We viewed the Paradigms video from Joel Barker in class. We applied the concept to Columbus and Spain...

"Your successful past will block your visions of the future."

The modern study of paradigms began in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn in 1962 and has been continued in the books and videos of Joel Barker. A paradigm, according to Barker, is theory or dogma that establishes boundaries and regulations. Paradigms filter data and, as a result, often prevent anticipating new developments that come from outside the paradigm.

"What today is impossible to do in your business, but if it could be done would fundamentally change what you do?" asks Joel Barker. This is crucial to understand because of Barker's "going back to Zero Rule": When a paradigm shifts everyone goes back to zero, your past success guarantees nothing. The Swiss invented the quartz movement watch, yet their paradigm for what a watch should be caused them to reject the new design. As a result, their market share fell from 80% in 1968 to less than 10% today. Their past success blinded them to the future of watch-making.

Barker's books and videos explore many examples of the paradigm effect, including the airplane, telephone, radio, and xerox machine. These ideas were developed by people who were open to new concepts and new ways of looking at the world. As Joel Barker says in the conclusion to his video The Business of Paradigms:

"Those who say it cannot be done should get out of the way of those who are doing it."

par·a·digm    (pr-dm, -dm) n. One that serves as a pattern or model. A set or list of all the inflectional forms of a word or of one of its grammatical categories: the paradigm of an irregular verb. A set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality for the community that shares them, especially in an intellectual discipline.