Killer Snails

"...they're screaming that they're being pursued by a snail and yet they cannot get away! 'The snail! The snail!', they cry. 'How can we possibly escape!?. The problem being that the snail's been moving closer for the last twenty years one way or another and they just weren't paying attention."

This is from a post by Tom Coates (now with Yahoo! formerly with the BBC) at plasticbag.org in reaction to the BBC's blueprint for the future that I wrote about yesterday. Made me laugh. It's titled "Is the pace of change really such a shock?" And it resonated too because way too often I hear librarians bemoan the pace of change and offer up the excuse that it's all just too much to stay up on....so they won't.

Tom again: "Shock revelation! A new set of technologies has started to displace older technologies and will continue to do so at a fairly slow rate over the next ten to thirty years!"

Change is a shock and disruptive if we stay in the warm and familiar water of a small pond. Venture outside the local and the familiar and then when change comes to our pond....we'll recognize it and be ready for it.