About:

I report on all science using multiple media: video, audio, print, and websites.

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Services:

reporting & writing, editing, multimedia production, interviewing & hosting, consulting & media training

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RobertFrederick (at) NASW (dot) org

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Blog

19 April 2012

Multitool or a set of specialty tools?

This question has been on my mind a lot recently because I've been noticing the proliferation of multitools in our society -- everything from Leathermans to iPhones. I've noticed because my professional life before science journalism has the feel of a multitool. With my pre-science-journalism professional history ranging from IT consultant to textbook editor to high school teacher to singer to masters' student of applied and interdisciplinary mathematics, I have made more than a few multitool purchases because I am enamored with the great number of possibilities they have, even if the multitool does not allow me to execute those possibilities at a professional level.

Having recently read Matthew Crawford's Shop Class as Soulcraft, I've started to notice that master craftspeople always invest in sets of specialty tools, at least for their professional activities. That's making me think hard about the kinds of differences and expectations in work, the mulitools I use, and whether I should still use them.

For example of this thinking, please let me tell you a story:

Pictured with this blog post is a storm front sweeping through North Carolina. The context of my taking it was at the start of several hours of the same kind of intense driving focus required for driving the autobahn, where there is only a lower speed limit. Here in the U.S., however, with lower and higher speed limits, drivers obeyed neither during this storm. I was relieved to get through the storm without incident. I know others didn't make it through alive.

It's not uncommon for people to die driving in the United States, with more than thirty-thousand deaths each year from traffic accidents. Of course, our country is big, and there's a high likelihood of unsuitable driving conditions somewhere in our country every day. But then again, it could just be those crazies who distract themselves by snapping photos while driving.

In my case, I'd rigged a tripod in the car at the last rest stop, where I'd seen a live weather map that showed an intense storm along my route. I'd hoped to create a time-lapse video by setting the camera to take a picture every ten seconds. So nothing more than a vague hope that the camera was capturing what I was experiencing was distracting me from driving. But the memory of the camera was soon exhausted, and it took a moment to understand why: I'd used a multitool, my smartphone. I don't have an intervalometer or even a camera that could use one.

I'd taken my smartphone on the trip -- heck, I've kept it regularly in my pocket -- to allow me to get email. The email and attachments had filled up most of the memory, so there wasn't much memory left for the photos. The photo above is the last one I got, taken before I even entered the storm.

I've since disabled and deleted the email from my smartphone, not just so that I can use the time-lapse function and capture lots of images (I am still enamored with that possibility), but because I was no longer convinced that I needed such ready access to email. If I really need to see a message or check my email, I can use the browser function and the Web. But I haven't. I doubt I will. Besides, a smartphone's tiny (or even virtual) keyboard inhibits one's ability to write even as it enables writing, and so is no longer my tool of choice.

I don't know about where we are all headed with our various multitools. But I do know that the kind of work I do is not in the same domain as the work of master craftspeople. Anyone who tries to emulate a master craftsperson soon realizes that it takes thought and skills and time to create high-quality work. Anyone who tries to emulate a master writer soon comes upon the thought experiment that an unlimited number of monkeys banging on an unlimited number of typewriters for an unlimited amount of time could, indeed, reproduce Shakespeare.

Indeed, I'll have to think more on this, and write more on this... another time.