Been attending sessions by Meri Aaron Walker about online methods to get paid for our expertise. Meri coaches teachers about those issues.
There’s also a LearnHub “course”: Jumpstart Your Online Teaching Career.
Some notes, on my own thinking about monetization of expertise. Still draft-like, but RERO is my battle cry.
Some obstacles to my selling expertise:
- My “oral personality.”
- The position on open/free knowledge in academia and elsewhere.
- My emphasis on friendship and personal rapport.
- My abilities as an employee instead of a “boss.”
- Difficulty in assessing the value of my expertise.
- The fact that other people have the same expertise that I think I have.
- High stakes (though this can be decreased, in some contexts).
- My distaste for competition/competitiveness.
- Difficulty at selling and advertising myself (despite my social capital).
- Being a creative generalist instead of a specialist.
Despite all these obstacles, I have been thinking about selling my services online.
One reason is that I really do enjoy teaching. As I keep saying, teaching is my hobby (when I get paid, it’s to learn how to interact with other learners and to set up learning contexts).
In fact, I enjoy almost everything in teaching (the major exception being grading/evaluating). From holding office hours and lecturing to facilitating discussions and answering questions through email. Teaching, for me, is deeply satisfying and I think that learning situations which imply the role of a teacher still make a lot of sense. I also like more informal learning situations and I even try to make my courses more similar to informal teaching. But I still find specific value in a “teaching and learning” system.
Some people seem to assume that teaching a course is the same thing as “selling expertise.” My perspective on learning revolves to a large extent on the difference between teaching and “selling expertise.” One part is that I find a difference between selling a product or process and getting paid in a broader transaction which does involve exchange about knowledge but which isn’t restricted to that exchange. Another part is that I don’t see teachers as specialists imparting their wisdom to eager masses. I see knowledge as being constructed in diverse situations, including formal and informal learning. Expertise is often an obstacle in the kind of teaching I’m interested in!
Funnily enough, I don’t tend to think of expertise as something that is easily measurable or transmissible. Those who study expertise have ways to assess something which is related to “being an expert,” especially in the case of observable skills (many of those are about “playing,” actually: chess, baseball, piano…). My personal perspective on expertise tends to be broader, more fluid. Similar to experience, but with more of a conscious approach to learning.
There also seems to be a major difference between “breadth of expertise” and “topics you can teach.” You don’t necessarily need to be very efficient at some task to help someone learn to do it. In fact, in some cases, being proficient in a domain is an obstacle to teaching in that domain, since expertise is so ingrained as to be very difficult to retrieve consciously.
This is close to “do what I say, not what I do.” I even think that it can be quite effective to actually instruct people without direct experience of these instructions. Similar to consulting, actually. Some people easily disagree with this point and some people tease teachers about “doing vs. teaching.” But we teachers do have a number of ways to respond, some of them snarkier than others. And though I disagree with several parts of his attitude, I quite like this short monologue by Taylor Mali about What Teachers Make.
Another reason I might “sell my expertise” is that I genuinely enjoy sharing my expertise. I usually provide it for free, but I can possibly relate to the value argument. I don’t feel so tied to social systems based on market economy (socialist, capitalist, communist…) but I have to make do.
Another link to “selling expertise” is more disciplinary. As an ethnographer, I enjoy being a “cultural translator.” of sorts. And, in some cases, my expertise in some domains is more of a translation from specialized speech into laypeople’s terms. I’m actually not very efficient at translating utterances from one language to another. But my habit of navigating between different “worlds” makes it possible for me to bridge gaps, cross bridges, serve as mediator, explain something fairly “esoteric” to an outsider. Close to popularization.
So, I’ve been thinking about what can be paid in such contexts which give prominence to expertise. Tutoring, homework help, consulting, coaching, advice, recommendation, writing, communicating, producing content…
And, finally, I’ve been thinking about my domains of expertise. As a “Jack of All Trades,” I can list a lot of those. My level of expertise varies greatly between them and I’m clearly a “Master of None.” In fact, some of them are merely from personal experience or even anecdotal evidence. Some are skills I’ve been told I have. But I’d still feel comfortable helping others with all of them.
I’m funny that way.
