We were in a meeting with one of the higher-ups from a peer department. My team was in the room, and things were rolling along. At one point the phrase popped out: “the subject matter experts.” It’s a line I’ve used myself too many times to count. Fast. Handy. Everyone knows what you mean.
Then one of my folks raised a hand and said, quietly, almost apologetically, “I don’t think we’re the SMEs.” The rest nodded like, yep, that tracks. “If anything, our manager is the SME.”
That stopped me cold. Because the truth is? I don’t like being called an SME either. I felt exposed in the best and worst kinda way. I’d been playing along with a game I didn’t even enjoy. Damn.
The Trouble With Crowns
Here’s the thing about being called an “expert.” It sounds flattering, but it also sticks a crown on your head. And crowns are heavy. Suddenly you’re expected to have the answers, to get it right every time.
But that’s not how this works. Not in emerging tech. Not in anything, for that matter. Half the time I’m barely five minutes ahead myself. And if I’m honest, that’s where the imposter syndrome comes from. You either get cautious and stop experimenting, or you lean into performance mode and bluff your way through.
I’ve done both. Neither feels good.
Humans are great at being confidently wrong. Back in the day I even had a t‑shirt that said, “If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle ‘em with bullshit.” We even taught the AI models that trick.
What Really Counts
In reality, there are no experts when the ink is still wet. Nobody’s got the manual. The real currency is curiosity, plus the courage to screw up in public and keep moving.
Failure isn’t a flaw in the system. It is the system. It is the curriculum.
That’s where the fun creeps in. When I was a kid, play meant taking toys apart to see how they worked—usually ending up with a pile of broken plastic, but satisfied anyway. These days it looks like rushing a project because I’m high on curiosity and creation, eager to see how it all fits together before I’ve sanded the edges. That’s my kind of kinetic play. Other people find their joy in the details: measuring twice, polishing until it sparkles. Neither is wrong. Both are play. Both move things forward.
A Better Label?
So I think we need a different phrase. Instead of “subject matter experts,” we could talk about being Shared Learning Explorers.
It’s not a perfect label. It’s not meant to be. But it’s sticky enough as a drop‑in replacement to nudge the culture:
- Learning → We’re not pretending to know it all yet.
- Exploring → Wrong turns are part of the map.
- Sharing → We figure it out alongside the people we support.
An “expert” has to perform certainty. An explorer just has to keep moving. One wears a crown, the other carries a compass.
Not Just an IT Thing
The same dynamic shows up in classrooms. Faculty sometimes confess they’re only a few minutes ahead of their students. They feel like imposters too. The truth is, students don’t need encyclopedias with tenure. They need mentors who model what it looks like to be a good learner. Most faculty are really great at this.
And students themselves? They’re taught to treat mistakes like a game‑over screen. But Edison figured out ten thousand ways not to make a light bulb before one finally worked. Every miss is just another data point.
That’s how you get better. You don’t wait until you’re an expert. You share and teach what you’ve tried, even when it’s rough. Or even wrong.
So What?
Calling people SMEs sounds neat on a slide deck. But in practice, it’s a trap. It pushes people into perfection theater, where bluffing and burnout set the tone.
Shared Learning Explorer flips the script. It lowers the stakes. It makes room for courage and curiosity. It reminds us that exploration is the job. If anyone has a better term, let me know. Otherwise, I’ll run with it.
Expertise is an outcome, not a prerequisite.
And in the world of the new, we’re all explorers first.
Fail forward, you beautiful disasters.
