I’m trying to find a metaphor of change that captures what is happening in society, technology, and education/training/learning/development. I doubt a single metaphor will do…or if one can be found, it will need to account for multiple, simultaneous, chaotic, disruptive change pressures.
Anyway, the post: Struggling for a metaphor for change.
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8 Comments
Wow… That’s a tough one. I think you’re right — no single metaphor will do.
But I’m a great believer in metaphors. If I have any flashes of inspiration I’ll post them here!
This is admittedly more of a parallel than a metaphor, but I would compare the changes in our industry to those in the entertainment industry. For years now, the networks, cable companies, and even Hollywood has been increasingly forced to compete with free content, much of it consumer-generated. At the same time, the traditional delivery channels are breaking down. Broadcast media and the box office now have to compete with on-demand, connected, participatory content from YouTube, Hulu, and a multitude of others. Anyone with a webcam and an internet connection can produce content and incorporate it into this new media.
Perhaps because the entertainment industry is more malleable and less resistant to change, these trends are emerging faster than in other industries (like education). I think this gives educators a unique opportunity to learn from the successes and failures as we start to experience the same trends in our marketplace.
Ditto re Bob’s comment. One strange direction of thought immediately went off into lunar cycles, eclipses, tides, currents but didn’t go into anything useful. I think one does exist actually – it will be the one that we’ll all be going ” oh, of course” to soon, just because things are difficult to find, doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t exist – I’m sure one will emerge in time, from someone or some group thinking.
I think there is something around behaviour and states (yes, very vague I know) – I think there may be metaphors either outside in (i.e. a lot of stuff happening and reflecting on that) or inside out (individual is changing something then reflecting on that)
George – not sure if this is on the same wavelength but a variety of childhood images all juxtaposed come to mind:
1. Chicken Little
2. Don Quixote on horse with Windmill in background.
3. Mickey Mouse in the Sorcerer’s Apprentice
4. Ring Around the Rosie
Kia ora e Geaorge!
‘A fresh egg in a blender’ comes to mind. That may seem negative at first, but there is structure there.
After all, you can always filter out all the egg-shell afterwards, if the requirement is no egg-shell.
Pity about any no yolk requirement.
Whatever.
Catchya later
Like trying to steer the speedboat that’s towing you as you water-ski.
You nail the problem beautifully, but then you ask the wrong question. We don’t need new metaphors for change. We need a new science. The long tail, flat world, etc. are not satisfying because they describe a process or a few processes and not wholes.
To “capture the nature of change” frame all as change—as process rather than structure.
Len Troncale has proposed and outlined an entirely new basic science made up of about 100 processes that form up systems found throughout nature. You mentioned quite a few of them: flow, feedback, hierarchy, chaos, bonding/linking, loose coupling, openness/closure, networks, emergence, etc. The features and functions of each process and their interrelationships apply to all systems—stars, the weather, our minds, our communities.
Bela H. Banathy wrote about this back in the 80s—His first book was “A Systems View of Education”–and my MA thesis was about using it.
The struggle toward articulating this happens at the International Society for the Systems Sciences http://www.isss.org/world
It’s fun stuff.
These are just some very random thoughts that I was thinking to put in a blogpost but are kind of a continuing response to this.
Does this mean that we are moving beyond the web and the internet – i.e. the future of the web is not the web ? I’m still wondering about the applicability of web as a metaphor. The web is a great metaphor for many things, for interconnectedness, for describing how activities and interactions are performed by both technology and humans. We have web 0, 1.0, 2.0 with 3.0 also beginning to emerge from behind the curtains. If we continue along this route and fully understand the meaning of string theory I guess its only a matter of time before we are at web 11.0.
I am unsure whether mobile connectivity is the same as online connectivity – I don’t find “web of things” or “internet of things” helpful enough – I am big fan of keeping terms open such as “things” but humans connecting to other humans via objects / object-based connectivity doesn’t explain the movement of that connectivity and it would be interesting to explore other dynamic movement beyond waves…maybe.