May 23/Directions. Expert. Map.
For the first time in a long time, I was the person someone turned to for directions instead of the one standing on the pavement squinting at a screen.
— from the desk, with coffee ☕A stranger messaged me on LinkedIn. Not to hire me — to ask my opinion on a filing process.
I sat with this for a moment. Someone, somewhere, read my profile and concluded I might know something useful. That is the basic transaction of expertise: a person with a question finds a person with a plausible answer.
I gave them thorough advice. It took twenty minutes. It was free. Anja would say I should have charged. Klaus would call it relationship capital. Thorsten Kahl would write a newsletter about it.
What I actually felt, on the U-Bahn home: I held the map. Not a detailed map, not one that covers all the terrain, but a map. For the first time in a long time, I was the person someone turned to for directions instead of the one standing on the pavement squinting at a screen.
The notebook
The first time someone treated me like I knew what I was doing, I felt I gave them the directions anyway.
Opening the notebook…