Photo Credit: No credit needed
Editor’s Note: This column, “LBWA” (Leadership By Wandering Around), is based on the premise that, in order to find out what’s going on in the field, a parks and rec leader has to leave his or her desk and “wander around” the area of operations, talk to people, ask questions, and kick around ideas with the individuals in the thick of delivering services to the public. So the author will bring up issues and ask the leaders among the readership to share their knowledge and experiences.
I’ve been dwelling quite a lot lately on what the future holds for parks and recreation leaders. And the future is really much closer than it was in “the old days.”
OK, maybe I’m “geezin’” a little, but when I was growing up and even into my 20s and 30s, the future was always some distant, ethereal horizon that was not as much cause for concern as simply something to contemplate.
Time and technology have conspired to change that, though. Now, technology is a camera lens that takes the future horizon from a misty distance to a discernible close-up in the blink of an eye. Today, the laptop, cell phone or iPod you buy is obsolete before you get it home and open the box. The amount of information people are now expected to process in an hour would have been absorbed over a week or two “back in the day.”