Many of you readers will have never seen a telegram, but most are familiar with the history. In 2006 Western Union delivered its last telegram. The telegraph industry's life was taken, definitively and brutally by technological change. For more than 150 years, the telegram stood for immediacy and importance. It was an icon for urgency. But now, Western Union has closed down its telegraph service around the world. Email, instant messaging, and faxes are the new technologies the telegram could not survive. So, Western Union has reconfigured itself into a business primarily dedicated to wiring money.
The shift from teletype and telegram to the new technologies represents one aspect of what some business consultants term a "paradigm shift"—a discontinuity in the otherwise steady march of business progress. There are many more examples of a lesser scale. Think about the music business. Some people alive today can remember the advent of radio and TV. Many have seen the evolution from vinyl records to 8-track tapes, to cassettes, to CDs, and now to MP3 and i-Pods. Once-thriving music stores have shut down or converted to vintage shops specializing in those odd antiquities—records!
While once a hot business, "video" stores are virtually gone. Having made the transition from videotape movies to DVDs, they continue to face the competition of Red Box-type vending machines and other delivery systems that allow customers access to movies without leaving the comfort of their homes such as on-demand movies through cable, satellite, and cellular phone systems.
Looking further back in history, the automobile was another discontinuity, one that radically transformed both the economy and society. When the automobile first appeared, it seemed to be merely a horseless version of the well-known carriage. No one could have predicted the consequences of the automobile's introduction. Who would have imagined that a noisy, smelly, unreliable machine would eventually be responsible for the creation of suburbs; the fractionalization of families; and the growth of supermarkets, malls, and the interstate highway system? For that matter, who among us pictured the day when automobiles routinely included more electronics than the early spacecraft or when on-board electronic communication systems can call for help or open an accidentally locked door?
Probes
1. How has technology shifted in your adult lifetime? What are the most significant examples reflecting these kinds of paradigm shifts in recent years?
2. What future shifts do you envision? Be creative in describing possibilities.