July 2013 - Parks & Recreation - 19

Member to Member
Trends in a Changing
Environment
Get ahead of the curve on the top five trends affecting parks and recreation
By Brad Chambers

his could have just as easily been entitled " Changes in a Trending Environment. " Changes and trends are interwoven, often interrelated and
often confused. Webster's defines a trend as " a statistically detectable
change; a tendency. " In other words, a direction, but not an irreversible direction. During multiple discussions in the change class at NRPA's Supervisors
Management School (SMS), I've heard " the aging of the population " given as
a trend. This is inaccurate. The aging of the population is an irreversible fact,
unless somehow 50 million teens from Europe decide to immigrate here in the
next few years. The increasing obesity of the American population, especially
among youth, is a trend - a negative one that we all need to help reverse, but
a trend nevertheless.
As professionals, it is incumbent
upon us to stay abreast of not only
what is cutting-edge in our profession, but what is cutting-edge,
period. What is on the drawing
board today will affect all of us
tomorrow, and if we are
not thinking ahead regarding how technology,
efficiencies and management decisions will affect
us, then we are already
behind the curve. But
before looking ahead, it's
instructive to look to the
past. We easily forget that
20 years ago in 1993, GPS
was almost exclusively used by
the military. Cellphones - for
those who had them - were the size
of bricks, and you paid by the minutes
used. The first Internet browser, Netscape, wasn't released until 1994, and
scanning and sending documents via
email was unheard of.
Think of the changes in the last 20

years, and try and imagine what is on
the horizon for our professional and
personal lives in the next decades. Below are a few examples that we explore
at SMS. Identifying changes and trends
on the horizon, and the second and
third generation effects they can impart
on our profession, is an important step.
Driverless vehicles - If you have
the opportunity to visit Google
headquarters and meet with CEO Larry Page, you may be picked up at the airport in a driverless SUV with a Google
employee in the passenger seat. Based
on GPS technology and avoidance
cameras, the vehicle will drive
itself to the Google campus.
" So? " you ask. Ten years ago,
we couldn't imagine a driverless car on the road. Ten
years from now, what
can we expect regarding
hands-free, people-free vehicles and equipment? For
example, what kind of
mowing equipment will
be available? Dana Lonn,
PE, The Toro Corporation,
states Toro has been exploring GPS-controlled equipment for
some time.
" Technology isn't quite good enough
yet to eliminate the human element, "
Lonn says. " For example, how do you
get it across a road to mow on the other
side? However, ballfields are a perfect
application for where they could be utilized. " Furthermore, he states the ma-

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