Expert (Premium)

I’m not a fan of the word “expert,” not because there aren’t experts, but rather because too many who are not believe themselves to be experts. This is the opposite of imposter syndrome, where one doubts their own expertise and is worried about being outed as a fraud.

I have plenty of problems, but I don’t suffer from either condition. Despite having spent the last 25+ years documenting how Windows works and opining on the strategy decisions Microsoft has made along the way, I still have so much to learn. And because I don’t position myself—or think of myself as—an expert, there are no worries about fraud. I try to communicate what I know with certainty and what I’m unsure about with that caveat.

I do recall reading technical books and magazine articles in the 1980s and assuming that their authors were subject experts who were so awash in the topics they covered that they could simply regurgitate facts on cue. And while there are certainly people like that, the world has changed a lot since then. Most people are passingly familiar with a wide range of topics and don’t laser-focus on just one thing. Technology changes quickly, and knowing where to look is more important than retaining information that might quickly become out-of-date. Oh, and I’ve written books, over 25 of them. And what I learned from that experience is that, in many cases, one gains expertise in the writing of the book and not before one conceives of the book.

For example, when Gary Brent and I created The Delphi 3.0 Super Bible in the mid-to-late 1990s, we hadn’t memorized the entire Visual Component Library (VCL) that the 1300+ page tome would go on to document. But we had great backgrounds in Pascal, including Delphi’s predecessor, Turbo Pascal, in Object Oriented Programming (OOP) techniques and principles, and in other similar Software Development Kits (SDKs) and frameworks. We also had a great love of tinkering and spent a lot of time—maybe too much time—experimenting with code to what we could do.

And by the time I had written several books of my own, I could look back on those earlier books I had read and could see how they had been put together. There is rarely any way to know for sure, but it was clear that those authors, like me, probably had more knowledge of some topics than others, and that some content required a lot more research and work.

Anyway, I approach the Windows 11 Field Guide, the work I do here on Thurrott.com, and whatever nonsense comes pouring out of my mouth on Windows Weekly and First Ring Daily the same way: there are those things I know, those things I sort of know, and those things I simply know nothing about. And all I can do is try to handle each thing accordingly. There is nothing worse—and potentially more damaging—than someone spouting off incorrectly on some topic while behaving like an expert.

I think about all of this now because of something I had written in passing in iOS 16 Public Beta: Notes from the Road. I wrote that article for one reason only: I had installed the iOS 16 public beta right before my cruise to Alaska, during which I’d be gone for 10+ days, and I had only had time to cover two of the biggest changes in my initial writeup. I don’t like leaving things like that, and while I don’t always follow through, I wanted to write a bit more about it. And in this case, I did.

In neither case did I try to portray myself as an expert, per se, but rather as a user—perhaps a more technical and experienced user than many iPhone owners, but really just a user—and point out things I had noticed. And I referenced Apple’s iOS 16 materials to see whether I had missed anything big. Because knowing where to look, etc.

And in that second article, I mentioned that I had switched from the Gmail app to Apple’s Mail app on the iPhone, which is true. I only mentioned that, however, because I wanted to point out that the Mail app has a new filter feature that’s based on iOS’s Focus functionality, and I thought that was interesting. But me being me, I had to of course explain why I had made the switch. As if anyone was wondering. And my reason, also true, is that the Gmail app uses really small display fonts that make it hard to read on my iPhone’s smallish display, and the app doesn’t support the system-wide font sizing functionality as it does on Android. Which is also true.

But I’m not an iOS expert. And there were two things I didn’t know about (or, perhaps in one case, had forgotten about). And as a result, I’m back to using Gmail on the iPhone, which I do prefer.

The first was pointed out to me by a reader, Ed, who emailed me to tell me about an iOS accessibility feature that lets you change the font size in apps on an app-by-app basis. Perhaps this would make Gmail more usable for me, he suggested.

I had already deleted Gmail from the iPhone, and I was on a boat at sea with poor connectivity. But me being me, I downloaded Gmail again, laboriously, and set about seeing whether this feature could make a difference.

