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BS: long term change vs. short term trends

29 Mar 16 - 10:31 AM (#3782043)
Subject: BS: long term change vs. short term trends
From: Ed T

From your job/work experience, what impacts long term change and innovation? In the current climate, are the conditions that fueled a diversity of changes/innovations in products being reduced by business concentration and changes in marketing - accelerated by the influence of the internet? Is that itself short term, or a permanent change? If permanent, is it a "good thing"? Is civilization better for it, or what is/would be lost? (Are some of the conditions that fueled a diversity in music styles a near future causility -for example folk music, as boomers die off?).

Wondering thoughts, I accept. But, IMO, worth some thought/discussion, wherever it goes?


Seth Godin 

"Short order cooks rarely make change happen"

""How far in the future does your agenda extend?

One way to tell: of the things you worked on last week, how many were due last week?

The marketplace has always tempted us with short-term cycles (they require less trust) and the internet amplifies this temptation to buy fast, sell fast, work fast, measure fast, move on. 

But, the work that leads to change is rarely written on an order slip or an RFP (request for proposal). Selling to the next buyer is easier than changing the culture, but easier isn't always the point.""

Seth Godin on March 28, 20


29 Mar 16 - 10:47 AM (#3782047)
Subject: RE: BS: long term change vs. short term trends
From: Dave Hanson

I'm so glad I came here now !

Dave H


29 Mar 16 - 11:26 AM (#3782058)
Subject: RE: BS: long term change vs. short term trends
From: Ed T

Wel, alternately, we could have this?

Slim Pickins 


29 Mar 16 - 11:36 AM (#3782061)
Subject: RE: BS: long term change vs. short term trends
From: punkfolkrocker

Shaving your head is moderately short term [unless none of it grows back]

A tattoo is definitely long term

Body Piercings ? well at least the holes might heal shut eventually if you tire of all the metal work rubbing against your inner upper thighs... 😜


29 Mar 16 - 12:06 PM (#3782067)
Subject: RE: BS: long term change vs. short term trends
From: Steve Shaw

Or the insides of the knees in my case... ;-)


29 Mar 16 - 02:51 PM (#3782088)
Subject: RE: BS: long term change vs. short term trends
From: Rapparee

Long term change rarely if ever comes from short term trends, but long term change can cause the short term trends. But let's call "long term change" just "change" and the other "trends."

Trends, of course, can lead to change, but not nearly as often as the reverse.

Look at the Internet (distinct from the World Wide Web). In 1967, when it was first dreamed up to maximize computer time available on the East and West Coasts of the US (NOT in case of nuclear war!) there was no idea that it would eventually permit email, FTP, and all of the rest. IPv4 was considered a basically infinite number of addresses. And it changed the way some universities and businesses worked. This change leaked out and in the '70s grew to The Well and The Source and others. By the mid-70s libraries in the US were using more modems than the airlines. Collaboration became rampant. And then HTMP and HTTP were invented and the WWW was unleashed by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN and everything changed.

Notice that the WWW is part of the Internet, although we use the terms interchangeably. The change, in this case, was relatively slow, but as as more and more people became aware of the possibilities the pace quickened. Trends began to sprout like branches from a tree and like such, some withered (used Netscape Navigator lately?) and died and others flourished.

The trick is to know which is which. Netscape was purchased by AOL, who still holds the rights. Firefox, on the other hand, is very much alive and well and owned by Mozilla -- a collaborative software endeavor. Microsoft has recently pretty much given up on Internet Explorer.

What's the next trend? Will it become a maker of change?

Got me. I'd rather think about why cats are so popular on the WWW.


29 Mar 16 - 03:27 PM (#3782090)
Subject: RE: BS: long term change vs. short term trends
From: Ed T

Interesting perspective Rapparee.
Certainly, whether accurate and productive sources (or from the other side) , the internet has had a major impact on sharing information and enlightening those who wish to be enlightened.

While the corporate world I getting more concentrated and slicker (from a marketing perspevtive), a huge amount of information is readily available (from a variety of sources) to help people make more informed choices.


29 Mar 16 - 06:17 PM (#3782120)
Subject: RE: BS: long term change vs. short term trends
From: Ed T

Interesting perspective Rapparee.
Certainly, whether accurate and productive sources (or from the other side) , the internet has had a major impact on sharing information and enlightening those who wish to be enlightened.

While the corporate world I getting more concentrated and slicker (from a marketing perspevtive), a huge amount of information is readily available (from a variety of sources) to help people make more informed choices.


29 Mar 16 - 08:00 PM (#3782144)
Subject: RE: BS: long term change vs. short term trends
From: Ed T

Punkfolkrocker:

I had tattoo on my leg put on by a back alley parlour during a 16 teen age dare. I had it remved ten years later, I prefered the scar to the poor tattoo job. Now they can easily be remived by lasers, with little, if any lasting sign.


29 Mar 16 - 09:37 PM (#3782156)
Subject: RE: BS: long term change vs. short term trends
From: Rapparee

Which is why, twenty years from now, I'd like to be a dermatologist specializing the tattoo removal...or a plastic surgeon repairing holes in bodies.


30 Mar 16 - 10:21 AM (#3782248)
Subject: RE: BS: long term change vs. short term trends
From: Donuel

It is hard to se the long and short of it when the Rochester Gas & Electric built a glass vault vessel 10 meters from the childrens swings behind the fence of a school playground in order to stor radioactive waste. Or 30 year steel barrels to dump nuclear waste in the ocean that remains deadly for 1 billion years. Or even reactor containment vessels that are now 40 years beyond their viable safe life times.

The people who built these things are now dead.

The people who injected water mixed with nerve gas deep under Colorado Springs causing earthquakes just like the fracking earthquakes are now dead.

Short term decisions have long term trends of death and disease.
There are places in the US and Russia where you can collect Pu with a beach shovel. If you are stupid.

Short term profits vs long term is still the corporate standard,
and that makes us all stupid wall st included.


30 Mar 16 - 03:05 PM (#3782314)
Subject: RE: BS: long term change vs. short term trends
From: Nigel Parsons

From: punkfolkrocker - PM
Date: 29 Mar 16 - 11:36 AM

Body Piercings ? well at least the holes might heal shut eventually if you tire of all the metal work rubbing against your inner upper thighs... 😜


PFR: Just to clarify, are you talking about the metal of your piercings, or the earrings of a close friend? :)


30 Mar 16 - 08:36 PM (#3782354)
Subject: RE: BS: long term change vs. short term trends
From: Rapparee

Or both? One could get caught in the other, which could be both embarrassing and painful. "Sorry, but you'll both have to hold still while we use the cutting torch...."


31 Mar 16 - 05:50 PM (#3782509)
Subject: RE: BS: long term change vs. short term trends
From: olddude

Hula hoop


31 Mar 16 - 06:10 PM (#3782514)
Subject: RE: BS: long term change vs. short term trends
From: Steve Shaw

"Body Piercings ? well at least the holes might heal shut eventually if you tire of all the metal work rubbing against your inner upper thighs... 😜 "

"PFR: Just to clarify, are you talking about the metal of your piercings, or the earrings of a close friend? :)"

Thinking about it, does that work on an anatomical level, Nigel? Not sure quite where the earrings would, er, be abrading, but upper inner thighs? Let me think...(all I can manage these days...)