Advice to a Young ERP Consultant Part 8:

Share Your Knowledge

In our last note, we talked about building a Personal Information System to accumulate and store your ERP knowledge as you learn. This grows value in 3 ways:

• The act of notetaking reinforces your memory

• The notes become searchable references for your future self

• Your writing can be turned into shareable assets

Advice Part 8: Share Your Knowledge

As you learn something new, put it into a document (something a smidge more polished than your Personal Information System notes) and share it with your co-workers.

You want to be known as a person who knows things. This type of document sharing as you learn is a generous #humblebrag way to let those around you know that you know a new thing. It is a way to proactively inform your colleagues and managers "I have domain competence in this space", as well as get feedback on the quality of your understanding.

This will lead to more work in that domain, and more work is essential to the healthy development of your career.

(we'll cover work-life balance in some far-off future post).

Along with Efficient Learning, Effective Teaching is the another consulting meta-skill.

Creating whitepapers are a chance to flex that teaching muscle. How do you break down a topic at high, medium, and low levels? How do you make the content engaging? How do you explain the specific business value of some set of ERP features? These are all important ideas for you to engage with. For a Young ERP Consultant, crafting whitepapers should be an exercise like a pianist practicing scales.

Is the feature you learned already explained somewhere else?

Good. Find a way to explain it better. Find a way to express it in your own voice - this is your value add. If your ERP information skills are just a set of hyperlinks, you're asking to one day be replaced by an index.

A Final Thought: Your sharing creates a culture of sharing.

A common misconception is that ERP lives-and-dies based on its code. The truth is ERP systems and companies thrive based on their community. A community where you Young ERP Consultant are now a member.

Welcome. Be a generous community member.