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As an intermediate school kid I wrote a science fiction story about a world where humans were able to generate electricity through walking on special floors and exercise on machines that stored the power (treadmills, rowing machines etc.). A totally whimsical made up idea. Today I thought, “could this be possible”? Expecting some long physics explanations about how this is not possible (which I found) I got a gem, for different reasons than you may think.
The power of footfalls.
First, good for Elizabeth for taking a scientific shot at this. Second, (go to the link) why are people so cranky? Read the comments. Either a lot of snooty scientists or people who like to shoot down ideas. Scientists out there give us some examples of things that overturned the physics of their time…
I made the mistake of looking at the dates of the comments. 2008. So the idea died (right after that 7th grader wrote it down?).
Aha! Good for Google (and shame on you nasty comment people from the past). It actually happened. Fast Change Around Us footwork!
This could have been a Wednesday Wonderfully Disillusioned post heavy on the wonderful.
The second half of my mini 7th grade book was a world where people were hired to create energy for others. They were the modern Greek athletes toned and leaned to perfection. The more efficient their bodies were the more money they made and the more famous they got. Hey I was a 7th grade boy it was a fun end state!
Fast Change Around Us naysayers beware. You might just be proven wrong and petty in your stubbornness. Foot power is a good example.
Technorati Tags: change management blogs, change management consultant, fast change, foot power, Garrett Gitchell
Guess what lots of people around you now never use?
Watches.
I know, right?
Surprised me too, the first time someone brought this up.
Then I started looking around. No watches.
(OK to be fair, no watches on anyone less than 40).
I keep looking and almost feel sorry for those people I find that do have watches. That is like being fully clothed at a nudist colony. Or finding yourself in a crowd unclothed.
What happened? What caused this Fast Change Around Us?
Screens. Screens all over the place have time on them. Phones certainly do. All of our fancy computers do. TV’s flash the time for certain things. We still have clocks everywhere (they will likely have some staying power).
Really, honestly, there is very little reason to have a watch anymore.
Except as a statement. Which brings us right to change and change management.
A watch will always be able to satisfy the function of time keeping- anywhere (even under water or in space). A watch will always be a fashion (whether it is fashionable or not is debatable). So, someone will ALWAYS wear a watch. And some people will ALWAYS wear watches.
Think about watches and then think about some things that become change initiatives. Is that new technology a quality functional replacement? Will the new function destroy previous form (is someone going to always want to wear a watch)? Does the new change have a form of its own? Can that become fashionable? Are you forcing everyone to “take off their watches” knowing that they will now have to carry a phone around (that is about 5 times bigger)? Can you justify adding things against that which is different?
If I don’t use all the stuff on my phone does it just make sense to have a watch?
Which, of course, is the drumroll for the Dick Tracy watch-that-is-a-phone. Cue Apple (of course).
Are you wearing a watch right now? If not you are part of the watch-less fast change around us movement.
Technorati Tags: chagne management, fast change, watchless
Perfectly packed I was, for a first week away at a client site. Or so I thought. No belt (I know, guys don’t wear belts anymore, but there is still a little bit of a business dress code).
This is my favorite fast change (after cruise control):
NAVIGATION
How cool is it to be able to say to your phone, “Target” and have it tell you in that pleasing female voice exactly how to get there. And with fun moving video to boot!
Have you noticed there seems to be just as many Target stores as Starbucks?
I passed eight (that I could see from the freeway) on the 3 hours commute. That may be some sort of fast change too…
Round two of the navigation adventure this week was the input of an address for temporary stay. I must have had Google Nav on some sort of “adventure setting” because that nice lady guided me through orange and plum and almond orchards- mist rising above the ground, sun cresting over the snow covered ridges- zigging and zagging me to my destination. Totally blue roads! (A reference to two lane roads off the beaten track, in case I just dated myself). This would have reversed the Luddite in even my own dad.
My kids, who now have their own phones after much arm twisting of the parental units, love to be the navigators. I started out old fashioned, thinking they would never experience the fun of charting family trips on an actual (using that word facetiously here) map.
