A thermometer or a thermostat

“I’ll put it this way, brother: You’ve got to be a thermostat rather than a thermometer. A thermostat shapes the climate of opinion; a thermometer just reflects it. If you’re just going to reflect it and run by the polls, then you’re not going to be a transformative president. Lincoln was a thermostat. Johnson and F.D.R., too.”
— Cornell West, answering the question “How can Obama be the president you want him to be when he’s facing this Republican Congress?” From Talk - Cornel West - NYTimes.com, Sunday, July 24, 2011. (It also reminds me of “Are you the scanner or the barcode” by Cory Doctorow from Make volume 22 http://makezine.com/22/ — the article is not online.)

Shirky, on institutional change

“Running an organization is difficult in and of itself, no matter what its goals. Every transaction it undertakes—every contract, every agreement, every meeting—requires it to expend some limited resource: time, attention, or money. Because of these transaction costs, some sources of value are too costly to take advantage of. As a result, no institution can put all its energies into pursuing its mission; it must expend considerable effort on maintaining discipline and structure, simply to keep itself viable. Self-preservation of the institution becomes job number one, while its stated goal is relegated to number two or lower, no matter what the mission statement says. The problems inherent in managing these transaction costs are one of the basic constraints shaping institutions of all kinds. [p29]

…New social tools are altering this equation by lowering the costs of coordinating group action. The easiest place to see this change is in activities that are too difficult to be pursued with traditional management but that have become possible with new forms of coordination.” [p31]”
— Clay Shirky, from Here Comes Everybody
“Urgency is becoming increasingly important because change is shifting from episodic to continuous. With episodic change, there is no one big issue such as making and integrating the largest acquisition in a firm’s history. With continuous change, some combination of acquisitions, new strategies, big IT projects, reorganizations, and the like comes at you in an almost ceaseless flow…Put simply, a strong sense of urgency is moving from an essential element in big change programs to an essential asset in general”
— p. 82, Kotter, John P, A Sense of Urgency, Harvard Business Press, 2008.

Innovator's Dilemma

“…Leading firms’ most profitable customers generally don’t want, and indeed initially can’t use, products based on disruptive technologies. By and large, a disruptive technology is initially embraced by the least profitable customers in a market. Hence, most companies with a practiced discipline of listening to their best customers and identifying new products that promise greater profitability and growth are rarely able to build a case for investing in disruptive technologies until it is too late.”
— p. 134,  Christensen, Clayton M, The Inventor’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, 1997.

Looking boldly into the future

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I asked Twitter for help finding an image to represent people looking boldly into the future. Responses are below. Thanks everyone!!!!

via @charlotteshj, "I’m sure this amazing blog may inspire - phps even have some futuristic pics http://paleofuture.com"

via @nealstimler, 

R. Kent’s “Eternal Vigilance Is the Price of Liberty" http://t.co/Iwx5WQx 
Prometheus Unchained http://t.co/hwVr7Pm @americanart
Pino Janni’s "Waterfront Scene" http://t.co/RrIpeYP
Thomas Delbridge’s "Lower Manhattan" http://t.co/6l03HJo #1934 @americanart

via @Anne6fy, "migrant photos, e.g. http://t.co/nhkkiSR"

via @lkchr, "supplementing @MSanderhoff ’s nice suggestion, there are also some fine pics of spectators admiring US a-bomb testing in the 50’s"

via @doug_burke

via @vanessafox

via @LukeSnarl, http://www.tagg.org/pix/snog2000.jpg

via @kos2, "Image of Alice looking through the keyhole? Dorothy opening up the door and seeing Munchkinland?"

via @spellboundblog, "Have you tried hunting over on the Flickr Commons? I used this one in a recent talk: http://www.flickr.com/photos/35740357@N03/4012382360"

via @chrisfreeland, "forward facing or back facing (the people, I mean)?"

via @msanderhoff, "If you like the odd ironic twist you could go for Soviet social realism from the 50'es-60'es"

via @anya1anya, "try Goog Image search of Balboa reaching the Pacific Ocean"

- - - - - - image credits - - - - - - -

Vasco Núñez de Balboa first sights the Pacific Ocean. Illustration by Tancredi Scarpellihttp://www.lookandlearn.com/blog/?p=1228 

Paleofuture banner imagehttp://www.paleofuture.com/blog/category/1980s

Burrough Audubon Society Members Use Binoculars to Identify Migratory Shore Birds…02/1975The U.S. National Archives, No known rights restrictionshttp://www.flickr.com/photos/usnationalarchives/4012382360/in/photostream/

CD artwork by Chris Woods for Snogg’s album "Third Mall from the Sun” (2000)http://www.tagg.org/pix/snog2000.jpg

Untitled oz imagehttp://vigilantcitizen.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Wizard-of-Oz-Emerald-City.jpg

Looking Ahead… by Nebraska Helen, CC - Attributionhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/44025224@N06/4295975670

Eternal Vigilance Is the Price of Liberty1945, Rockwell Kenthttp://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=13583

Prometheus Unchained1938, Rockwell Kenthttp://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=13594

Pino Janni: Waterfront Scene, 1934CC - Attribution, noncommercial, no derivativeshttp://www.flickr.com/photos/americanartmuseum/3266744205/in/pool-1046782@N22/

Thomas James Delbridge: Lower Manhattan, 1934CC - Attribution, noncommercial, no derivativeshttp://www.flickr.com/photos/americanartmuseum/3266713733/in/pool-1046782@N22/