Domains of Expertise
French
- Conversation
- Reading
- Writing
- Culture
- Literature
- Regional diversity
- Chanson appreciation
Bamanan (Bambara)
- Greetings
- Conversation
Social sciences
- Ethnographic disciplines
- Ethnographic field research
- Cultural anthropology
- Linguistic anthropology
- Symbolic anthropology
- Ethnomusicology
- Folkloristics
Semiotics
Language studies
- Language description
- Social dimensions of language
- Language change
- Field methods
Education
- Critical thinking
- Lifelong learning
- Higher education
- Graduate school
- Graduate advising
- Academia
- Humanities
- Social sciences
- Engaging students
- Getting students to talk
- Online teaching
- Online tools for teaching
Course Management Systems (Learning Management Systems)
- Oncourse
- Sakai
- WebCT
- Blackboard
- Moodle
Social networks
- Network ethnography
- Network analysis
- Influence management
Web platforms
- MySpace
- Ning
- Jaiku
- YouTube
- Flickr
Music
- Cultural dimensions of music
- Social dimensions of music
- Musicking
- Musical diversity
- Musical exploration
- Classical saxophone
- Basic music theory
- Musical acoustics
- Globalisation
- Business models for music
- Sound analysis
- Sound recording
Beer
- Homebrewing
- Brewing techniques
- Recipe formulation
- Finding ingredients
- Appreciation
- Craft beer culture
- Brewing trends
- Beer styles
- Brewing software
Coffee
- Homeroasting
- Moka pot brewing
- Espresso appreciation
- Coffee fundamentals
- Global coffee trade
Social media
Blogging
- Diverse uses of blogging
- Writing tricks
- Workflow
- Blogging platforms
Podcasts
- Advantages of podcasts
- Podcasts in teaching
- Filming
- Finding podcasts
- Embedding content
Technology
- Trends
- Geek culture
- Equipment
- Beta testing
- Troubleshooting Mac OS X
Online Life
Communities
- Mailing-lists
- Generating discussions
- Entering communities
- Building a sense of community
- Diverse types of communities
- Community dynamics
- Online communities
Food
- Enjoying food
- Cooking
- Baking
- Vinaigrette
- Pizza dough
- Bread
Places
- Montreal, Qc
- Lausanne, VD
- Bamako, ML
- Bloomington, IN
- Moncton, NB
- Austin, TX
- South Bend, IN
- Fredericton, NB
- Northampton, MA
Pedestrianism
- Carfree living
- Public transportation
- Pedestrian-friendly places
Tools I Use
- PDAs
- iPod
- iTunes
- WordPress.com
- Skype
- Del.icio.us
- Diigo
- Blogger (Blogspot)
- Mac OS X
- Firefox
- Flock
- Internet Explorer
- Safari
- Gmail
- Google Calendar
- Google Maps
- Zotero
- Endnote
- RefWorks
- Zoho Show
- Wikipedia
- iPod touch
- SMS
- Outlining
- PowerPoint
- Slideshare
- Praat
- Audacity
- Nero Express
- Productivity software
Effective Web searches
Socialization
- Social capital
- Entering the field
- Creating rapport
- Event participation
- Event hosting
Computer Use
- Note-taking
- Working with RSS feeds
- Basic programing concepts
- Data manipulations
Research Methods
- Open-ended interviewing
- Qualitative data analysis
Personal
- Hedonism
- Public speaking
- GERD
- Strabismus
- Moving
- Cultural awareness
Moving On
[I’m typically not very good at going back to drafts and I don’t have much time to write this. But I can RERO this. It’s an iterative process in any case….]
Been thinking about different things which all relate to the same theme: changing course, seizing opportunities, shifting focus, adapting to new situations, starting over, getting a clean slate… Moving on.
One reason is that I recently decided to end my ethnography podcast. Not that major a decision and rather easy to make. Basically, I had stopped doing it but I had yet to officially end it. I had to make it clear, in my mind, that it’s not part of the things I’m doing, these days. Not that it was a big thing in my life but I had set reminders every month that I had to record a podcast episode. It worked for ten episode (in ten months) but, once I had missed one episode, the reminder was nagging me more than anything else.
In this sense, “moving on” is realistic/pragmatic. Found something similar in Getting Things Done, by David Allen.
It’s also similar to something Larry Lessig called “email bankruptcy,” as a step toward enhanced productivity.
