What it means to be an expert

Accelerate your learning by sharing what you learn with others while you are learning it.

Experts aren't people who know absolutely everything in their field of expertise. Take GPs for example, they provide educated guesses based on textbook learnings and through their real world experiences. Scientists are constantly disproving previously proved theories. We are people and we get things wrong sometimes.

Regardless, if you take the time to explain what you learn to someone, you learn more about that particular topic. You start to make sense of the jumbled snippets of information in your mind by painting a bigger picture.

The more you explain and share things, the more you learn and the more others can validate, correct or offer alternative perspectives or solutions to what you share.

The one exclusive sign of thorough knowledge is the power of teaching. ~ Aristotle

I gave an Ignite talk about this topic called "Branding your Identity" so this idea isn't new to me. But then Rebecca was kind enough to share an exceptional talk by Chiu-Ki Chan.

Chiu-Ki Chan spoke at the Android Summit 2015 conference called "How to be an Android Expert".

Her 30 minute talk can benefit any software developer as she gives you great insights about what it actually means to be an expert in the software development community.

She also provides useful tips and techniques about how to easily write technical blog posts and give talks at events.

The biggest take away from this talk is that "by sharing [what you know] you gain expertise and then you get to be a part of a much larger community than you so that when you need to do something there are people behind you."

On her blog, she states that her career has benefited tremendously from writing blog posts, speaking at conferences and sharing her code as open source.

If you are interested in giving talks, you can check out her blog post about how she prepared her keynote for Write/Speak/Code.

You can also follow her on Twitter at @chiuki.