Windows on The Future:

Introduction

Change is a subtle thing. Change is sneaky. Even though most of us are aware that something has changed in our lives, it's often very difficult to put our finger on exactly what has happened, how things have changed, or why things are different. We think what puts this into perspective for us is our children. We don't see them grow, but they do, right before our very eyes. It's only when we're confronted by the fact that their clothes or shoes don't fit any more, or when we compare them to the photos we took mere weeks or months ago, that we become aware of the magnitude of the changes that are taking place right before our very eyes. It's difficult to accept that these are the same little ones that used to fall asleep in our arms. It's hard for us to see the change because they're in our face all the time.

Change happens much the same way in our lives. It really is a different place that we live in today than the world we lived in even a few short years ago. Although it is sometimes difficult to see this in perspective, these are truly amazing times. We live in a world where change has become the constant. As a result, the world as we knew it even as little as 10 years ago, no longer exists. Hard as it may be to accept, 10 years from now, today's world will have recreated itself many times over. Even if we are able to tune into the fact that the world is changing rapidly, it is almost impossible to quantify and qualify the scope and the scale of the changes that we are experiencing.

As a result, many of the personal coping strategies we have learned over the years to deal with change have begun to unravel. In fact, they probably began to fail us several years back – we just didn't see that this was happening. If the coping strategies we used a decade ago aren't working well now, it's almost a certainty that they will be completely useless as we plunge headlong into the 21st Century. The only way we can hope to survive the impending tempest of change is to learn the art of the chameleon: to master change until we are able to move in concert with changes as they occur.

This book can help. It contains a number of ideas and strategies which have been developed from hundreds of presentations that have been delivered to thousands of educators, administrators, business and professional people throughout North America.

We believe that there is a simple formula for coping with change. At the very center of it all, the key issue is our mind set or paradigm. Paradigm determines how well we handle changes. Dealing with change requires individuals to cultivate a unique set of attitudes and skills that are necessary if we are to successfully leverage the changes for our benefit. Our journey begins here, because it is paradigm which most often prevents us from acknowledging change, as well as developing the necessary attitudes and skills needed to deal with it. Once we begin to understand the ways in which our paradigm talks to us, (and how it can even paralyze us), we will be able to interpret change from a variety of perspectives.

This book will also analyze a number of key trends that will most certainly affect every aspect of our lives in the new millennium. By assessing our paradigms and using our understanding of the way in which the world is changing, we can begin to develop the new skills and new strategies that will be needed to thrive in the 21st Century.

It is important for the reader to understand from the outset that the authors don't worship at the altar of technology. We don't suffer from terminal technodrool or technolust (well, maybe just a little). We are educators first and foremost, and are technologists only as a distant second. As a consequence, this book is not about cards and cables, hardware and software, input and output, or even RAM and ROM. Instead, this book is about change. It must be clearly understood that technology is now at the heart of most of the change we now experience. For many problems that exist in the world, there are technology-based solutions for dealing with them. However, having access to the technology and being able to cope with the changes it creates are 2 fundamentally different issues. We must distinguish between the available technology and the mind set that directs its use. In a world of constant change, unprepared people often become uncomfortable and disoriented. Uncomfortable people will do almost anything to become comfortable again, including turning away from change, giving into the lure of the familiar.

The lure of the familiar

Look, we'll admit right up front that we're both charter member of a group known as Overusers Anonymous. One of us has a leather jacket that was bought many years ago during the university years. That jacket is a much loved piece of clothing and it is still worn today, some 20 plus years later, any time the opportunity arises. This is done despite the fact that the jacket has definitely seen better days. It has rips and stains; it's out of style; and, just doesn't seem to fit the way it used to. So what? When people comment about how shabby it is, he just tells them that it's not old, it has character! Sadly others don't seem to share this perspective. In fact, the condition of the jacket has deteriorated to the point where his wife has warned him that if he ever leaves the property again wearing it, she will personally incinerate it, probably with him in it!

