Seth Godin posted a possibly obvious, but none the less powerful quote) that has the power to kill new ideas before they ever have a chance:

“That’s not the way we do things around here”

Have you ever said that? I probably have. I bet a lot of us have, possibly being sarcastic, but meaning the same thing regardless. That statement says “don’t bother”, “I wont support you”, and “get with the program” all in one shot. It says a lot of other things too. It’s worth thinking about.

In the world of Operations & Security, new ideas & challenging the status quo are the foundation of change. It’s how the tools we use every day were born, and how the methods we use to scale were discovered. These aren’t ideas that came out of physicists or philosophers, or anyone else with a “ph” prefixed titled (OK, some of them were). Many were born out of a desire to do things better, to do things different. Created by individuals and groups with the guts to ask “Could we do this differently?” and forge ahead to find out.

So going into the new year, understand the power and finality that phrase brings before you use it. And consider that the way you do things might not actually be the best, or it might, but you’ll never know if you don’t challenge the status quo.

Give the new idea some runway & see what becomes of it.