Strateegery & the Rigors of Innovation

        Creative Disruption
   (cultural lag & deconstruction, elenchus)
         It's an Environmental Issue

“In the gap between the speed with which people
respond to change and the much greater potential
of the technology we invent, the greatest conflicts
in human history occur.
 
The unavoidable struggle between old and new
is explained by the third law of digital life: the
Law of Disruption.
 
According to the Law of Disruption: technology
changes exponentially, but social, economic, and
legal systems change incrementally.
 
As the new world runs increasingly ahead of the old,
social systems invariably break down only to be
dramatically reinvented to better suit the new
environment to which human beings have
already relocated.
 
The initial impact can be dramatic— even  revolutionary.
But the real change may come years later. In the long run,
as human beings reorder their lives to adjust to the new
realities,  the second order effects of innovation are both
more dramatic and more systemic.”

Larry Downes: The Laws of Disruption:
Harnessing the New Forces that Govern
Life and Business in The Digital Age.
 
New students coming in next week have
been swimming in a techno-environment
alien even to our youngest faculty, I bet.
 
And we will bring them back to old school ways
—teach them to drop their multi-tasking habits,
gaming jiggle-legs, attention diversity, instant
message texting. phoning, video generating,
Google accessible informational savvy so
that  they can focus on study skills,
time management, proper
documentation, academic
skills in note & course-
taking and credit
accumulation. .
 
The MEDIA is the message.
 
Can you imagine a student in your class  exchanging
more or less immediate video-info with a friend at
U. Santa Cruz?  “Look, here’s my teacher trying
to explain supra-segmental  phonemes! What are
you guys doing?”
 
I do injustice.
I understate the  situation.
It’s beyond me.  I still use a land-based phone,
hook-up to the world  through the desk-top in
my office (study, studio)..
 
Clod of unknowing, stranger in a stranger land.
I know that much.   Walking on 3 legs here.