Yet, despite all of these dire threats, he just can't seem to bring himself to get rid of it, or buy another one. Why? Because that old jacket is just so darn comfortable. Besides, it took so long to break it in, that the thought of going through that process again with a new coat is just too unsettling. He would rather put up with the incredulous looks when wearing that old coat, than go out and buy a new one.

The problem is that it took a lot of hard work to make that jacket comfortable. He knows that he can afford to buy a new one, but he doesn't want to. If he bought a new one, he'd have to start all over again from scratch. Getting comfortable with it would take time. Consequently, he's reluctant, some might suggest resistant, to making what his wife and friends believe is an absolutely necessary change.

Why does he do this?

At first we thought it was just his own personal problem. But we've since discovered that most people have items somewhere in their lives that have become so comfortable they just can't seem to part with them. For some, it's a favorite piece of furniture that has seen better times. Most of us know someone who owns a tattered old couch that has descended slowly down the feeding chain from the living room to the den to the basement and out into the garage where it sits, like an old friend, waiting to embrace us. Others can't change the color of their house, replace the carpet, or get rid of their faithful old car. For most of us, these are special items that have significant personal meaning. It's human nature to cling to what is familiar and comfortable.

However, old coats and favorite chairs are not the only things that provide us with comfort. We also become attached to ideas, certain ways of doing things, even views of the world. These mental patterns can become like an old coat, they make no great demands upon us. Once we have invested the initial effort in making an idea our own, it's very easy to avoid dealing with changes that may force us to embrace new or different ways of thinking. Just look at the difficulty people had in accepting that the world was round, or that the earth revolved around the sun. Change is consistently resisted because it represents work, and is often seen as a threat to our comfort level.

Coming to terms with technology

This is one of the main reasons why technology is often resisted – why some perceive it as a threat. Technological development often forces change, and change is uncomfortable. It's important to understand our natural aversion to being uncomfortable when we consider the impact of technology on our lives. If truth be known, most of us prefer the path of least resistance. This tendency means that the true potential of new technologies may remain unrealized, because, for many, starting something new is just too much of a struggle. Even our ideas about how new technology can enhance our lives may be shaped or limited by this natural desire for comfort. So, the first lesson and the key to dealing with technology, is to learn how to discriminate between the technology and the ideas that guide its use.

Our changing view of computers

Looking at the way the computer industry has changed since the 1970s is one way to see how a primary focus on hardware gives us an incomplete picture of the true impact of technology. If we had first become involved in computing at a university in the mid 1970s, we would have worked on a mainframe computer, likely made by IBM, Burroughs or DEC. The computer would have been accessed remotely using punched cards to enter our programs into the computer. Our output would have been a printout. Strangely, particularly from the perspective of today, we would never have seen the computer we were working on. In fact, we would not even have been allowed to go into the computer center where the computer was housed, mainly for reasons of security and cleanliness. In addition, the machine we used to do our computing would have then been worth many millions of dollars and would have occupied an entire floor of a building.

By the late 1970s, computers had become much less expensive and much smaller than the big mainframes. There were minicomputers that could be completely housed in a large room. The cheapest machine we could have found would have been a Wang computer with 64K of memory. This was a bargain for $151,000! The terminals, disk drives, and printers were all add-on costs, of course (so what's changed?) – a terminal was $2,200, a disk drive was $38,000, a printer was $26,000 (yes, these are actual prices!). As a result, minicomputers, although smaller and cheaper than mainframes, were still quite large and relatively expensive.

By 1979, a remarkable change was occurring. Microcomputers had finally developed into workable systems. They came complete with the necessary peripheral devices and business software to perform business tasks. The price of an entire system, including computer, screen, keyboard, disk drive, printer, and software, was only $5,000 to $6,000. As a result, sales of microcomputers absolutely skyrocketed when business discovered these small and relatively inexpensive devices. The sudden appearance of such powerful computer technology into business and education led many to believe that we were in the middle of a computer revolution.

