There have been several times in my life when I have built up a wealth of new knowledge but did not feel confident in comprehension and understanding until I was able to test it. “Assessment” is an important part of the education process; our educational system is built upon passing assessments whether it is pop quizzes, five paragraph essays, thesis papers, or the bar exam.
Personally, I don’t do particularly well in structured learning environments. Most of my education has taken place through exploration and experimentation. As such there is usually not a system in place for someone else to assess what I have learned and give me a passing grade. This leaves me with uncertainty and self doubt. That is, until I prove myself.
When I was in my early 20s I started learning more about technology and systems. I had an idea that I would be able to help the non-profits I was working with more in a technical capacity than in the event planning capacity that they were paying for. I saw these organizations struggle with how to apply new technologies like databases, websites, and email lists. I felt I could help these organizations struggle less and set out to find ways to do this. That s where “TekZen” came from (now tekzen.net is just the domain I use for email and as a master domain to reference hosts and networks that I manage).
During that period I was learning at a rapid pace. I was also typically the most technically capable person in my network. This made it difficult to have any assessment of my skills. As I started getting into programming there was at least the “it works” affirmation, but was I doing it right. I started to have unconventional ideas about how to create web applications in a modular fashion to make the development process faster and less repetitive. The popularity of MVC frameworks like Rails has provided some validation for those ideas, but that was years after I had finally decided to just go with it.
It wasn’t really until I started working as a full time programmer and had more interaction with other programmers that I started to have confidence that I knew what I was doing. To this day the untested knowledge and theories I applied during that time are still proving to have been acceptable solutions if not innovative. Since then I have had the opportunity to work with many smart people who have helped me not only assess what I really know, but have also helped push me to learn broader and deeper.
Still, while I am now confident in my knowledge of designing and implementing software applications, there was never really a day where my work was returned to me after being assessed by an expert teacher. There is just this process of absorbing, trying, and observing. If I stop and think about what is the key to my education I would have to say it would be the willingness to try. Trying is scary, especially when a business depends on it.
Now I am in the midst of starting a new venture (smallBIG, providing business intelligence to small businesses). It will be a great time to try new things. It may be that this new venture will provide the closest thing to a report card that I have ever received. I am setting out with the claim that I can help the small businesses that I work with make smarter decisions and as a result make more money. More than ever the success of a business may rest on my shoulders. My resumé is strong, but I am trying something new; in that respect I am untested.
The cool thing is that, possibly for the first time in my life, my internal bull shit meter way down as I try something new. I used to adopt the “fake it until you make it” mantra from 12 step programs, but this time I am confident that I know what I am doing. Sure, I will make mistakes, but I don’t think those will be from faking it. I think the deepest knowledge comes from making a mistake where you were sure the outcome would be different. I am not scared of that kind of mistake.
