Life's History - The leading Regular Column

It would seem to me that being an Expert must be terrible. Maybe I'm basing my experience on my lowly positioning in the scale of experts (so low I do wonder if I actually qualify - at best perhaps some sort of 'layman's expert', at the complete opposite end from an 'expert's expert'). However, I can say that the more I know, the less functional I seem to become. Although this might just be an isolated situation, I'd like to think of it as a symptom of ... well you fill in the dots with the social/economic situation you like least. As long as it's not my fault.

Is this a sound theory? If not what else explains why 'experts' usually become 'consultants' ...

It is often said - perhaps not vocalised, but the concept is often expressed - 'a little knowledge is more dangerous than none' (the mathematicians might like to express this as knowledge to danger ratio of perhaps 1:10). Even more appropriate, we can say knowledge and danger are directly linked at a steep upwards curve. Every time you gain a new skill or think you have, you raise the stakes. If you can't drive you won't crash.

Cars aren't a great example. It still applies - it's a universal law - but let me use a common element ... computers.

If you're reading this using a AOL browser, well, you're fairly safe I assume. Chances are you think AOL and the Internet are one and the same and you've only recently discovered your computer's automatic, slide out, coffee cup holder. A desktop is where you put your keyboard and your copy of 'computing for complete Dummies', and 'office' means nothing more to you than the place in which you work. . The only more 'safe' way to read this great work is if your child has printed this out for you to read ...

However, if you're lying on a beach with a linux laptop, connected using 802.11b, than trouble will find you. Or you will seek it out. Setting should be renamed "how I mess around with my computer"*. Every step forward is secretly a step back; each new level of functionality brings with it problems. When I can control everything through my television or equivalent black box device in my "home of the future", things will be great. Until it crashes. But that's the technology. The real issue will be giving it more bell and whistles … we're never happy and the only thing that (should) stops us is lack of knowledge.

Don't get me wrong. I'm a great fan of technology. My point is, whilst you were writing the drivers for that optical mouse (don't deny it), how many times did you curse the great sys-designer in the sky? And how close have people at work - assuming that you are involved with the IT systems - come to discovering that the Oxford Dictionary of Computing defines 'outage' as 'operator error'? The person who gets most out of IT is the person who knows so little they will not attempt to fix anything. 24 hour IT support and idiot proof software probably makes for the most wonderful computing. Yet on the other hand, isn't it extremely rewarding when you do solve a problem. Especially if the problem is a big one …

First your skin tightens - mainly on your head. Then you start to flush. Perhaps your eyes start to have trouble focusing. Maybe you feel nauseous. You're experiencing I(nformation) T(echnology) HELL. In all fairness it could be any 'problem-HELL'. Just with IT you can cock-up bigger, faster and reach so many more people. Turn a server off; open that strange attachment ... and you couldn't have managed without that extra half mile of 'skill' and 'knowledge', and millions less would know about it. Worst thing? You're the Expert. You figure it out.

I'm sitting in a coffee bar in central London. Fortunately here I don't know enough to do any damage. A bad work-person (equality!) always blames their tools. Yeah.

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