Since then, the microcomputer has invaded more aspects of life than anyone could ever have anticipated in 1979. How could we ever have imagined that computers and embedded microprocessors would one day control virtually every aspect of life from laptops to Trident missiles, VCRs, and sprinkler systems? Today, the microcomputer revolution is an accepted fact. But with the amazing increase in the capabilities of these machines, combined with the astounding rate at which new developments are being brought to the market, and the remarkable drop in the cost of technological power, it's all too easy to make the technology the focus of our attention. This tendency must be resisted at all costs, however, because a focus on the hardware can lead to some dangerous and crippling consequences from not fully grasping the long-term implications of the application of that technology.

Stepping back from technology

It's hard for us to gain a realistic perspective about technology primarily because it's always right there in front of us. It's like putting your outspread hand in front of your eyes. You can see a few things in the distance through the gaps between your fingers, but your hand is mostly what you see. To get a better perspective of things, you must move your hand back so your focus can shift to the larger picture. In order to gain a realistic perspective about technology, it's critical that we stand back from the technology sitting on your desk and consider how that technology fits into the bigger picture of modern life. The critical issues we face do not relate specifically to the technology, but rather the context in which the technology is viewed and used. Where does technology fit? How can/should it be appropriately and effectively used?

To gain this perspective, we must appreciate that technology is not the central issue. When used appropriately, technology is little different than a pen. Pens are transparent. We don't ponder the pen, we simply use it. In fact, most of us don't ever think about the pen when we use it unless it runs out of ink or we can't find it. It's not the pen, but what we use the pen for, that is the critical point.

We should endeavor to think about technology in much the same way. To do this, we must conceive of new ways of thinking about technology, taking into account the human world. In taking this perspective, we can allow the technology to slip into the background and focus on what the technology does to and for people. It's only when the technology becomes transparent and disappears into the background that we will be able to use it without thinking. In doing so, we can move beyond the technology, to new and far more important goals.

We are certainly not there yet. For example, we still marvel at powerful notebook computers with enormous storage capacity, blazing speed and access to the worldwide information network. We still focus on the technology not on what it can do. We often fail to grasp the significance of the interconnection. Stepping back, we must understand that carrying an expensive laptop computer is like owning just one very important book in an enormous library and the power of the information in this library has the potential to greatly change our lives.

Only by distancing ourselves from a primary focus on the technology, can we examine the changes taking place from a much broader perspective. A revolution in the sales of computers and in the capabilities of these devices, does not mean that there will be a simultaneous revolution in the way people live or think. Just because we have access to the boxes, doesn't mean that anything of real significance is happening. To understand this, we need go no further than to look at how computers are being utilized today. In business, computers are used for computerized accounting, record keeping, and the production of paper-based communications. In education, many computers are still being used for simple drill and practice of skills without any context for these skills. But there's nothing revolutionary about this. For the most part, computers are still being used to reinforce old ways of doing things – we simply have powerful new devices that allow us to do this work faster and more efficiently.

Rethinking technology

We must ask ourselves a critical question – is technology really changing our lives in fundamental ways or is it merely being used to speed up old and outdated ways of doing things? Are we doing fundamentally different things – or just doing the same old things a little differently? Even though computers can now use sound, video, text and graphics, for many users they are not yet full blown multimedia computers, primarily because the computer screen still demands the focus of our attention, rather than fading into the background.

The reason for this is that the use of new technology is being guided by the old mental patterns we developed before we encountered these new devices. Just like the prospect of discarding an old coat, we resist the changes that result from the introduction of new innovations. Consequently, the changes that do take place are guided by old ways of thinking because the prospect of having to change our thinking is unsettling. This is a critical point – it's not that there are no changes taking place; it's that these changes are not as substantial as we might think they are, or that they could or should be simply because our human nature tries to minimize the discomfort that results from the use of new technologies.

