 So this is parental advisory, explicit content. My name is Aliyah McKenzie. I am a sys admin and a developer based in Chicago. And as you can probably tell, I grew up in the 80s and 90s. So once upon a time, there was a team of people working on software and systems. And they each lived in their own little tower. Once a week, they came together to talk about what they were up to. And things were great. But then, one day, new team members arrived on the scene. Ooh, they soon became alienated and frustrated and lost. Well, change had to happen. So this is a story and lessons learned from making things explicit to myself and to other people. Number one, talk in public. When two people talk in public, a third person listens, a fourth person learns, and then a fifth one will come and correct something that one of the other people had said. Now, our instincts tell us to hide our ignorance and faint expert knowledge. Fake it till you make it, am I right? But this can actually slow us down. Remember, expertise should be a byproduct and not a destination. Now, one of the most obvious ways of exposing our ignorance is to ask questions. Asking questions can be intimidating, and it can take a little bit of practice. But it is crucial, and I will show you why. Violins and cellos, made in the workshop of Antonio Stradivari, are considered to be the finest ever made. Still to this day, no one has been able to replicate Stradivari's craft. Now, why? He had apprentices after all. But then, something along the line was lost. If you have a Stradivari in your organization, pepper them with questions about how they know what they know. And look out for those unspoken things, the unconscious competence that they might not even be aware of. Now, for people of all skills to become comfortable with exposing their ignorance, they need an environment in which it's safe to do so. An environment in which asking questions is welcomed, and asking for help is not seen as a weakness. So record everything that you learn in public and in private. Your public record is a way of sharing the lessons that you learn and getting feedback from your community. Your private record is where you can be painfully honest with yourself about where you are in your journey. It is much better to share what we know than to create scarcity by hoarding it. When you learn about something, you should be always teaching someone else. When one person teaches another, two people learn. Look for mentors and companions. Become exposed to the daily working habits of other skilled people. Observe the ways in which they work and copy them. And look how they refine their habits into skills. Do you work on things that no one else in your organization knows about? Oh, my precious. Stop. Make your work explicit. Become the protagonist of your very own user story. Reflect on your work and be explicit about this, too. Write about the current set of practices that you follow without any shame or judgment. And then look for places where you can inject small improvements into your workflow. There's a story of a young philosopher that came to visit a Zen master. And every time the Zen master tried to speak, the excited philosopher kept on interrupting, so very eager to tell the master all of the knowledge that they have accumulated so far. But finally, the master started to pour tea into a cup. And he poured and poured and poured so much that it overflowed. The lesson here being that if you come with your cup already full, you cannot be given any more to drink. Now, once at a workshop, I was on a team that was tasked with building an animal out of Legos. And as we started work, I noticed that I was, instead of working with the team, I became easily frustrated by the ever-changing demands of the client. So I took a step back and I emptied my cup of bad habits. In the next sprint, with my team's support, I took the risk to build the creature's wings. And we ended up scoring the best and winning the satisfaction of our client. Hooray! But too often, we keep waiting for the favorable conditions that will never come. And sometimes waiting until you are ready is a recipe for never doing a thing. So dive into the deep end and stumble through your first ignite. A lot of the things I just talked about, I learned from the Drupal community. So thank you. But also check out Apprentice Patterns by David H. Hoover and Adewale Oshineye to learn more about being explicit in your craft. Thank you.