On Friday I found myself sat on a bar stall at the front of the room for a You Are The Media lunch club event in collaboration with Bournemouth University, celebrating the launch of the new Digital Marketer Apprenticeship degree which Mark Masters, Ella Orr and I were were invited to review earlier this year.
There were two panels, one featuring young talent, one of experienced elders. Somehow, I now fall in the the latter category.
The past five years have flown by. I’ve now been working, full time for 15 and gathering experience in employment, education and related endeavours for an additional 5 years before that.
When asked the question, what did I learn that I didn’t know until the 10 year mark in my career, my mind went immediately to the realisation that adults haven’t got a clue what they’re doing, or at the very least are making it up as they go along.
It may seem a harsh assessment, and in my case it lines up with the pandemic, when all bets were off, but I’d seen the clues for years before. I’m not saying we don’t have skills, or an intellectual contribution to make, but it’s rooted in our individual experience.
A.I. has helped to crystallise this. We can pass exams by retaining facts, we can complete work by following instruction – so can freely available technology. Before now we might have been reminded there’s a near-match for all of us in the waiting room before a job interview. Now it lives inside our phone.
Our unique perspective, derived from lived experience is essential in defining our value. “The greatest teacher failure is” says Yoda. Why? Because of what it reveals to us perhaps. Because we’ve learnt what not to do again. We might get it wrong the next time, but (fingers crossed) it won’t be in this same way, and the likelihood of getting it right increases, if only a little bit.
In answer to the next question “How has experience shaped your judgement in high-stakes decisions?” I proposed the idea that much of our role as ‘experts’ in our field (in this case, marketing) is advising what not to do – what to do is an educated guess.
So, who wins in the competition of talent vs experience. In our Friday afternoon friendly it was settled on the street of Poole’s Old Town with a tug o’ war (I kept a safe distance with my pint). Earlier in the week I spoke to some students for another BU related project, I asked them if they felt what they learnt academically had given them confidence (if not the exact practical skills) when they began their work placement. They said no.
It was a small sample size but it brought me to a conclusion that if “knowledge = power” then perhaps experience = confidence.
The thought that the grown ups around you don’t know what they’re doing begins as a daunting realisation, though soon becomes freeing. It staves off the imposter syndrome and builds an empathy bundled with a further realisation that you too have become an adult. You’re in the secret society and it’s your duty to keep up the illusion.
Or perhaps you’re supposed to address it head on in a room full of your peers. What do I know?
Liam Toms 