Andrew Keen differentiates the amateur and professional in economic terms; if you are paid, it doesn’t make you necessarily better, and certainly not morally superior, but it generally means you are able to spend more time in your profession or trade. And expertise is usually created by people who are able to invest time in it. So to Keen a professional is someone who is paid for their work. And with this paid professionalism comes an environment in which the professional can fully concentrate on his craft. It is the writer to can focus on their craft and is helped by editors, publishers and marketing people.
But what is missing in the perspective, at least in my opinion, is that the professional is appointed to the job he has to carry out. He is paid for it, and no matter how enthusiastically he begins the job he is paid for, over time it becomes ‘just’ a job. He has to carry out his tasks because his boss asks for it and the market requires it.
The amateur on the other hand is always someone who does the thing he does because he volunteers for the task himself. The work the amateur delivers might not be as polished as that of the professional, but the amateur does it with a boost of energy that the professional soon lacks.
First I want to say it is an interesting observation you make but than again, is it like you say…. I immediately think about intrinsic motivation (and ‘flow’); that people really do something if they WANT to do it, FEEL they are ABLE to do it and FEEL they are PART of ’something’ where they FEEL RESPECTED for who and what they are. If these preconditions are there people feel motivated, feel inspired and not bored at all. (That’s one theory…)
It seems that your bored professional doesn’t have a choice of what he becomes and where. That is probably true for some of them but not for all. And what to think of the amateur who out of boredom puts a video on YouTube and out of nothing gets lots of respect and only after that feels inspired and not bored anymore. Like with a lot of things which was there first, the chicken or the egg? ;-)
Yes, technology, Internet Web 2.0, etc. make more possible, there are more opportunities for people to be inspired. And because of the opportunities people have more chances not to feel bored but feel (intrinsically motivated). If that is what you mean… Tell me, I’m just curious
And let us not forget, you get paid for this and I’m not ;-)
I agree in that everybody has a choice in what he does in his professional, but for most professions to enter you need a degree, which to a large degree defines your professional working-ground. And for dozens of professions this is a good thing since I wouldn’t want to be helped by a moonlight doctor who is a handyman in daylight.
You say in your first comment that the professional is often motivated by the environment he is in, and I agree. I’m just saying that somebody working in advertisement runs the risk of getting extremely specialized in creating, say, a banner, After a few years gets bored of his specialization and the things his boss tells him to do, so he becomes a moonlight garden-architect. Then, is this new enthusiastic architect any less good than it’s professional counter-part who got his hand dirty for over 10 years and wants to become creative in advertisement?
Again, you come up with ‘the things his boss tells him to do’… That’s something most people don’t like, isn’t it? And to be (successful) in advertisement (or as garden architect) you have to be creative and creativity is not something you are told to ‘do’… If you lack motivation everything you do is ‘worse’ than when you don’t lack motivation, sort of.
For me it’s about motivation; boredom or lack of motivation is something nobody likes but it’s not a law that in the end everybody doing the same thing over and over again gets bored with it at some point. For some extreme specialization is inspiring. It just depends, again….