Knowledge and Experience

Knowledge can be picked up in a day, a half-hour, or sometimes in a flash of a few seconds at a seminar. "Wow! I didn't know that!".

Knowledge can be picked up from Books, the Web, in a Classroom or at Desk side .

Knowledge of a specific technique is what most employers look for, and some clients.

If you don't know VBA you're going to be hopelessly mired in the desktop automation job.

Experience takes a lifetime, but relax, you don't have to wait another day.

You already possess the experience of a lifetime - your lifetime.

No matter how old you are, today, you hold the sum of ALL your experience - the 2½ years in France, the 6 months in Singapore, the Data Warehousing course you took for $3,500.

You can BUY knowledge, but you can only GAIN experience by doing something.

And your experience is what separates you from every other entrepreneur, and that, we are told, is your selling point.

I can teach anyone the language of VBA in two days or less. Ditto the controls of a motor-car in two hours or less.

But true driving experience comes from many many hours on the road, regrettably some collisions, different weather conditions, getting around a strange city, at night, in fog, after a snowstorm.

The knowledgeable driver knows how to press the brake pedal.

The experienced driver knows how to drive so as not to need the brake pedal.

See the difference?

The knowledgeable VBA programmer can fix your messy code in your workbooks (and bill you for doing it).

The experienced VBA programmer knows when to call a halt, and rebuild the suite from scratch.

• What is your experience?
• Make a list.
• The list had better not contain the name of a book.
• Unless you co-authored it!