I asked a few friends, colleagues and my family a weird question, which was ... What do you think I am an "expert in"? What I was curious about was, how do people perceive me? What did they think I was an expert in, and where do I add value? I've long been the 'go to guy' when you have an IT problem you can't beat. My knowledge is both deep and wide and when you combine that with my ability to quickly research, while looking at the big picture and delving into the detail there aren't mainly small to medium size IT issues I can't resolve. Not trying to big note, but it has always been my thing, I've been doing this for 30 years now and have worked on some amazing projects. The question I found myself asking was, for other people, was that all I was an expert in? This was especially important when I considered the future of this blog. I want to be of interest to an audience, but equally I want to write about things that I am not only interested in but also passionate about. So when their email answers started to come back, I found the answers both interesting and insightful. My family answers were representative, but also pretty honest especially considering we work together so I share them here. My wife Sonya said ...

"I think you have a whole list of things that you’re an expert in but here are your top ones. - Computers - Human interactions - Being kind - Forgiving - Guidance But most importantly- you are an expert in handling me :-)" I especially like the last bit, but it's not true, no one can handle her :-)

Dad said ...

"- Sales and marketing - Business insight/strategy - Internet and web as a developer and “consumer” - Technology - Software development - Commentator on all the above"

Mum said ...

"- Lateral thinking I would say is a great skill you have"

And finally my sister Adrienne said ...

"- Hmmmm cooking pizza with the kids...pancakes too. In business- seeing the hidden opportunity in the big picture. I’d say bumper cars, but na, if I’m the expert you have to be wannabie" ha ha ha She dreams ... bumper cars? the challenge has been accepted.

OMG same question, but such diverse answers, what I got from that was ... 1, What people perceive as expertise is not based on my education, but on my experience. Deep, long term experience, all of these areas are things I could tell endless stories about. Sure I've studied, read endless books, but most importantly I've lived, I've made mistakes and I've learnt from them. 2, Not everyone values the same things from you. 3, Surprisingly, most of the things mentioned are things I am passionate about, but they've become "normal". What is noticeably absent are the things that currently excite me and I love learning about. 'The environment', 'the complexity of relationships', and 'design'. I guess the important thing to remember is being interested, and being excited about something is not the same as being an expert. I now know where I have to focus if I want build my credibility in these areas. As I yesterday watched a webinar by Brendon Burchard I considered this feedback and what I found really interesting was that he proposed that one of the measurements of an 'being an expert' is 'can they earn large amounts of money'. This caused a conversation with Danny about what we are worth on an hourly basis. We could easily see times we were worth at least $1000 an hour and I can point to times I've earnt or saved someone well in excess of $10,000 for less than an hour of my time. So from that I got one last thing... 4, There is a huge difference between having, and using your expertise vs presenting yourself as an expert. I have been very successful and am happy, but I haven't packaged myself as an expert. I'm going to think more about that, and although I don't want a "hyper focused" blog, I will refine it so as to make it easier for an audience to get value. I definitely want to be the absolute best version of me, rather than a lessor version of someone else. Thanks for reading ... My thought now is, what are you and expert in? How about asking people my weird question about yourself? Even better share your thoughts with a comment below.

On Wednesday night we had a fantastic night out with Johannes and Jo and a few other friends which included seeing The Eastern play at the Wonder Bar in Lyttleton, Christchurch.

They were pure magic.

Anyway long story short The Eastern and some of their friends from Oregan played a John Prine song called "In Spite of Ourselves". I really do love this song. It' funny, it's a great piece of music but most importantly I love the underlying message.

"In-spite of ourselves, we'll end up sitting on a rainbow , against all odds honey, we're the big door prize"

Isn't that so true, that the best relationships thrive, often in-spite of ourselves. It's not perfection that makes us attractive, it's the odd little things that make us unique.

Please enjoy John Prine and Iris DeMent singing "In-Spite of ourselves".

Ok, Back to the Eastern. What a great band, they rock. I'll definitely be there with friends when they are up in Auckland at the end of February.

Here is a photographic piece Johannes did for them which we profiled Queensberry's blog last year.

 

Earlier this week I was looking for space on my Laptop, and came across a very bloated Photobooth folder. When I reviewed the images contained I realized it's not safe to leave your laptop unattended. My daughters forever the techno geek actors left my laptop full of images and movies like these ... LOL they made me laugh out loud. Thanks Girls

I'm very proud tonight of my daughter Alex and her friend Elisha who have just finished a short film for a school project. Alex is 11, and they have made the whole movie below themselves. The challenge was to do an "Olympic Bid" on behalf of their chosen city Japan, and as part of that they did a news item. Unfortunately this movie doesn't do them justice. They were working with a poor green screen (for a start it was blue), poor lighting, and of course all the iterations of change to file format from opiginal capture with Videocue Pro, to iMovie and then moving to youtube means they have lost a lot of the original quality. LOL the scary part is I am sure the girls aspire to have a setup like that at www.geekbrief.tv They did the whole thing from research, story writing, video capture, image selection, acting, editing etc themselves* . Anyway, they may have a long way to go, but they have made an excellent effort. They love playing with the technology, are really comfortable in front of the camera and I think one day they want to be just like Happyslip Productions Here is this weeks effort One from last year And one they did when Flat Stanley came to visit. * They get me to hold the camera from time to time and act as the camera man for a little while, basically pushing the start and stop button on the software but on the whole this is them :-)

What a cool weekend. I spent yesterday helping Sonya and Lorraine prepare for last night's Fire Brigade Christmas party. That in itself was lots of fun, but the party was even better. It's always great getting together with this group, but last night was particularly special as it was held at our house. The food was amazing, a few people drank a little to much, but that was harmless, and we sat outside around the fire until the wee hours of the morning talking. Very nice. At 9 am however it was back into professional mode, as we had the important task of transporting Santa around the neighborhood visiting all the kids and handing our bags of lollies. That's always lots of fun, but this time, for the first time, I got to drive, which was very cool. After that Santa joined us for a Brigade party for the children of the Fire Fighters. A little way of saying thank you for all the time we are away from home supporting the community. This year was especially nice. Everyone was in a fantastic mood and the troubles of the year seemed to have been put behind us. The sun was out, everyone was happy and, best of all, the kids set up what ended up being an amazing water fight ... What more could someone ask for? Thanks Santa, and thanks Donna for sharing the photos.