In the old days the title of this post would be RTFM.
The Help menu is there for a reason and Jeff Smith writes a great piece that explains everyone can be an “expert” if they just used the Help feature built into the applications, systems and tools they use. The information is there and, with often very little effort, the information is easy to find.
These are my experiences on why people rather go to the “experts” rather than building their knowledge themselves.
- Intimidated by technology
- Don’t have time to learn something new
- Don’t have the capacity to learn something new
- Easier to ask someone else to figure it out
- Faster to ask someone who already knows or who can find out quickly
- Delegation
- Generational differences
- Personality types - some people rather deal with people than with computers
- Hierarchical in nature – not my job
- Laziness
Albert Einstein was quoted as saying “I never memorize anything I can look-up.” The key is being able to find it when you need it so you can apply it when you need it. It’s a critical skill for any career and even more so for those in technology. It’s one of the top skills I look for when I’m interviewing.
April 27, 2007 at 3:07 am |
“Help feature built into the applications”
LOL
April 27, 2007 at 8:36 am |
Daniele – Yeah, I’ll give you that. There are plenty of programs where the “Help” is an afterthought and anything but helpful. But for well established applications and software there is usually plenty of material to draw from to answer most questions that most people have.
One thing that I didn’t touch on is that there’s also Google – as you know you can generally find someone out there who has done before what you are trying to do now.