In February 2020, I went to the PINK 2020 conference in Las Vegas, NV. I have posted about that trip, spread across several posts, and I don't really have anything new to add to my analysis / perspective about that trip. In summary, it was a great trip and I have no regrets about attending.
What I mean is that I thought about what it would be like to actually be a speaker at a future PINK conference when I saw their "call for speaker" page: https://www.pinkelephant.com/en-us/Pink22/Be-a-speaker. However, I have zero chance of doing that unless I become a SME about ITIL, DevOps, and LEAN methodologies. I have the opportunities, in theory, to become a SME when I receive emails from PINK throughout the year about various classes they offer. As you can see from their July 2021-December 2021 schedule, they offer many classes about these topics. I just need to tell my manager I want to take this or that class. For example, I took a Foundations of ITIL class, which is the first class in a track to become ITIL certified. Simple, right? I've taken the first step to becoming a SME. However, I know something is holding me back from going down that road. I'm interested in learning about all of these topics, but not enough to invest the time in what it would take to master these topics.
I feel that way about a lot of topics about which I am passionate in non-work areas of my life. For example, I want to be a drumming SME. I don't have any reason to not be a drumming SME - I've been playing drums since ~1980, earlier than that if I factor playing on the black metal stove with the Tinker Toy cylinder, the Lincoln Log cylinder, and a red Indian drum, as though it were a set of drums, while listening to the Gene Simmons tune "Tunnel of Love" on his solo album on 8-track tape in 1978.
However, I have not made "finding a band" a reality since Uncle Rico the Band disbanded 2568 days (7 years, 1 week, 4 days) ago. Sure, I played with Koop & Company at a gig at Pitcher's in Cedar Rapids and have had some jam sessions with other musicians, but I've never found my Ideal Band (IB). I thought I had found my IB with RPM, starting in October 2019, but that has fizzled. I know that gigging as a drummer, in a band, once a month, is a reality that slips away from me with each day and it frustrates me to no end that I can't find other kindred spirits to make music with me. However, I have not seized the last 2568 days to become a drumming SME. I have not rigorously practiced the drumming rudiments on any sort of regular cadence. I have not made becoming a drumming SME an ideal that I work towards reaching. Why? Because becoming a drumming SME is hard work. If I were serious about being a drumming SME, I would learn how to play drums like this dude:
To bring this post back to the PINK conference, becoming a ITIL SME or DevOps SME or a LEAN methodologies SME is hard work. It is hardwired in my brain to not want to do hard work. Thus, that's why I haven't become a SME in any of these things and have sentenced myself to writing about my desire to become a SME and simultaneously bitching that I won't do the hard work to become a SME because I won't do the hard work required.
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