80s eyeglasses? The unthinkable is suddenly thinkable

Imagine, those cover-half-the-face eyeglass frames we used to wear in the 80s are once again seen in trend setting fashion circles.  (Is the fad of the wide temples, cutting off peripheral vision, over so soon?)  Hm, let's not forget that the larger the frame, the better it handles progressive lenses with triple corrections ... how's that for a consideration we never had back then!

The unthinkable becoming thinkable may take us by surprise now and then.  But it shouldn't.  In fashion, as in our work lives, we are prepared for the darndest things when it comes to new work practices on the part of our clients, new expectations in terms of how we communicate with them, new demands for corporate strategies in knowledge support, and so on.  My recent re-reading of Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point reinforced for me the need for us to be constantly on the alert for small and subtle signs how things are changing - so that we may be ready, turning on a dime, to work with clients whose work styles have evolved or are evolving to be very different from what we were accustomed to in the past.  Then again: Certainly we are prepared to accommodate "thumb generation" preferences for dealing with information through evolving always-on mobile tools - but what do we then make of articles written by Gen-X/Yers who cut themselves off from 24/7 connectivity, at least for a time, in an effort to preserve sanity?  Old fashioned information packages in print to be read at leisure, anyone? 

As time rolls on, our profession is learning that multiple and sometimes opposite changes happen quickly.  We roll on too, and embrace the old and the new, and the old as the new, as the case may be.  Perhaps we'll even need to go get a pair of eyeglass frames we swore we'd never go near again ... just so it's clear we are NOT stuck in the past!