Beware of “professionals” who whine.

As a member of Linkedin, I subscribe to a number of groups relevant to my profession as a videographer, one of the great benefits of Linkedin. I’ve learned a lot from some of the postings on these groups.

But one thing that makes me turn heel and run is whiners, complainers and (most of all) name-callers.

These are so-called professionals who blame their woes on Apple, or untrained johnney-come-lately “YouTube trained” videographers with low rates.

First of all, Apple is one of the most successful companies in the world. Not because they have factories in China where labor rates are low. But because they are innovative and produce products that are well made, beautifully designed, which work well, are user friendly, intuitive and which people love. By doing this, they changed the world. Nobody’s perfect, but they did change the whole way both consumers and businesses look at computers and the interchange of information. After all, who are all the other Big Guys trying to catch up with or out-do these days?

As to the YouTube trained videographers with low rates, well, you can partially blame Apple for that too.  Not that Apple makes high quality low cost HD video cameras, but because by doing things to make technology easier to access and use, they helped  break down the barriers that used to exist with more complex programs and hardware by creating programs and tools that anyone could quickly learn to use to create things once only professionals and geeks could do.

That doesn’t automatically make everyone a professional. For it does take some study and perhaps years of practical experience with the basics of any given professional field to be able to produce a truly professional product. So why would real professionals be threatened by a new or young videographer who never learned these things like camerawork or editing or lighting or editing or sound recording or mixing?

One can only wonder if they are really professional themselves.

Or is it that the amateurs, who never learned the basics of the field, are producing a similar or better quality that these “professionals” do?

Real professionals don’t worry about these things.

They, like Apple, forge forward with new and innovative ideas based on a solid understanding of the basics of their own field and of the needs or desires of their consumers.