John Fitzgerald Kennedy
Tomorrow is the 50th anniversary of President Kennedy’s death – his assassination. To me, assassination was an ancient term referring to Lincoln one hundred years earlier – in another time – somewhat more primitive, less civilized and more so with cowboys roaming the ranges with six shooters.
I remember that terrible day and the three days afterward leading up to his funeral. I lived through and remember every minute of those tearful days. 
As the anniversary approached, I started recalling more and more. Then, I started thinking about some of the unbelievable things in business that have occurred since that day; and while we tend to remember notorious things, I started to think about the extraordinary good things that have happened that we now take for granted. Partly because there was no triggering activity and partly because they just seem to sneak up until we believed they were always here. Copiers and high-speed scanners; cell phones and smartphones, iPads and Kindles and personal computers, the Internet and email to name just a few. Great advances have also been made in the medical, scientific, energy and agricultural arenas that are not included here.
The way we work has also changed. The Cloud, social networking, telecommuting, on line research, data mining, smart scanning and paperless work procedures are some recent changes we take for granted. Even changes in management and office design. Many businesses no longer provide offices for their staff but have common areas and permit offsite work.
But, what are the great changes that will be made in the next years? And who will make them? Will there be any, or will everything we do today not improve? I can’t believe progress will stop. To grow, everyone needs to become an innovator – everyone needs to think about what they do, how it can be refined and improved, how it can be simplified and how something new can be developed to make it better.
We need thinking people. We need imaginative people. We need involved people who really like, understand and are fully aware of what they do. I suggest that you make yourself a committee of one and transcend the Information Age to the Conceptual Age. Give yourself the tools. Read. Watch. Imagine. Take interesting vacations. Introduce yourself to new things. Observe. Think. Think hard. Think creatively. Think about change. Be open to change. And it will happen. And you can cause it!
Go for it!
And tomorrow, let’s say a prayer for President Kennedy who was taken from us way too soon.
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