I find it better (when asessing customer’s IT skills) to ask objective questions: Have you downloaded software before (rather than “can you”).

Maybe I should be asking “and were you able to find the file you downloaded?”.

PS
I noticed something similar while teaching: the best students were the MOST worried about any mistake they made (“I want to know what the right answer is”) while the worst were unphased by repeaded failures. This perplexed me until I realized I had cause-effect reversed:

Those that worried the most were the best. The WORRYING facilitated the success. (Or to quote Any ____ of Intel: Only the Parnoid Survive.

I read somwhere that Steve Jobs does is market research by carrying around a mockup and just asking (the right) people what they think of it.

Likewise, I have NEVER trusted my own judgement and luckily have always (for my mISV) had my wife available for a second opionion. And it does matter who you ask. Not all opinions are equally valid.

What that means, and what they demonstrate in an experiment in their paper, is that effective teaching/training relies on two parts – the content and the metacognitive role of knowing about knowing. The metacognitive aspect describes that phenomenon we have about getting better at something while simultaneously feeling not as competent about it. Self-reflection reveals while confidence blinds. But when we work with someone, success is best when we teach/train what they are supposed to know along with how they are supposed to know it.

“A man’s got to know his limitations.” – Dirty Harry

But now I’m struggling to stay abreast of a small portion of the wave. I no longer use JCL, Fortran, IBM 370s, etc. Just trying to grab hold of a good Linux distro (and I almost forgot what to call it) to use Python (much less Zope) makes me feel like a pre-novice.

So what am I? Novice? Expert? How about ten years from now? What will you be?

…and I’m a lousy driver.

It occurred to me that those 90% could possibly be right.

Consider:
* give the test to 10 people.
* 1 person scores a 4
* 9 people score a 6
* the average (9*6+1*4)/10 is 5.8
# conclusion 90% of these _are_ above average

Sadly, this is true even if they all score abysmally.
* 1 person scores 1
* 9 people score 2
* average is (9*2 + 1*1)/10 == 1.9
# 90% are above average, (but the average is horribly low)

-Jesse

THERE ARE MEN THAT KNOW NOT AND KNOW THAT THEY KNOW NOT
THERE ARE MEN THAT KNOW NOT AND KNOW NOT THAT THEY KNOW NOT
THERE ARE MEN THAT KNOW AND KNOW NOT THAT THEY KNOW
THERE ARE MEN THAT KNOW AND KNOW THAT THEY KNOW

If a man knows not and knows that he knows not
he is a student, teach him
If a man knows not and knows not that he knows not
he is asleep, awaken him
If a man knows and knows not that he knows
he is a fool, shun him
If a man knows and knows that he knows
he is a leader, follow him

I have been using a website to sell my products for about ten years. I also have a four degree in art and design. I have wasted thousands of dollars on what I call scammers.
I have noticed that there are a lot of folks out there that learn HTML
and then suddenly think they are designers. They can convince most folks that they are designers because they know technology and the others don’t. Before I hire anyone I want to see all the websites they have designed and go from there. NEVER hire anyone with references or seeing a good volume of work they have created.