What Makes an Expert?

My Dad used to always say, “This is what an expert is: ex is the unknown factor and a spert is a drip under pressure.”

I’ve been doing research to improve this blog and I’ve been looking at other people’s blogs. They all seem to know so much.

I give a run down on the topics I put on the poll to see how I stack up as an “expert” in these topics:


· WRITING FICTION - While I have been studying this topic more fervently in the last twenty years than any other (except maybe Excel) I hesitate to claim to be an expert since I have made a grand total of $10 on my writing. It’s all about the art though, right.

· DEPLOYMENT – I am an expert on Illinois Army National Guard Deployment to Afghanistan 2004-2005. That is a fairly limited topic (understatement). I don’t know how many people would really be interested or how many articles I could really get out of that. However I am currently the Family Readiness Group leader for the 108th Sustainment Brigade who are being deployed to Iraq soon. I will have a pretty good insight to what those soldiers and their families are going through.

· RUGBY - I do consider myself to be one of the most knowledgeable people that I know in this topic. I could easily become THE font of knowledge about the subject in the Chicago Area Rugby Football Union (CARFU), but first I want to watch the DVDs I have of the recent RWC. I want to watch them as if they are live and I don’t want the end to be spoiled. Give me a couple of months and I am right there.

· SCOUTING - I am an Eagle Scout and I was a District Executive for four years in the Chicago Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America. I was an active scouter from age eight until age twenty eight. Trouble is, I’ve been out of the BSA all those years. I’ve been involved with the Girl Scouts of the USA (GSUSA) for the past six years, but I’m no expert there.

· ANTHROPOLOGY - I thought, “I have a BA in Anthropology, maybe I can write about Anthropology” but there are some really intense Anthropology and Archaeology blogs out there, and some of them are amateurs. I don’t know if I could add anything useful.

Then I remembered that part of the reason I wanted to study Anthropology is because I wanted to be an expert on Native Americans for our Boy Scout troop. I wanted to make the costumes we used in ceremonies and the actions of the actors more authentic. But I recently found out that there is already a blog about Scouting and Native Americans. It may be all anyone needs on the subject. Maybe I’m a little too late on this topic.

· CONCULTURES AND CONLANGS – ConCultures means Constructed Cultures. These are made up cultures and peoples. They are a combination of anthropology and fiction and I feel I have at least a good background in both of these. ConLang means Constructed Languages. I wrote a previous post on this subject. It goes hand in hand with ConCultures, but I have had less training in linguistics.

· MICROSOFT EXCEL. This wasn’t one of the choices in the poll, but I am definitely at expert level on Excel. In fact I would go so far as to say, if there is anyone out there reading this that is having a problem with Excel they can send me an email at innerprop@sbcglobal.net and I will help them.


So I guess I do have some expertise in some subjects. I’ve been thinking of taking the approach of the original Mickey Mouse Club and have a different theme each day. The MMC had the following schedule:

· Monday is Fun with Music
· Tuesday is Guest Star Day
· Wednesday is Anything Can Happen Day
· Thursday is Circus
· Friday is Talent Round-up

I could go with:

· Monday is Fiction Day
· Tuesday is Guest Star Day
· Wednesday is Anything Can Happen Day
· Thursday is Rugby Day
· Friday is ConCulture Day.

What do you think?