The spirit of “SME”

Be early, you can make your mistakes while it is cheap!

Whether we have recession or the economy is booming, Subject Matter Expertise (SME) is the key to our success. If we cannot keep upgrading our SME, we are not going to weather the storm and in good times we cannot take advantage of the available talents.

We need to spend energy on effectively learning and evaluating our own skills and SME, however, without appropriate measurement methods, these efforts can be useless. SME is a collection of knowledge, skills, abilities and other characteristics that define effective performance for a job. SME is important and relevant way for executing the objectives that need to be developed both personally and professionally so as to be able to capitalize on our performance in life.

It was during that time the great naturalist Charles Darwin put forward his theories on “The survival of the fittest” and “The origin of species be means of natural selection”. His theory of evolution” shook the whole world. It was his SME that gave strength to Darwin to stick to his stand when the whole community was against him. It was because of the quality of SME that he did not deter from his stand. Time proved him right.

Throughout history, almost every culture has had art, pottery, sculpture, poetry, dance and music as a personal SME. The desire to master SME is not limited by era, nationality, creed, sex and nationality. When we realize SME needs to become a habit an activity we integrate into our dreams and we

1. Continually recognizing what is vital for us and we are not dim, or even inaccurate, view of what is really important to us.
2. Our believes firmed up with willpower, action with heart and a sincere desire to serve the world
3. Able to see the current reality more clearly and not to be stuck because we keep pretending “All is well”.
4. We are acutely aware of our ignorance, incompetence and development areas.
5. We are able pursue emotional development to attain full potential of ourselves and SME.

David Ogilvy had three guidelines which he claims inevitably lead to success: Work twice as hard as other people; Work on jobs you enjoy most; Keep working and learning; do not even think about retirement His book Ogilvy on Advertising is a general commentary on advertising In early 2004, Adweek magazine asked people in the business ‘Which individuals - alive or dead - made you consider pursuing a career in advertising?’ and Ogilvy topped the list. The same result came when students of advertising were surveyed. His best-selling book Confessions of an Advertising Man is one of the most popular and famous books on advertising.

As an example, it is the beautiful house that you seek to own at the end, not the brick laying and cementing work. But, you need to remind yourself that, all the brick laying and cementing work is part of what makes that beautiful house in the end. Every little bit you are learning (SME) now counts toward realizing that end vision. It is just easy to lose sight of that because you are caught up in the daily micro-tasks that keep coming, one after another.

The problem starts when your SME starts slipping away from you. So keep going back to your SME (both physically and mentally). Surround yourself with things that reminds you of your end goal, it could be some vision board, pictures of others who have achieved the same goal, objects that represent the goal, etc.

Finally Subject Matter Expertise (SME) will eventually help achieving your dream to become a reality.