In fact, even financial bankruptcy can relate to this, in some contexts. In Canada, at least, bankruptcy is most adequately described as a solution to a problem, not the problem itself. I’ve known some people who were able to completely rebuild their finances after declaring bankruptcy, sometimes even getting a better credit rating than someone who hadn’t gone bankrupt. I know how strongly some people may react to this concept of bankruptcy (based on principle, resentment, fears, hopes…). It’s an extreme example of what I mean by “moving on.” It goes well with the notion, quite common in North American cultural contexts, that you always deserve a second chance (but that you should do things yourself).
Of course, similar things happen with divorces which, similarly, can often be considered as solutions to a problem rather than the problem itself. No matter how difficult or how bad divorce might be, it’s a way to start over. In some sense, it’s less extreme an example as the bankruptcy one. But it may still generate negative vibes or stir negative emotions.
Because what I’m thinking about has more to do with “turning over a new leaf.” And taking the “leap of faith” which will make you go where you feel more comfortable. I’m especially thinking about all sorts of cases of people who decided to make radical changes in their professional or personal lives, often leaving a lot behind. Whether they were forced to implement such changes or decided to jump because they simply wanted to, all of the cases I remember have had positive outcomes.
It reminds me of a good friend of mine with whom I went through music school, in college. When he finished college, he decided to follow the music path and registered for the conservatory. But, pretty quickly, he realized that it wasn’t for him. Even though he had been intensely “in music” for several years, with days of entering the conservatory, he saw that music wasn’t to remain the central focus of his career. Through a conversation with a high school friend (who later became his wife and the mother of his children), he found out that it wasn’t too late for him to register for university courses. He had been thinking about phys. ed., and thought it might be a nice opportunity to try that path. He’s been a phys. ed. teacher for a number of years. We had lunch together last year and he seems very happy with his career choice. He also sounds like a very dedicated and effective phys. ed. teacher.
In my last podcast episode, I mentioned a few things about my views of this “change of course.” Including what has become something of an expression, for me: “Done with fish.” Comes from the movie Adaptation. The quote is found here (preceded by a bit of profanity). Basically, John Laroche, who was passionately dedicated to fish, decided to completely avoid anything having to do with fish. I can relate to this at some rather deep level.
I’m also thinking about the negative consequences of “sticking with” something which isn’t working, shifting too late or too quickly, implementing changes in inappropriate ways. Plenty of examples there. Most of the ones which come to my mind have to do with business settings. One which would require quite a bit of “explaining” is my perception of Google’s strategy with Wave. Put briefly (with the hope of revisiting this issue), I think Google made bad decisions with Wave, including killing it both too late and too early (no, I don’t see this as a contradiction; but I don’t have time to explain it). They also, I feel, botched a few transitions, in this. And, more importantly, I’d say that they failed to adapt the product to what was needed.
And the trigger for several of my reflections on this “moving on” idea have to do with this kind of adaptation (fun that the movie of that name should be involved, eh?). Twitter could be an inspiration, in this case. Not only did they, like Flickr, start through a switch away from another project, but Twitter was able to transform users’ habits into the basis for some key features. Hashtags and “@replies” are well-known examples. But you could even say that most of the things they’ve been announcing have been related to the way people use their tools.
So, in a way, it’s about the balance between vision and responsiveness. Vision is often discussed and it sounds to some people as a key thing in any “task-based group (from a team to a corporation). But the way a team can switch from one project to the next based on feedback (from users or other stakeholders) seems underrated. Although, there is some talk about the “startup mentality” in many contexts, including Google and Apple. Words which fit this semantic field include: “agile,” “flexible,” “pivot,” “lean,” and “nimble” (the latter word seemed to increase in currency after being used by Barack Obama in a speech).
Anyhoo… Gotta go.
But, just before I go: I am moving on with some things (including my podfade but also a shift away from homebrewing). But the key things in my life are very stable, especially my sentimental life.
4 Comments | tags: adaptation, adaptive, Apple, bankruptcy, career changes, clean slate, David Allen, divorce, Done with Fish, email bankruptcy, flexibility, flexible, Google, Google Wave, GTD, homebrewing, Larry Lessig, leaps of faith, life shifts, moving on, nimble, nimbleness, podcasting, podfade, radical solutions, responsiveness, starting over, startups | posted in comment-fishing, personal life, Placeholders, quickies, ramblings, responsiveness