Change is Good
 

Just a bit of a rant here. I come up against this on a daily basis. Trying to implement change for the good, only to have my time wasted by people who hate change. In my opinion, change is good, change must occur all the time, change keeps things interesting, without change we remain stagnate.

Are you a change hater or a change lover?

Re: Change is Good
 

Making change happen is about delivering something that people want, and will grab hold of. If you have that, a positive change, then you have no real trouble making change happen. There are some tricks as to getting past initial cynicism in how you present it - but if you are smart it will happen to over 50% of users without effort.

The problem comes when there is no benefit to people, when it's a bad change, but that management try to push through anyway (often so there's no traceability as to their ineffectual uselessness). Top down imposition is always hard - mainly because they are often bad ideas and the staff have been around the block enough to know they won't stick and will be replaced within a year or two.

Real question should be; is this a good change than improves things, or a bad change that protects the guilty and makes things worse.

It's kind of noticeable, as he tries to justify avoiding open standards, how he says 'change' (to a proprietary standard) is all about making money from customers - not providing tools to users.

Re: Change is Good
 

I posted the Steve Jobs example not to get into the tech detail, but to examine how someone understood that change was required and how to get there. That speech was from 97.

The guy who asked the question was focussing on the now (97) and how things can remain the same. Steve Jobs was looking at 2007. And remarkably what he said he would do he did.

Change also comes in other forms. Moving country, changing careers, etc. Some people fear it. Some people love it.

I find those who fear it ultimately have a fear of failure. Steve Jobs had already failed once by 97. I guess if you take that first failure, the fear of a second or third is not so hard to stomach.

Re: Change is Good
 

If you listen, the change he was talking about was canning OpenDoc and sacking the developers. Since having apps 'work together' has been a perennial deficiency in apple (particularly the iphone) it was probably a duff move.

OpenDoc - Apple Wiki - Wikia

If you don't have at least some fear, you're probably daft, and liable to end in a mess. Fear is rational, paralysis due to fear is not. However, even though nature favours the moving target, it's by no means certain that being fearless will result in the best outcome.

Re: Change is Good
 

I think you know where I stand on this from my tagline. Change has always been resisted by some. Try working in an organization that is proud to self describe as moving at 'glacial speed.'

Re: Change is Good
 

Depends

Change to achieve new goals is good, unavoidable actually

Change for change's sake? I'm not so sure - Australia changed from a proper government to an Australia-hating socialist one in 2007 because many people wanted a 'change'. As we now know, the result was disastrous and set Australia back by years and we are still dealing with the fallout

Re: Change is Good
 

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>>Are you a change hater or a change lover?

Re: Change is Good
 

I love change.

Re: Change is Good
 

Saw many cases of that with my UK company. Predominantly from new bosses coming into the company and wanting to impose "purist" ideas. Invariably we had to revert to the old ways.

We did things the way we did them for tried and trusted reasons and achieved acceptable outcomes with limited resources. That's a balancing act they failed to comprehend.

That said we did embrace change as a company over the years and the large majority of successful change came as a result of workforce inclusion.

Re: Change is Good
 

One of my jobs has been creating large scale change, and as I suggest, you can do it if you act sneaky. The trick is realising that nothing every works well in companies; so the desire for change is there, if you can bypass the cynicism.

Forget the books, you need practically learnt battle wounds to do this.

Re: Change is Good
 

>>Are you a change hater or a change lover?

Re: Change is Good
 

Good change is good, bad change is bad.

Instead of concentrating on the change aspect try and focus on the positives it will bring about. Otherwise you cannot blame people for not wanting change.

Re: Change is Good
 

Yes, Steve Jobs famously often looked into the future and embraced new tech dragging others kicking and screaming after him...

Re: Change is Good
 

You have to understand that Jobs was both the biggest accelerator and simultaneously the biggest hand-brake in Apple's history.

He moved the company forward to a certain place, but after that he refused to consider further changes that appeared natural to everyone else. If he was still around there would be one iPhone size, one iPad size, etc.

Re: Change is Good
 

Jobs was already onboard before his death and involved in increasing the screen size.

Re: Change is Good
 

It appears that change came a little to late. Other companies like Samsung had already beat them to the screen size bit.

Change is good.

Re: Change is Good
 

Lucky I guess that he had got so many things right so could carry a few mistakes.

Re: Change is Good
 

Generally I dislike change just for change's sake- in my teaching days, every new government would tinker with the syllabus/reporting/accessing information/help -it all became beurocratic, teaching to a test, ticking boxes, filling in endless forms and achieving targets set by people who had no idea of how children "work". Just when you had ironed out the many, many kinks and found a way of delivering what they wanted, they changed it again. Layer upon layer of management and the awful "gov speak" terms that you had to spout.

What about all the children? They were seen as a product rather than individuals, and the poor teachers spent so long ticking all the boxes they lost that vital interaction with the younger ones - you didn't have time to look at something that a child had brought in, or discuss worries with them. I got out before it got really bad......

And yet, I surprised my husband by agreeing to make the biggest change in my life and moved to Aus!!

(Was I ranting a bit there?)

Re: Change is Good
 

Absolutely. What Jobs did 10-15 years ago was pretty amazing.

Re: Change is Good
 

Not exactly. Good change is good. Bad change is bad. Isn't that logical? :)

Re: Change is Good
 

Change is good

Re: Change is Good
 

What he did right up until his death was amazing and it has continued under Cook. Fantastic contribution to the IT world and the pushing forward of tech.

