On Tides and Waves.

Ah, the laser disc. When I was a kid at some point the laser disc machine became a thing in our school. In hindsight, the hilariously large and delicate discs (although quite futuristic looking) had limited value by showing crisper video on those old, heavy CRT monitors, they didn't need to be rewound, and when you paused it was nearly crystal clear.

I remember getting super-jealous when my childhood neighbor got a DIVX machine, where DVD type discs were essentially time-bombed and you could use later at extra cost (and connection through your dial-up internet). Hilarious, right?

The real story was about digitization and what that does for access to an amenity. Now, some 30+ years later… I see how hard it is to see the those tides in the waves of tech predecessors.

Being a technologist the past 10+ years in the building design, construction, operation and manufacturing industries I've seen a tremendous amount of real change in common expectations alongside an absolute deluge of use cases and associated tech that never broke into common processes.

Take the late aughts and the push for energy analysis, and the rapid increase in LEED and green building standards: Here the fundamentals of sustainable design were being paid lip service while more immediately satisfying (and measurable) tech and standards arose. That being said the LEED program and some of the tech has enacted change in response to some of these reactions in very positive ways since then.

Point being: leaders have to process a lot of tech change and somehow apply it to practical innovation in their organizations and its not so easy.

The most useful exercise that you can do, and must do, to consume new tech is to earnestly and succinctly align it with something existing in your organization or life. Avoid wondering about the future, it is fun but not pragmatic. Get a big picture of what the tech or provider is trying to solve and then use this sentence stem to find real value:

"It would be nice if…"

Its that simple, and ask others in your organization to do the same. You will learn tremendous insights as to where the most is to gain, even though that may mean you have to change your mind or change directions. One more piece of advice on this devastatingly simple way to do your own process improvement discovery:

"Be unreasonable." And make sure to tell people that, especially those that seem to struggle to find ideas.