This question is troubling me at the moment ever since shopping last week for cat food. I came across a new brand which seemed cheaper than our current one but it was not the price that caught my eye more the large message on the side stating the product had been tested by experts!
So who are these experts?
Are they cats? If so how did they get to be elevated to experts? Was there some sort of job application process? Maybe a beauty parade or were only the fattest or hungriest cats chosen for this accolade. Someone told me they thought the cat food testing experts were in fact humans but again if that is true how does one become an expert on food for cats?
So I started to wonder then about all this expert stuff and more importantly how do we decide who is an expert and who isn’t. I, certainly, like most people receive lots of emails purporting to be from experts in social media, email marketing and website development. How can we sort our experts from those we believe in to those who just tell us they are experts. Kim Davis of Sarsaparilla Marketing says she started her marketing business with tag line ‘protecting companies from the three Fs Flash, Fluff and Fakers’ because too many people are around offering help and advice with little more than a day more than you in knowledge. To be sure I am talking to an expert I need to meet them and spend time with them. I need to take soundings from other people before I am convinced of their worth.
So do you trust experts?
Do you have a favourite expert you are working with right now? How did you choose them and how did you know they were right for you.
I don’t want to disappoint you but my cats were not impressed with the new brand despite my explaining to them the experts test. We have returned to our former and more expensive brand and peace reigns again in our household.
Charlotte Mannion is the founder and a director of Quick Learn Limited a small communications consultancy based in Wiltshire. She is the author of a number of Useful Guides covering Report Writing, Public Speaking, and Mentoring as well as How to Give the Perfect Wedding Speech.
According to author Malcolm ‘Tipping Point’ Gladwell, an expert really needs to have a minimum of 10,000 hours of core experience at their discipline. In fact, I don’t think Malcolm was the original person to come up with this (Freakonomics rings bells), but the general consensus is that 10,000 hours is what you need.
Quite frankly, any cat or human that has spent 10,000 hours eating cat food is either a very slow eater or has a real problem.
Just to make this clear to your readers – 10,000 hours is the equivalent of 4 hours a day 5 days a week….. for just about 10 years (and that’s without taking holidays). So that probably rules out any Social Media exponents from calling themselves ‘experts’, but does just about let in website developers and email marketers.
Of course, you may just say that an expert is someone who knows a little more than someone who is very good at something… but how do you know?
Thanks Martin for your comments. It does throw up a hideous picture of anyone eating for 10,000 hours. I must read Malcolm’s book to confirm my thoughts on experts!