Seeking the Good, the Real, the True

I just Googled "under the weather" - for two reasons. First, because I've been sick all week (sorry I haven't written). Second, if I use a phrase, I want to speak with authority about its origins and uses.

Google returned a variety of sites claiming etymological expertise. Most say that "under the weather" is a nautical term describing how a sick sailor was kept below deck, away from (but literally "under") the weather. Sorry, but I can tell you this from experience: below deck on a boat is the very last place you want to be when you're sick!

So it got me to doubting the reliability of the sites. Lucky for me, D is an expert in sailor history. If the phrase is a nautical one, he will know it. What's more, he will go to his substantial library about sailoring, and hand me a primary source to prove it. (Ah yes, going to the source. Another lost art.)

Too sick to work, but well enough to surf, I thought I'd use this down time to do some research on blog-to-book publishing. I was quickly overwhelmed by the websites promising instant fame and fortune to any dumb ass who thinks she can write.

So I emailed KC. Because she's in the book biz, I knew she'd lead me to sources of reliable information on the Net. One of her recommendations was a blog dedicated to exposing publishing scams and helping would-be authors navigate the mine fields. Pay dirt.

In the absence of expert guidance, the Internet is flat, no one set of information appearing more valuable than another. KC's insider knowledge helped me to distinguish The Truly Valuable from The Totally Useless.

Readers, please tell me about your experiences when searching for experts and expertise. What methods do you use to separate wheat from chaff? How do you know valuable service when you see it? How do you evaluate web information?

I'm asking this because I'm wondering if, like the blog exposing scammers in the publishing industry, I should be offering you my take on some of the dime-a-dozen sites that claim to offer therapy/counseling/coaching, along with some tips about what to avoid. Your opinion?

While you're thinking, let me go ahead with my first tip.

Be wary of therapists/counselors/ coaches (hereafter known as tcc's) with too many letters after their names. People with the hard-earned credentials like PhD and MD seldom add strings of additional initials with commas in between. A long string indicates padding: trying to look impressive when there's little of substance there.

Copyright starfishdoc 2007

Everyone Needs a George (or Two)

There are a couple of pocket doors in our house stuck from day one. Dysfunctional, you might say. We have entertained several theories about why they don't work. One was that they had fallen off their tracks. With that theory in place, we tried with a crowbar to raise them back into position. Didn't work. Bad theory, no solution.

Neither of us has a passion (nor an aptitude, obviously) for household fix-it projects. So the pocket door issue languished unresolved in the "not important/not urgent" category. That is, until we were two days away from having a houseful of guests.

Of course we've had housefuls of company before, but there were always some family members in the mix. So we did what you do with family: we stuck them in the dysfunctional room with the door that won't close and the closet that won't open. When they complained, we just said, "tough."

But now we were faced with house guests who were, well, "bona-fide." The pocket door issue became both important and urgent! There was only one thing to do. We had to call George.

George happens to be competent in several (hundred) areas we are clueless about. While we had wasted precious hours trying to diagnose the doors, George looked at them with expert eyes. He examined them from a few angles. He rubbed his chin. He said "hmmm" about three times. "These doors are too long," he declared. In fifteen minutes he had them shaved, reinstalled and working just fine.

Andrew Keen wrote a provocative book in which he laments the demise of our faith in the expert. He holds the Internet responsible. It has become way too easy for us to Google or Wiki something and think we've become instant experts. Everybody thinks they know everything.

I don't deny that there's plenty of information (some of it even accurate) available with just a click. But does it make any sense to think we are completely competent to synthesize, interpret and act on information in subject areas we have not taken the time to study in depth?

Experts see things we don't see. Experts see things differently. Experts carry tools we don't possess.

The smartest, most successful people are not people who know everything. Rather, they are people who can distinguish between their areas expertise and their areas of rank amateurism. To handle the latter, they hire the experts.

If you think you may have fallen off the wagon and become addicted to the idea that you know everything, I have the Three Step Progam for you.

1. Acknowledge that you have a pocket door problem.
2. Admit your powerlessness over the pocket door problem.
3. Call George.

Copyright starfishdoc 2007