Consistent with the them of this blog I guess, a few articles I read recently have been stewing and simmering. I’ve been giving more thought to Sarah Robbins’ comments about the movie Ratatouille as an allegory for Web 2.0 along with Jakob Nielsen’s Write Articles, Not Blog Postings article (which Alan Levine’s CogDogBlog highlighted for me). What constitutes an expert? As Ratatouille perhaps suggests, despite Nielsen’s article and comments to the contrary on Sarah’s blog, can “anyone” be an expert?

I think “Yes” for two reasons.

From the most recent Technology & Learning, CEO Anshul Samar runs Elementeo, “an online, interactive board game that teaches chemistry to students” which Samar hopes will reach $1 million in revenue for 2008.

And, from around the web, Katharine Berry created a web-based viewer for Second Life using AJAX. What has required the Second Life client in the past, may now be viewed in a standard web browser. While she admits the code is messy and features need to be added, it is under continued development.

Now, why do those two stories suggest that “anyone” can be an expert?

CEO Anshul Samar? He’s 13.
Ms. Katharine Berry? She spends her Second Life on the TEEN grid.

Those two individuals are definitely, from all outward appearances and expectations, what one might consider to be an expert. Admittedly, Mr. Samar and Ms. Berry accomplished tasks much more difficult than writing a blog, but it is still the open, writeable web that offered them the opportunity to exhibit expertise.