In the early eighties my clients taught me about the effects of increasingly rapid work and lifestyle change. After listening to their concerns and observations and adding the comments of a variety of experts in the field, I created a new presentation called "Are You Future Tense?" The stressed side of the pun was apparent on the faces of participants when I suggested that the increasing pace of change was part of the transition to a new economic era; a world of In or Out. One work day you would be In with your skills ensuring a good career position and the next day you would be Out: unemployed, with outdated skills. Companies would face the same fate with brand names disappearing over night.

I could see that every group decided immediately that they would be Out and unable to adapt because stress makes our minds small and unable to take in even positive new information. A better way to present this emerging reality was needed to allow women to see the opportunities in the changes.

Explaining the fading Industrial Era was easy as everyone understood it! The image of a ladder worked perfectly to demonstrate the workplace and lifestyle of the period. Workers started at the bottom and worked their way up rung by rung, in one company, for a work lifetime. It was also an excellent image for personal lives that mirrored the work ladder from the entry job salary to retirement in the sun at 65. The phrases of the time "job security", "white collar", "lifetime career"," benefits", "nuclear family","union" were all understood on a deep level.

What image would convey as clearly a world of constant change made increasingly flat by the emerging technology?
The answer came out of a drawer one cold spring weekend at my family cottage. As I pulled my grandmother's quilts out of storage, I smoothed my favorite patch with my fingers and remembered the heated discussions my cousins and I used to have about whose favorite patch was the best. The patch argument shifted over the years but the warmth and comfort of the grandma quilts was constant.

As I spread a quilt on my bed the image for the era came to me. The new world would be a quilt! The top layer would be the patches of information, innovation and intuition arranged into the best success pattern for a particular economic moment. Under the pattern layer the stuffing that gives weight and provides warmth would be the new success skills. The sturdy bottom layer that keeps the shape would be the concept of the quilt world; strong and constant in spite of the changes to the patterned top layer. The stitches that penetrate all three layers are the networking lines of communication, both personal and electronic, joining all the patches, penetrating all the layers and actually forming part of the pattern.

One spring a grandma quilt was found to have a tear. All the aunts were concerned and planned to do the repairs but years passed. Stuffing was lost through the tear and the whole quilt lost much of its ability to provide warmth. The new argument for the cousins was who would get the quilt that was no longer as warm and comforting. So it will be in a quilted world, a tear in one patch will sap the strength from the entire quilt. Strong stitches and immediate repairs are everyone's responsibility and to everyone's benefit.

We have always had a future but what is different about this future is the speed of its arrival. A quilt world, while it sounds much more palatable than a world of In or Out, is still a concept we must internalize very fast as the two eras do have one important similarity; the "haves" and "have nots". The new opportunities will go to those who are willing to see them coming and adapt.

Darwinners

Each era develops mythology to reinforce the position of the dominant group (the "haves"). The Industrial Ladder time loved to invoke Darwin's quotation "survival of the fittest" to justify greed and crimes both great and small. The mythology is not bothered by the fact that Darwin did not say that or even come close!

What Darwin actually said was that it is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive - it is the one who is most adaptable to change.

Women Like Me assists women's first and next success by endeavoring to provide the skills, awareness and information needed to adapt successfully to change. In a quilt world, women will all be Darwinners.