Was joblessness in that dayplanner?

Last night as I and my siblings walked through San Francisco's Financial District, we passed the Franklin Covey store.

It was hard not to stifle a laugh.

Just the display full of antiquated three-ring mini binders with all their Reagan-era stateliness was enough to make us iPod owners smug. And I hate smugness.

But it brought to light an interesting parallel applicable to those who create and manage media: Products become outmoded, because of their creators' resistance
1. to change and
2. to see the obvious progression of their field.

I mean, we can calendar all the things a dayplanner user can on our iPods, which are not even full-blown PDAs. Yet, this company still does business?

It reminds me of people I've worked with in the communication and journalism industries. They lament the waning interest in print (evident in declining newspaper circulation rates), but refuse to try and learn things like HTML code. Hello? Print online > HTML > Job security?

In my spare time, I've been getting comfy with the Adobe Creative Suite tools and making sure I'm almost as competent digitally as I am on paper. Almost no one at my alma mater nor in my profession has underscored the importance of this content conversion—and now my 17-year-old brother can code circles around our highest media executives.

Just sayin' ... we're not immune from the Covey factor either.