I have never really considered myself an expert on much of anything save for “What does Ben think about when he lays down at night?”, but it’s becoming apparent to me that people at here at work consider me an expert in THE INTERNET. Obviously they hired me because I had a working knowledge thereof, but I figured there were people here that knew better than I. I apparently was wrong.

By saying “THE INTERNET”, I use the broadest of terms here because while the Internet is as wide as say, space – you don’t find many people with a Doctorate of Space studies. Perhaps you did when the idea of Space was new, perhaps even 10 years after we realized that we could poke holes in the sky. Now there are many, many specializations in Space Science, like astronomy, astropaleontology, astrophysics, temporal physics, etc. Again drawing from the Space/Internet parallel, there are many different aspects of the ‘web to be knowledgeable in. There are the programmers who create the application that you are using to view this web-page. There are people who do nothing but consider how best to bombard you with ads. There are people who consider how best to shield you from those ads. There are people who agonize over font-sizes, “site-flow”, metrics, returnability, content freshness and all sorts of media dynamics. There are grunts like me who help to create and publish the content created by the great hive-mind that is the marketing world. Somehow, I’ve managed through no real effort to be considered an expert in some of these areas. Lets consider that for a moment.

How did this come to be? Is it just that I had been trapped in the insular world of the I.T. world and didn’t bear to think about the other 99% of people who use the Internet like a toaster-oven? I guess that might be the case. I worked a co-op position for an in-house development staff, so there wasn’t a whole lot of “outside contact”, and then moved onto a job in an web-only agency which expanded and imploded in the Great Boom and Bust. For a period of about 4 years there, I was surrounded by either in-house IT complacency or being held aloft by the dot-com who-needs-the-rest-of-the-pie bubble. It was a little like the whole evolution of IT, condensed. Going from slaving away in a cave to being fired out of a cannon, exploding, then drifting lazily back to Earth. Now that I’m in a world and a time where this Internet technology is finally considered as just another tool in the handy-bag, I’m learning more about the rest of it all and at the same time spreading what knowledge I’ve gained on my albeit short journey. It’s nice to feel wanted.

It’s not to say that there aren’t people here at work who don’t get the Internet (I’m sure there are a few, but they don’t necessarily need to get it), but there are folks who just aren’t confident in their knowledge thereof. Like the toaster-oven analogy before, they know it makes toast, but don’t care and don’t need to know just how hot it gets or why it gets hot in the first place. They come to me and say “so can I cook a pizza in that?” and I respond (as per the usual) with “yes and no”. I am assuming that the next part is where I’ve gotten myself into that “trusted expert” role. I usually then attempt to explain to them why you can or cannot do that, or sometimes even why you shouldn’t do that, and then suggest something completely different, like a bagel. It’s all about understanding a communication.

Too many times, I’ve seen or heard thing that other IT-related folks do that simply make me cringe. I ask “Why do you want to do that?” but with a positively inquisitive tone. I’ve heard on a number of occassions a dismissive slant to that question – think of that character from Saturday Night Live – “Nick Burns – Your Company’s Computer Guy”, and you’ve got it about right. Dang. That just gives IT folks a bad name! The whole reclusive, mind-boggling, superiority-grappling nerd thing is so played it makes me sick. I know it’s hard for people in the IT departments of the world to realize that technology is just a tool and we are but mechanics. I’m talking humility here.

Maybe that is what I’ve been angling for my whole life. The whole mechanic/artist thing. Mixing technology with the intangible to create something more than both. I still don’t think I’m very good at it — that is to say I know folks who are certainly better than I am. But having people look to me for recommendations and information is both nice and bewildering.