It's never easy

Photo: Contributed

Change may be necessary, but it is never easy.

I am wrapping up a business trip to the UK and Holland, and the final aspect of the trip was an annual general meeting for the family business, a printing company.

In 1979, my father and I started the company, which my brother now runs. It has outlasted many generational family printing companies in the UK. 

As many industries struggle and adapt, pressure is always on to look at new ways to make the business more efficient.

The meeting was rather nostalgic, because I have not been involved since 1988 and have not ridden the waves of success - or the troughs of depression - with my family.

It started me to thinking that not all change is great, and sometimes modernization in our society means we naturally lose touch with some aspects of life that were comfortable for us.

Here are the top ten changes that have been a little challenging to me:

1. Paper sizes in the print industry changed from lovely names like Elephant, Demy and Crown to A4, A3 and A2 - how uncreative.

2. Fonts are now created on a computer rather than handcrafted. Sadly, the subtleties are lost in the process. For instance in many serif fonts, the dot above the i was, in fact, not round, it was elliptical. Not a big deal, except it added a certain flavour to the page of the book that we do not see today.

3. Sex Pistols, Deep Purple, Pink Floyd, Blondie, and Santana have morphed in to Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift, and Coldplay. I get it, the Sex Pistols were bad - in their time. But they played a massive role in shifting music, fashion, and art. All Bieber seems to do is get speeding tickets, drug charges and fights. Who’s bad?

4. My old leather telemark boots and long skis have changed into short little skis with plastic boots that are really not as cool or comfortable.

5. Even the most expensive cars just about drive themselves now. It used to be fun to drive a car, now you are almost as much of a passenger as the passengers.

6. In the UK, I grew up with three really interesting TV channels. Now I have 200, and it is a real struggle to find anything of interest.

7. You used to buy a product, once you had seen it. Nowadays, you buy something without seeing it, then fight to get your money back if it is not as described.

8. We no longer fix things. We just replace them.

9. A business that has no income at all can be one of the most valuable businesses in the world. Twitter, until recently, had no revenue model at all - none, and the founder said he didn’t want revenue.

Oh yeah - and I got a lot older :)

Photo: Contributed - NREY

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