Sunday, June 24, 2012

Everything You Were Taught No Longer Applies



Remember when your math teacher made you show your long division or how you solved for "x"?  Remember when you said, "Why can't we just use a calculator. Why do we need to do everything the hard way?"

Then your teacher snapped back, "Your not always going to be near a calculator the rest of your life. What will you do then?"

Well, my smartphone not only has a calculator, but it also has a dictionary, encyclopedia, weather and that damn auto correct.

More and more things are changing due to technology. Everything we were told as kids is changing. Some industries have accepted the change (communication companies) and some refuse to blow the dust off and let change take it's course (education system).

I am in the age category where half the people I associate with haven't embraced change. They still are excited about this new technology they call Blu Ray. They may write checks out by hand still and don't trust typing their credit card into a website.  Then there is the other half who have embraced change so well that the just orchestrate their lives by the wave of their hand using a phone screen to pay for their coffee or ordering a movie on their lap and shooting it up to the TV for all to watch or documenting their entire life in video format and uploading to the web for the entire world to see.

Today I am meeting with my brother Charles Scalfani (screenwriter) and a good friend of mine Greg Derochie (movie director) They both collaborated on a movie last year that I got to help produce called http://SolitaryMovie.com.

The discussing today is how things have changed in the entertainment industry. We will be discussing what we have embraced and what the future has in store that we can begin to look into now. It's going to be a very interesting conversation. We might miss the mark on the future but I am sure we will be damn close.

And as said before, 1/2 the industry is accepting and 1/2 the industry is fighting change and kicking and screaming the whole way. Usually it's the head of studios who are way old and are used to controlling the entire field of entertainment. Not any more. It's slipping through their fingers.

Everyone works in a category that is changing. It doesn't matter if your in the medical industry or making paper products. Technology is changing the game and how our parents taught us to do things. They said go to school and get good grades so you can go to college (which is not my first choice for most people, but that's another blog post). Then, work on the corporate ladder and make your way to the top.

Unbelievable how people are still teaching that.  You can learn anything within the walls of your own home now with the internet. Not only that but for the price a few cups of coffee a month you could launch your own business. "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" said it best. Don't work on the corporate ladder; own the corporate ladder.

I have to run off to my meeting in Los Angeles, but here are a few thoughts before I go.

How have some things changed in your field of work.  What things do you find different today then when our parents were running our lives? What is the last dying breed of old thinking in the world and will the embrace or die?

1 comment:

Unknown said...

In 1998, my eyes started forming cateracts, sure to the leaps of medical advancements and really good drugs, I had lens replacements in both eyes, now I've gone from seeing 20/2000 to 20/30. Btw I know braille, but thats an other story all together.