You do this by opening Settings and navigating to Accessibility. At the bottom of the Accessibility settings page, you’ll find an item called “Per-App Settings” that lets you add apps to customize. I added Gmail and then experimented with the Larger Text option, which, as you’d expect, gives you a slider so you can try different font sizes.

Going back and forth between Settings and Gmail, I observed two things: as I had written, the Gmail app for iOS is so poorly made that even this hidden feature had made little difference, and that’s infuriating because text-based iOS apps should respect the system font settings. But when I moved the slide to the biggest setting, which made the example text look ridiculously large, the text in Gmail was just about where I wanted it.

This meant that I could once again use Gmail instead of Mail, and thanks again, Ed, for that. But in disabling Mail, I discovered something else I didn’t know (and this might be the one I forgot). In that second iOS 16 public beta article, I noted that Mail “is almost never up-to-date and often checks for mail after I open it. That’s not what push email is supposed to be like.”

Well, that’s true. That’s not what push email is supposed to be like. But Mail doesn’t offer push functionality for Gmail, the most popular email service on the planet. It only uses fetch. And I (re?) know that now because when I went into Mail settings to disable the delivery of email to that app, I could see that it was fetch, not push. And duh, that’s why it was never up-to-date.

So, Ed really solved two problems for me when you think about it.

When it comes to personal computing, I guess I’d say that I have more expertise with Windows than I do with either Android or iOS, which makes sense given how much time I’ve spent with each. So this kind of blind spot is nothing to be ashamed of, beyond the fact that I could have simply Googled my issues with each app rather than make assumptions. But again, not perfect. I still have so much to learn. Even if it’s something I maybe should have known.

Anyway, I appreciate that kind of feedback, not just because it’s helpful, which it was, but because it’s instructive.

But there’s another semi-related lesson here, and this came up on the cruise for different reasons. When it comes to creating content—whether it’s written, like this article, or watched or listened to like a podcast—people are paying attention. And while I or others may casually toss off a point for some reason, there are those reading/watching/listening who retain that thing. And then may call you on it.

An extreme example happened at one of the last live Ignite events. I had stepped off the stage following a post-keynote broadcast with Mary Jo and someone from Microsoft, and there were a couple of people there waiting to say hi and ask questions. One of them said something that I thought was a bit weird, and it was delivered semi-antagonistically: “You said on Windows Weekly that Google would never buy YouTube!” he declared in an unexpected non sequitur.

“I … what?” I responded. I had no idea what he was talking about.

He repeated the assertion, and my mind raced. When had Google acquired YouTube? Had I said that? What did that have to do with anything?

I had no idea. So I just said I didn’t recall that, and I don’t remember how this weird exchange concluded. But what I do remember is that, as soon as I was alone, I looked up the acquisition. Google announced it would acquire YouTube in October 2006 and it concluded the purchase just a month later.

2006. That had been 12 or 13 years earlier, depending on when our exchange took place. I can’t even remember what I eat for breakfast, so I wasn’t surprised I didn’t recall saying this. But I was curious: I had started Windows Weekly in October 2006, and so this had to have happened in one of the very first episodes of the show. And it had: at that time, I looked it up, and there were rumors about Google buying YouTube. And whatever. Who cares?

Someone did. Someone always does. And that, in itself, is a lesson, if you’re putting yourself out there. People are paying attention.

With the cruise, that meant that my wife was expected to give some kind of a cocktail-making talk/demo, because Leo kept mentioning it on the show. But no one actually did the work to make it happen, and when we arrived on the boat, we learned that several people were looking forward to it. To my wife’s credit, she figured out a way: she did a great impromptu talk about cocktails, and we paid the bartender to make one of the drinks she had invented. It was a good time. And a timely reminder that people are paying attention.

Tie that to the expert thing above and you have a nice one-two punch of what not to do, or, conversely, the right way to do things. Present yourself honestly. And remember that somewhere out there, someone is paying attention. And they’ll call you on it if you screw up.