Expertise
Experts are easy to find but finding the right expert is a whole different task
Expertise is temporary, especially in today’s world. No matter how many hours you spent learning something, the context and the world around it is constantly changing. So what if you got a PhD. You got it 20 years ago! The world, in which your expertise was true, probably no longer exists.
The corollary of that is - What was wrong 20 years ago might be right today. Everything we do exists in a complex system. That complexity is evolving every day. This makes thing possible which would not have been possible a few years ago.
In 2001, a company called Couchsurfing wanted to offer a couch to people looking to travel cheap. It failed because internet penetration was low; people did not trust the internet enough to share their credit card details online; the internet was so slow you could not even have pictures of the couch!
In 2007, Airbnb pursued the exact same idea, and it worked (well not at first, but eventually it did) what had changed was the context in which the business was operating.
Today if you rent an Airbnb you not only get to pay more than a hotel, but also get to clean the toilet and garbage as an added privilege. Would not have worked in 1990. People were not stupid enough!
The world changes much faster than our beliefs do.
Traditionally, a plantain leaf served as a plate in south India. Before serving food, one would wash the leaf and then sprinkle some water around the leaf. The water was sprinkled around the leaf to keep ants away from the food.
Today, you need to go to a fancy restaurant or a wedding to eat on a plantain leaf. But millennia of muscle memory of sprinkling water around the leaf continues. Contexts have changed, habits haven’t.
What was considered expert fact yesterday are considered superstitions today.
Anybody can become angry — that is easy, but to be
angry with the right person and to the right degree and
at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the
right way — that is not within everybody's power and
is not easy.
~ Aristotle’s Challenge
Anybody can find an expert, that is easy — but to
find an expert whose expertise was forged recently enough,
whose expertise has been tested often enough, and
has been tested in the right context - that is not within
everybody’s power and is not easy