Here's my Experts List

Damien Mulley proposes a 'shared subject-matter Experts List of bloggers'. I might not have realized the utility of such lists previously but a few journalists have contacted me recently seeking my views on Second Life and while I'm very glad to provide a newbie's quote the real expert is Sabrina Dent who gave a talk on the topic at BarCampIreland (which I regretfully missed).

There have been a lot of good comments to Damien's post and there's no prizes for guessing I'm in favour of the OPML based solution. Why? Because this is the kind of thing that really needs to be distributed, for the following two reasons in particular -

• Taxonomy: Damien mentions grouping bloggers into 'categories of expertise'. I agree but don't think there's a hope in hell of arriving at a consensus on taxonomy. Much better I think to let everyone decide on the categorization that makes sense to them and provide a framework for sharing and remixing those schemata.
• Authority: Any centralization of a master list is open to accusations of elitism. But if every blogger can maintain, remix and publish their own list which is in turn contributed to the pool then there's no single 'point of failure'. Anyone can publish a top-level view of the distributed list and the best maintained examples will likely become the de facto masters.

So, to get the ball rolling here's my draft Experts List (OPML file) which I've also added to my sidebar. Feel free to copy, edit, publish and redistribute as you please. And when you publish your list I'll feel free to incorporate it into my remixed hierarchy :-)

Comments

[Damien Mulley]

Right, so how does someone say "these are my areas of expertise" and how are they replicated if everyone is master of their own list? Where can data be held with links to publications and links to audio recordings etc.?

[Damien Mulley]

Thanks for the link and contribution btw!

[James Corbett]

"so how does someone say 'these are my areas of expertise'"

They don't! That's up to the person hosting the list. I've decided who I see as experts and other people can decide who they consider experts.

I wasn't contacted by a few journalist recently because I declared myself to be an expert in those areas - I was contacted because those journalists decided I knew something about the topic from my blogging.

"Where can data be held with links to publications and links to audio recordings etc.?"

I don't see the need for a central repository. Everything can be keyed off the feed list. I've got 4 podcasters in my Media category and it's up to the interested journalist to located and download. I'm not going to spoon feed them altogether! Just setting up some signposts.

It's up to the individual blogger/podcaster, the deemed expert, to maintain his/her own portfolio.

[Mary Gilmartin]

Just to comment. Am I blind or is there no women on your list?

[James Corbett]

Nope, not blind Mary. It's disappointing isn't it.

[Mary Gilmartin]

Are you looking off Irish blogs? There is a lot of women talking tech on the company blogs?

[James Corbett]

No, I'm only including Irish bloggers in my Experts List. The purpose is to provide links to Irish resources IMHO. I think that's what Damien is talking about too?

PS. This is only my *draft* list... I will be adding more! :)

[Conor O'Neill]

Thanks for the inclusion. I'll get my list together some time next week.

Conor

[Mary Gilmartin]

Ah sorry I meant 'irishblogs' not 'irish blogs', I just meant irish bloggers who havent joined aggragators so are a bit more low key.

I come across them sometimes on blogger, stand alone sites and livejournal. Good stuff too. I came across some great tech advice on those sites, as well language learning advice and site recommendations.

I was guessing that I was just a bit surprised *shrug* I dont go to conferences much, but I run into a pleanty of women in tech and business.

[Robin]

Ok - we're talking about this project in 2 different places now! umm my comment here http://www.mulley.net/2006/11/15/a-shared-subject-matter-expert-list-of-bloggers/#comment-89014

[James Corbett]

Mary I'm sure there are loads of great Irish bloggers (men and women) I haven't yet managed to put on my reading list. Can you point me to some of the better female bloggers I'm missing out on who you think should make my list?

[James Corbett]

Actually, better again Mary, if you could publish your own Experts List I could easily subscribe to the new ones and then add them to my own list at a later date if I think they make the cut.

[Mary Gilmartin]

Ill try to do so. It wont be the same categorys I think though. I hopefully put it up by early next week.

[James Corbett]

"It wont be the same categorys I think though."

That's exactly the point I made regarding taxonomy - that everyone would have their own categories. And that's exactly the reason this needs to be distributed - because everyone will have their own list. Looking forward to seeing your own list Mary :)

[Dennis McDonald in Alexandria, Virginia USA]

First off, thanks for kicking this off. Doing it is much better than just talking about it!

Maybe this list should be a registration based wiki that contains the ability to tag or classify your expertise any way you want to -- but any other registered member can rank you up or down. ("If person X thinks he or she is an expert in subject Z, and no one else agrees with that, is person X still an expert?")

I've addressed some of these issues in my "expertise management systems" blog posts (e.g., http://www.ddmcd.com/expertise_definition.html) and have concluded that there is no best way given there are so many ways to define experts and so many reasons to do so.

[John Handelaar]

Persons actually looking to contact Sabrina Dent would probably be interested to know that her contact details are the same as mine (and thus clicking on my name above this sentence will give you our phone number).

[James Corbett]

Dennis, thanks for your interesting thoughts on this issue. My objection to registration based wikis for this purpose is the centralised nature and the obvious connotations of elitism. Wikis, in my opinion, work best when they're based around a set of facts that at least bear a chance of consensus. But they're weak and unwieldy for opinion based documentation.

We've seen how Google, Technorati, Del.icio.us, Share Your OPML, etc, all work their magic based on the wisdom of the crowd, the distributed crowd. That is the same model which I think would work best for publication of Expert Lists.

[Dennis McDonald in Alexandria, Virginia USA]

Your points are good, James. I suggested wikis because they are somewhat less technically challenging to non-geeks than OPML at this stage of the game, but I agree that "passing around lists" is a valid approach as well.

My feelings about expert lists (in whatever form) is that they are inherently subjective and that they work best when (a) both self-nomination and nomination by others are incorporated and (b) some form of feedback is incorporated so that the availability or performance of the expert is made available for review.