This is so much better! They zoom in, they zoom out, they go right then left. They go all the way out to space AND back. No way could I have ever put my trip as a kid into THAT kind of context. Yosemite in relation to Mars. That is the ultimate.
Can we borrow from this for organizational change?
We can.
Many of the Fast Changes Around Us are actually some old things wrapped up in different packages. How is phone navigation any different than a map?…if the most important thing is getting to the destination. All those things you have to say about the paper map have to do with the experience. Same with the phone. They both work to get you there.
We have an important distinction here. Some change makes functional work easier. Some change creates a better experience. (Some rare change does both).
Differentiating and calling out function and form can make change more palatable and reinforce end states through use (function) and experience (form).
The map and the phone comparison is an easy way to show both. If you can show the phone provides form and function better than the map you are on your way to a more modern end state.
Look at the Fast Changes Around You. They may just help you put your own change, personal or corporate, into a different context. Navigation with phone or map is an easy Fast Change to start with.
Technorati Tags: Android, change management blog, change management consultant, fast change, GPS, iPhone, phone navigation
If you are in the market to place a TV in your living room that your neighbors and, quite possibly the people in the next town over, can view, Sharp is delivering.
90” of pure TV real estate.
Forget bragging about “diagonal size”, this baby gets to use (finally, speaking of fast change next to slow change) HORIZONTAL size. Because, of course, horizontal is all anyone really cares about!
At that size everyone on your couch is in the center of the TV (and the kids, the dog and the cat on the floor).
This is some serious change that will have people craning for years to come.
(An aside: what happens when they scale, you know they will, to say 10 feet or 12.5? How cool would it be to have a TV that did not fit in some ROOMS!).
This IS fast change.
I took my kids to a local museum and they had a sample living room set up from “days gone by”. The TV, a monster at maybe 19” (diagonal) screen inside a 6ft 8in wide cabinet (Ok that was an exaggeration to be funny, but not too far off). I was able to say that looks exactly like my grandmothers TV. And no I’m not that old.
Let’s get to the change.
Think about the number of times you now go to a friends and spread around the room for a party, sports, a movie, or an election.The TV, and the things it throws out, can be a magnet for socialization, sharing and dialogue (if you can get someone to be in charge of the mute and not mess up all the time). Perhaps the huge TV’s have opened up rooms? Or maybe great rooms call for big TV’s? The TV still creates a circle within the viewing range though no matter the size of the room.
Those circles are very social.
Sure you could do the same thing with a board game (that’s a shout out to the Luddites out there who still have their original TV…or none at all).
Or you could play a board game on the TV!
We have a blast clearing out our den of furniture and having adult/kids WII bowling tournaments.
From Pong to TV’s that cover a wall and do things when you gesture-Fast Change Around Us.
Technorati Tags: cultural change, fast change, monster tv's, social
Personally I have never been a mouse user.
But I bet if you eliminated mice forever there would be a loud scream heard worldwide.
Every meeting has the one person with the wireless or prehistoric-corded version whose hand flies around while the rest of their body looks like a mannequin from a wax museum.
To be fair there are a few people like me that have wireless keyboards with touchscreens built in to turn desktops into laptop-ish things.
The broader point here though is that some Fast Change Around Us has to do with things showing up and then leaving just at the point where we are used to them (or clutching them as the case may be).
Sometimes those replacements are sort of the same thing while serving the same function. Now OUR BODIES are mice in front of the TV. Gesture up for volume down for silence.
Touchscreens turn the computer, or phone, into one big giant mouse.
Keyboards also have a little history of their own. Remember when you could hear someone working a mile away on those things called “typewriters”, our first keyboards? Now think about how the sound was gradually taken away until all we hear is the barely audible whoosh of finger across screen. Take that up a notch and you have the keyboards that project an image on any surface so you can type to your hearts content. This must be a godsend for habitual finger tappers. Hey you might as well get something done with that nervous habit!
