate practice requires that you work with the specific goal of improving a specific weakness. The fact that benefit from practice starts to decline after two hours demonstrates the amount of effort required in deliberate practice.

The post isn't really well structured, but the key points here are:

* Expertise isn't an achievement, it's how we define a certain number or quality of achievements.

* Becoming an expert on a skill is about learning that skill's vocabulary so well that you can express yourself in it as you wish.

* Your metrics for expertise in a skill should be put in terms a non-expert can understand, if you want to be recognized as an expert.

"Experts aren't really experts. They suck at what they do. They just suck a little bit less than everybody else around them at the time."

Disagree. There are "experts" and there are Experts. Some Ruby on Rails blogger guy is an "expert"; Plácido Domingo is an Expert.

The last paragraph is great

"Be less concerned with the adjectives of success–good, great, world-class–and more concerned with taking a worthwhile next step. The path to expertise is the path to nowhere in particular. When you get specific, you get results."

How do you become an expert? Change your concept of expertise! Another excellent article from 30sleeps about thinking outside the box to achieve your goals