How experts become experts

Ze Frank says,

"People started telling me that if I wanted to do something, first I had to learn about how complicated it was..."

In his smart sharp-witted way, he goes on to explain that a lot of people tell you that you must understand something in it's entirety before you can even start to use something or start thinking about something, when actually picking up something and doing something with it quickly starts to fill in all that background reference material that ultimately lets future experts become experts.

Possible Bottom Line: Don't let the fact that people tell you something is so complicated dissuade you from breaking through that complexity and understanding new things.

PS - This mirrors a lot of what Dave Winer was trying to get across in his spirited discussion about exposing rss to users during the recent Bloggercon session "Standards For Users" headed by Niall Kennedy. The 2006 Bloggercon session MP3's can be found here.