In the last few days, I’ve had the same conversation with a few different people, with regards to a few completely different things. Stay with me.

We live in an age where technology is making previously tricky things very easy to do.

As before, when only a handful of people were able to take the time and effort required to study and practice a craft, now it’s as simple as pushing a button and a professional result pops out the other side.

The conversation goes something like this :
“Man it pisses me off that there’s so many people who think that they can (insert skill here) now just because they bought a whizz bang new (insert techy thing here), there’s no skill in what they do, they’ve got no clue how to actually (insert skill again here but with emphasis implying that I’ve been good at it for years). Takes all the art and skill out of it. ”

This applies to a few things in my experience: Making Music, DJing, Photography, and Film Making.

In all cases I see the argument in the negative has some merits.

Yes, you can hit “Random” on a sequencer and get a wonky bass line that’s fun do dance to.
Yes, you can use iTunes “Genius” to pick your tracks.
Yes, you can put your SLR on “P” mode and get perfect exposure (as my mate Rupert puts it “P is for Paparazzi!”).
Yes, you can hold up your mobile phone/flip camera/HD Flash handy Cam etc and point it at some action and get amazing pictures/or tool around in iMovie and cut your video together with “Make my Movie” mode.

But no, all of these things do not make you a composer/DJ/Photographer/Film Maker.

The thing my irate colleagues are missing is that while technology has made these skills more accessible to the people, it most certainly will never replace the creativity and years of experience that are required to actually make it mean something.

You can tool around in Garage Band but if you have no clue what a hook is, you’ll never make a track.

You can run Serato SSL, but if you don’t know how to read a room and play to the crowd, you’ll clear the dance floor faster than a bad fart.

You can run your new Pro-sumer SLR on AUTO mode sure, but if you can’t compose your shots to tell a tale, or coach your model, or know the first thing about light – your photos will still look like holiday snaps.

Sure you can hold an HD camera, point it at your friends and then edit it on your laptop, but without a story or any sense of cinematic craft, you’re just going to float around there in a tag cloud on YouTube with everybody else.

My colleagues have nothing to worry about. If anything, they should celebrate that now people actually now know how hard it is to perform these skills at a professional level. Like I tell the kids who fail at Idol auditions, just because you can sing, doesn’t make you a performer.

There’s no need to feel like you “Can’t Stand all these people who think they can…”. Be more confident in your ability. Better still, pass on knowledge. The only way to glory is to teach others what you know.
Hoarding knowledge is a path to a selfish existence. Sharing knowledge is the only way to make yourself better at what you do. It sounds strange but it’s true.

I’ll leave you with this one from Sir Norman MacEwan,
“Happiness is not so much in having as sharing. We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”

x aa