Re: Change is Good
 

Tell that to Dick Smith ;)

Re: Change is Good
 

Dick Smith, Harvey Norman and JBHifi are failing to keep up with change and the benefactors of that change is you and I.

Re: Change is Good
 

Under Tim Cook Apple are just keeping up and following others. I wouldn't expect the fanboys to see what everyone else is doing.

I tip my hat to Steve Jobs for creating the fanboy thing. Again more brilliance by the great man. Create a club and let it consume.

Re: Change is Good
 

I'd liken it more to snake charming. Keep the tune going, the snake entranced, and you can make coin off of it. However, run out of puff, screw up, and the snake wakes, looks around, thinks 'who IS this berk' and gets angry.

Apple have been lucky that the mobile phone industry has hit a plateau. They were a good 2-3 years behind the curve, but have been able to claw some of that back because things aren't evolving as quickly as they were. They are now 1-2 years behind.

However, it's unlikely that will continue. Something will come along that effectively replaces the phone, and then apple's tendency towards conservatism and screwing the customer with small steps rather than big leaps will come back to haunt them.

Change is one of those strange abstract facets of society. Move too fast and you don't take people with you. Move too slow and you get left behind. 'Just right' changes as society changes too - making it more art than science.

Jobs wanted to replace the Newton with something of his own (echoing the Macintosh/Lisa fight) - and the iphone was pretty much the output of a desire to produce a PDA for apple. He lucked out with timing, arriving with something just as the market was ready for the change.

Re: Change is Good
 

Too one dimensional Garry. You focus too much on the tech and fail to see the many facets that bring something to market and make it sell.

Now while both of us see the bad tech, most don't, so hats off to those who can do this, and sell a gazillion of those. They weren't the first to invent and MP3 player, but they made it sticky.

Re: Change is Good
 

No I didn't. I referenced it. Snake charming - the act of trying to convince the snake to dance rather than bite your face off, so you can make money.

Re: Change is Good
 

Fanbois: Continuous imbalanced rants on unrelated forums about an opposing tech that you don't own with constant dodgy facts and cherry picked comparisons. Accusing other side of being blind. Never ending obsession. Sorry, who did you say were the fanbois's again, I'm confused :sneaky:

Re: Change is Good
 

Can't you just acknowledge the brilliance of the Apple marketing machine in the early part of the naughties? Steve Jobs had goal, and idea, and a method on how to achieve it. He did and look at the fanboy base he created.

Why does everything have to come back to "lies"? Its just marketing, its about creating a club of people who you get hooked and will continue to buy from the ecosystem. Its clever business.

Change is good. :)

Re: Change is Good
 

Actually, this one is about change. The change Steve Jobs pioneered from the late 90's. Not just tech change, but cultural, marketing, people, business change. Its a brilliant story don't you agree?

Re: Change is Good
 

Steve Jobs was one of the masters of change in all its forms. He changed the world.

Re: Change is Good
 

Yep. I do agree. No I don't do Apple, the technology is far too inferior today. In some respects it was inferior back in the early to late naughties too, but Jobs was able to make people change which is a feat that has yet to be repeated on such scale. The change was never about the tech. The tech already existed. It was about bringing it to the market and making consumers consume in such mass numbers, building cults and clubs and allowing those cults and clubs to multiply.

Time for the next thing. Change is good.

Re: Change is Good
 

Change is coming.

Govt ignores new poll on negative gearing - 9news.com.au

Well overdue and the current proposal is flawed, but it certainly puts it on the table. We will see change here, its just a matter of what it is.

At the end of the day, $4 billion worth of taxpayers money shouldn't be used to prop up bad investments.

Re: Change is Good
 

Changing NG is a red herring

I'm ambivalent about it. I tried it but it didn't work for me, it does for others. I guess it's not a very good policy but you can't have a tax reducing system that people can take advantage of and then get all huffy when they do. Many average Australians quite legally take the risk and do NG in order to reduce their tax and provide for their future. Hurting them is not cool and is socialist nonsense

But ultimately it's a red herring

Stopping all NG would save the budget about $7b - peanuts for a government spending $450b a year. Increasing GST to 15% would raise $35b, which could be used to reduce debt and cut income tax

Re: Change is Good
 

I'm getting less and less forgiving of lying, in all it's forms, and bullsh*t.

I don't think liars should be rewarded. Neither should bullsh*t. Neither should idiots that can't put two and two together. I feel we've been too accommodating and forgiving of such people - who should rightly be punished, rather than rewarded and protected. To be a liar, to be a fool, should be something that hurts - to stop people doing it again.

You want a good change? Jail the liars.

Re: Change is Good
 

Negative gearing is the opium that has helped Australians do hooked on property.

It makes sense to give tax breaks to homeowners - everyone needs shelter, as they do food and heating - but to give tax breaks to "investors" in order to write off losses in the expectation of capital gains is absolutely bonkers.
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Re: Change is Good
 

Whether a change is good or bad is entirely dependent on the type of change itself, and the individual. We all welcome good change, and even bad change can result in a stronger, better you. However some change is just too ridiculously bad to be looked on positively, so not ALL change is good, just as not ALL change is bad.

And punishing people for being idiots? I'm all for that as long as the same punishment is inflicted on intellectual snobs;)

Re: Change is Good
 

Change for change sake gets up my nose.

The sort where you change to send people in an anti clockwise direction instead of clockwise just because you can.

I suppose consultants would say it's good "to keep people on their toes" but in reality it achieves nothing.

Re: Change is Good
 

Sounds to me like you're saying these consultants use this change not because it's good, but because it keeps them in a job. You old cynic you :thumbup: