Fauxpertise is fake expertise that a person thinks they have or pretends to have. It comes from the assumption that because they are an expert in
one area, they must be an expert in something else, when they clearly aren't.
Includes: fauxpertising, fauxpertised, fauxspert
Example:
For example, let's say someone you know really likes to play board games. We'll call him
Ricky. He's as close to an expert board game player as you can imagine.
Another friend -
Ruth - has an idea for a boardgame and she's been working to develop it and launch it for nearly a year. She's been thru over half a dozen major design revisions, has done direct market research, been to the major tradeshow for games, has over a thousand combined hours in game testing and has talked with a few distributors. She's personally invested over $100K in direct costs in creating her game. She's become extremely knowledgable.
Ruth has a refined V1 prototype and is working on getting it manufactured and distributed.
You,
Ricky and
Ruth are at a party.
Ruth is talking about where she is in her startup.
Ricky has just learned about her game, has never played it and does not have professional experience in the gaming industry - he likes to play boardgames and is very
good at that.
After listening to
Ruth talk about her progress for about 30 seconds
Ricky states confidently "that's not a good idea - wholesale distributors won't carry women's games".
He knew a lot about water skiing which was a springboard for his fauxpertise in yacht manufacturing.
He fauxpertised his
way through seven failed startups.
He thinks that if he yells louder
nobody will realize he's a fauxspert.
That entire company is built on fauxpertising.