As David Thornburg often says, "when traveling at the speed of light, you don't need a rear view mirror." This may be true, but for many of us, when changes happen quickly we tend to hang on to old ideas and subconsciously look back. When we do this, we limit our ability to change. It's time to rethink this approach.

Only recently have there been signs that the microcomputer technology developed in the late 1970s is beginning to fundamentally alter our life styles. Some big changes are happening, like telecommuting and the flattening of organizational hierarchies. The fact that it took nearly 20 years for these changes to begin is a telling point. This time lag is a natural human response to new developments, even potentially life-changing technologies. It takes time for people to wrap their heads around new ideas, and to feel some level of comfort with the changes resulting from new technologies. So, in terms of everyday life, despite all the rhetoric and hype, it's more likely that there has been a computer evolution than there's been a computer revolution.

So what's the problem?

As we approach the new millennium, it appears that people are slowly beginning to understand the true potential of new technology. Even though this lags significantly behind the introduction of new developments, we are beginning to see a new way of life gradually appear. More and more people are becoming comfortable with the new technologies. If this is the case, what is the problem? Why write a book about it? Actually, there are several reasons.

First, technology-driven change is growing rapidly in power and speed. As a result, increasingly there is less time to get used to bigger and bigger changes in our lives. The reality is that most of us no longer have the necessary time to get comfortable with new technology at our leisure.

Second, we cannot look at the impact of technology on our lives in isolation from the effect it has on the rest of the world. Today, no country is an island, and therefore, exempt from the changes brought on by new devices. Communication technology has shrunk our world to the point where we truly live in a global village where our competitors can just as easily live across the ocean as they can down the street.

Third, the increase in the power of new technologies is startling and enormous. Those who can grasp its potential and who can be first to apply it to a task will gain such a competitive advantage that they may simply eliminate their competition, no matter where they operate in the world, or what traditional tasks they have performed in the past.

Fourth, some of our global competitors appear to be much more able to quickly use new technology. Consider the Japanese automobile industry. The use of robotic equipment has allowed Japanese auto-makers to surge to the lead in worldwide sales in just a few short years. Even today, the North American automobile industry lags behind Japan in the use of high tech equipment that substantially improves car production.

Fifth, the use of new electronic tools has already significantly changed the modern workplace. Technology has greatly altered where people work, when they work, and how they work. In addition, there are new skills needed to survive in jobs that where those skills were not needed as little as a few years ago.

Sixth, educators have the responsibility of preparing their students for success in the technology-rich world the students will face upon graduation. Equipping students with appropriate, skills, knowledge, and attitudes is critical if we hope to keep schools relevant in the modern world.

We must understand the significance of these points if we hope to compete in the game, whether the game relates to business or education. Mastering change created by technology requires the ability to work with discomfort. As we begin to understand the connection between new technologies and our level of comfort in dealing with them, we must find ways to become more quickly adept with these technologies. We must understand that other countries and organizations are already able to do this. What is it that they have done that allows them to apply new technologies more readily than others?

What is the key to success?

Does the key to success lie with the technology? Does having more computers, robots, networks, and satellites really make a significant difference? The answer lies less with the technology and more in the mind set or paradigm of the people who use the technology. It is mind set that determines how people visualize the potential of new technology. It is mind set that determines the way it is used to enhance our professional and personal lives. If mind set is driven by a desire for comfort, it can drastically limit even the most powerful new technologies. For far too many of us, this desire for comfort dramatically outweighs our need to push the limits of what new technologies can do.

Clearly, the key to success lies in how we perceive and apply the new technologies. There will be great winners and losers as society moves further into a technology-based world. It is a way of life that we can only begin to imagine. Thus, the key to success in the emerging culture of the 21st Century is being able to make a radical shift in our mind set or paradigm for life.