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August 31, 2005
Are you an Expert?
If you wanted to rate your interest or passion for a particular subject on a scale from 1 to 5, how would define the different levels. What are your thoughts based on my initial stab?
1: I am interested in the subject; enough to publicly declare my interest and when information is presented to me on my subject, I will read and try to improve my base level of knowledge and understanding. While I may or may not be actively engaged in work directly tied to my interest, I am interested in the progress.
2. I am interested in the topic and I try to read a wide variety of publications including research firm reports, journals, and books. I am considered a Subject Matter Expert within my group and I am involved either directly or indirectly with efforts within my organization.
3. I have a passion for the subject and I actively seek out research, books, authors, and any source of information about the pros and cons of my subject. I can argue both sides of the topic and I am considered one of the top experts within the company. I am actively engaged in work directly related top my topic and seek more assignments in this area. If my subject is broad enough, I have the responsibility and ownership of corporate rollout.
4. I am expanding the body of knowledge on a global scale by adding my thoughts and ideas. I not only have the ownership within, I am involved externally by publishing or presenting for others to evaluate my efforts. I am considered a player in the field from a research and experience perspective. I am involved with local and global groups dedicated to the defining standards and best practices.
5. I am in the top 5% of this subject and I have a collection of references to back up that claim. I have expanded the body of knowledge and others seek my opinion and direction. I not only have the professional experience but the rigor of research as well. I have at least 5 plus years experience and the scars to prove it; I have reached the pinnacle of this topic professional, academically, and from the corporate perspective. The expansion of the body of knowledge includes authorship in journals, books, proceedings, and professional sources of information.
Posted by Todd at August 31, 2005 1:42 PM
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Comments
I think the scale starts too high. You don't even have a 'neutral' level. Besides, you might have a lot of fun defining the various degrees of disinterest from "Not terribly interested", to "Borr-ring". Not sure where "I've considered this carefully in the past and judged the matter to be a waste of my time" fits on the scale. :-)
The idea of asking people if they are in the top 5% is interesting - at first I thought you might end up with results like the ones where 80% of people polled think they are a better than average driver! But you have put enough criteria in there to reduce that problem. (Hmmm, you must not expect results to be evenly distributed if 20% of your categories are for 5% of the potential responses. Perhaps you should go for a wider scale.)
Final point - the definitions are longer than I would care to read when taking a survey.
Posted by: Ron Daniel at August 31, 2005 4:26 PM