Academia is full of visionaries.  It is part of our jobs as faculty to think, to dream, to consider, to suggest.  This is, for many, the fun part of the work.  You can mouth off about what should be done without the pressure of investing yourself in your cause.  The expression of an idea is an end in itself, never mind the idea's realization.

Every organization needs its visionaries.  The good visionary, though, is someone whose vision includes implementation.  These are the people who have both the goal and the authority to achieve those goals. They can hire people, purchase resources, tap funding--they can dream and make dreams come true. 

One of the consequences of my position as Chair is to suffer those who fancy themselves visionaries but give no thought to implementation or, worse yet, expect someone to do the implementing for them.  They come to me with ideas, rationale or deluded, and expect someone-who-is-not-them to see these ideas to fruition.

When I started out as Chair, I used to think it was my job to make these visions realities.  I quickly realized, though, that this was both impossible and unnecessary.  I therefore took a different stance.  If you have an idea, tell me how YOU will make this happen.  What is YOUR stake in all this?  If you don't plan to do this yourself, then you had better have the resources to hire the people who will.

I recall reading a quote from Einstein: Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% prespiration.  The problem is that some people think that the 1% makes them a genius.  If that were the case, we would all be members of Mensa.

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I may be misquoting here but I seem to recall reading an interview with Neil Gaiman in which he said that the wrote his novels in longhand.  He didn't type or use a word processor.  He took out a sheet of paper and a pen and wrote each page by hand.

Which brings me to a current point of discussion.  There are some people who believe that we should teach our students certain word processing tools other than MS Word.  Me?  I think that teaching tools is need-based.  If there is some reason that the tool is more appropriate for the need, then fine.  If not, then don't fix what isn't broken.

I was then answered with a rationale about the tool fostering greater creativity. Me? I think this reason is bogus. You can give me Michelangelo's tools and Van Gogh's paints and I will never in my life produce David, the Sistine Chapel, or Sunflowers.  You can give me Dante's pen and I will never write another Inferno.  You can give me a Stradivarius and I will never be another Ishak Perlman (am I right about then name?).  You can even give me Beyonce's voice, but I doubt if I'll ever make it on MTV.

Yes, tools matter.  But substance matters first.  The sophistication of our tools does not compensate for our lack of substance. Tell me that these tools will fix our students' grammar, help them organize their papers substantive ways, and get them published in ISI journals, and then maybe I'll bite. 

The shortcomings that I see in people's writing are not shortcomings that technology and tools can fix.  Bad grammar, an inappropriate choice of visuals, cluelessness about the use and labeling of tables and figures, weak writing, and a general lack of organization and coherence--nothing short of a competent co-writer and editor can improve upon these.  To quote the mysterious A Friend in Disclosure:  Fix the problem. And, in this case, the problem is not in the tools.