"It was 20 years ago today..."

That I first heard the 'c' word.  Things were going to be different, we were all told.  This 'c' thing was going to become a constant.  If you didn't embrace it you would be left behind and there would be no place for you.  Crumbs - scary stuff!  But what are they talking about?  It was threatening, confusing, exciting.  I remember well the emotions when the "into the 90's" programme was first presented to us. 

Having whipped us all up, scared us to death, excited us, given us a glimpse of what was in store in a futuristic video guess what happened next?  Very little.  In fact not much happened for the next few years.  Certainly not the root and branch seismic change we were all led to believe was going to happen as soon as we left the venue. Change is here, it is now and will be a constant was the continuous refrain, but where was the evidence?

And yet and yet… change was happening.  Imperceptible at first – a flick of the eyebrow, a twitch of a muscle, then into baby steps and gathering momentum.  Strange really as I look back now.  The rate of change seems relentless today...like an out of control train fueled by technology and globalisation.  There is a change industry, change tools, change gurus, psychology of change.  Looking back twenty years ago it really was the age of change innocence.  The band, it seems, was just picking up the instruments let alone learning to play.  Twenty years on we're now playing and we think we’re in tune.  But I wonder if in another twenty years we'll look back and realize that really we’d only mastered the basic chords?

Paul