Really though half the time I don’t need a keyboard I can just say things and the big or medium or little box in front of me converts into something I can share with others. I am not about to type an address and then another and maybe two or three more if I have a lot of stops. I just tell my phone to get me there!
Change is about adding. Change is about taking away. Sometimes change is about replacing with something a little better in some way. How do you type? How do you move your cursor?
Technorati Tags: change management blog, fast change, keyboards, mice
With all the talk about the difficulty of change isn’t it amazing how some things just get different, apparently over night?
NPR gives us Touchscreen history on a timeline. While things were being developed in the ‘80’s- computer screens at an Illinois university, a Casio watch with a touchscreen and the first touch screen phone (one of those huge military-ish “cell” phones- remember those?) – we didn’t get the kind of interaction with a touchscreen that we now enjoy, until 2007. And Yes it was the iPhone.
I am amazed at the speed, dexterity and effectiveness of my kids flying fingers on a touchscreen. Even my own phone (which I will never get enough time to actually figure out) they fly around on, answering all my questions and rearranging (I should teach them to arrange shouldn’t I?) my life and data. As a side note: they think it is comical that I can type SO FAST!
My oldest daughter pointed out a man on a bench at the mall also flying away on his phone. “Even grandpa’s have their own phones now” she told me. (Two things: one she didn’t say “old person” point score there AND she was cahootsing with me as if I wasn’t somewhere close to that man’s age). She actually said phone too.
They are not “PDA’s” anymore. PDA was meant to differentiate a phone that did fancy data stuff with the ones that just called people. Yes we used to have phones that only made regular old phone calls. Another side note: “home phones” that can Bluetooth link to your cell phone- is that a “transition” stage for change on the way to cell phones only? (I only know one person who actually has a land line- grandpa [my kids]. He still has one of those rotary dial phones too [the kids think is it comical that we actually used those phones as children]).
Fast Change that catches my eye are the things that seem obvious now, change the way we interact and make life “easier” (in quotes because someone can always question the necessity of something in the first place). Phone touchscreens (and the fancy phone itself) are at the top of that list. Back to the kids- they make quick calls to friends and family to set things up or answer questions (and usually it is a video call, which gives us face-to-face connection with distance). Yesterday it was a seeing stars answer from our Ophthalmologist cousin, today- you guessed it- “when did we start using touchscreens” (good thing we had the touchscreen to answer the question).
We used to print out Google instructions for family trips. I did find time to figure out (it took seconds) my Android GPS. Now it is almost fun to just get lost and then speak a new destination!
Take a picture of something and get a web link to information, pricing etc. I didn’t believe this would work until my kids (would I be lost without them and their ability to just change and learn on the spot?) took a picture of a local restaurant sign, The Crown, and got the menu, hours and special events. We had our order ready before we even sat down (explain that to my grandparents who did not even have regular phones as kids).
The list is long, of things we can do because of touchscreens, especially on phones. This might be the best example of Fast Change Around Us that has changed the way we live.
Technorati Tags: change management blogs, fast change, iPhone, kids and technology, touchscreens
Credit for this image: Buddy Media Blog post if you want to see the bigger version INSANE graphic.
After you take the tour of all the online marketing options (with many left out- they must have just given up) jump down to the comments. They are a perfect example of the kind of discussions that happen when big, transformational change is immanent. There are the naysayers and the supporters. There are those who question motives (as they should) and those who question the motive questioners (one funny comment picks on a naysayer who is using a comment box on a blog to belittle social media).
They should have left room on the graphic. There are companies starting right out my window as we speak.
Or maybe not?
How many of these will merge or disappear in a short period of time?
There is fast change around us. In the case of social media there is so much change that at some point it has to be weeded and honed down to practical. Organizations have their own version of this. Case in point a client organization that had 25 different approaches to change management. Like each one of those logos in the graphic those who managed the approach, like those who own the social media firms (and anyone profiting from them), want to be queen/king controller of the environment. At some point those kinds of environments implode.
And then we have a different kind of change…
Fast change is around us. Sometimes fast change creates a change of its own for profit, practicality and simplicity.
Technorati Tags: fast change, Social Media
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