New York Should Embrace Technology Challenge

Monday, February 22, 2010 | 0

By David Langham

In the film Dante's Peak, there is a scene in which the lead (Pierce Brosnan) says to his team something to the effect of "why are we not evacuating this town, if we had not been here all week, and walked into these readings, this situation, today, we would evacuate this town."  He then plays a metaphor on boiling a from that I have used in many speeches about why we need to continually ask ourselves critical questions about our processes. The metaphor is that you cannot boil a frog by placing it in a pan of boiling water, it jumps out.  Instead, you put the frog in a pan of room temperature water, let it be comfortable, and slowly increase the temperature incrementally until the water is boiling.

States continue to struggle with change as technology evolves and revolves around us.  New software and new hardware are coming to the market persistently.  In New York, there is currently debate as Chairman Beloten starts to experiment with digital recording equipment for maintaining a record of their trial proceedings.  This is a new idea, and it is meeting with some resistance.
 
It is not enough to be industrious. Ants are industrious. What are we industrious about?
 
We have to continually re-examine and ask ourselves the question, "Why do we do it this way?"  If we can validly answer that, honestly, we may want to keep doing it that way.  If our only answer is "we have always done it that way," we must question whether we are being effective.  Just because it is habit or standard procedure does not make it wrong or inappropriate.  However, it is not right or appropriate just because we have "always done it that way."
 
These are the questions that the report is posing.  If we had to explain it to an outsider, if we were "arriving on this volcano today, with these readings," having not been here all week (or our whole careers) as this incremental change occurred around us, would we not react?  Those questions in the report about how we would explain that process to an outsider are compelling.
 
Just because we have always had a paper record, or a live court reporter ready to produce same from a proprietary recording process (shorthand or machine), does that mean it is the best method?  It only does if we look at the process objectively and conclude that it is the best method, not just the one we are used to.
 
There is a metaphor I use in presentations.  This experiment involves four monkies in a cage.  From the center top, we suspend a bunch of bananas.  Under them, a ladder.  We have a fire hose and each time a monkey makes for the food, we blast all four with the fire hose.  We do this all day and then the next day we remove a monkey and replace it with a new one.  We put away the fire hose and watch.  Each time the new monkey makes for the food, the other three will beat him/her. We continue this all week, removing an original monkey and replacing it with a new one each day, until at the end we have a cage full  of starving monkeys, who have access to food, a ladder to get to it, and none of whom will even try to eat.  Here is the kicker, none of them understand why they will not eat.  The process will have them indoctrinated.
 
We are unfortunately in that mindset too often.  Let's not decide not to eat because our coworkers, critics, peers all think something bad will happen if we climb the ladder and try.  The fact is, we need to challenge ourselves and our processes continually if we will be the best that we can be in a very competitive and changing world.  I agree with the call by the conference.
 
I think change will occur.  It will start somewhere.  We do not get to decide if the world will change, we only get to decide, personally, continually, how we will deal with that change and whether we will let it defeat us or whether we will make that change result in positive outcomes for the system, ourselves and those we serve.  OK, I am off my soapbox, but these are the real foundations of my thought process and I am convinced that change will occur and that I will make the most of it.

David Langham is chief judge of the Florida Office of Judges of Workers' Compensation Claims.