Over the past 2 weeks I have had the incredible privilege to enjoy the company of a number of local business owners who are, in my opinion, experts in their fields. The purpose of our weekly lunchtime meet-ups is to discuss social media, its implications on businesses, and how to harness the opportunities that this new media offers.

One of the curiousities of our meetings is the perception of experts. Each one of us is an expert in our own right, and yet we rarely perceive ourselves as such. The facilitator of our meetings, Rob Paterson, often says that it is those who proclaim themselves infallible experts are the very experts that we should avoid. With that hanging over our heads we muddle along, discussing ways to connect with our customers, expand the reach of our individual businesses, and discover how to be more engaged in the communities that support us. Ever the consummate observer, I have realized that in spite of our reluctance to proclaim ourselves experts, our collective knowledge, experience, and connectedness (more on that in a later post) makes the collective 'us' an expert. Confused? Let me explain.

No individual can possibly know all that there is to know about any one subject, let alone the myriad of subjects that make humanity what it is.  However, each of us thrive in our spheres, perhaps not always to the level of 'expert', but definitely with a certain degree of mastery.  Individually we are as fallible as the next person, but brought together we rise to the level of experts, exceeding the sum of our collective.

Ok, so what does this have to do with IT?  Everything.  Long gone are the days where a single IT guru (likely with long, stringy hair, rancid cups of coffee, and a scowling demeanour) was able to manage your IT infrastructure.  Even small businesses are dependent on a vast array of new technologies and innovations to stay connected to their business.  Whether it is smart phones connected to your Exchange server to forward order emails from your customers who are making purchases via your website to collecting, analyzing and storing the mountains of data needed to run any business today, no single person can surpass the might of collective knowledge.

Building communities to support a common purpose is not a new idea, but tools like Twitter , Facebook , and Ning (to name only a few) are making it easier for us to connect.  Technology is enabling us to build the communities that many predicted were headed for extinction as technology 'invaded' our lives.  Communities can be ad-hoc (think FlashMobs ) or more intentional, designed to accomplish a specific purpose.

All this talk about community got me to thinking about how Bulletproof is a community designed for a specific purpose.  Spread across three Atlantic Canada cities (Fredericton, Moncton, and Charlottetown) we don't have the luxury physical proximity, but we still function as a community.  In fact, it is that very success as a community that allowed a Charlottetown project manager to work with resources in both Fredericton and Moncton to complete an upgrade that took place in NS, NB and PEI.  With a customer base that literally stretches around the globe, our expert community, comprised of some of best people in their fields, ensures that we can call ourselves, collectively, experts.  "It takes a community to raise a child" as the saying goes, but now, more than ever, it takes a community to run a business -- a community of experts .