Is Change Another Word For Progress?

As times change, so do companies. In 1806 William Colgate founded a company to make soap, candles and starch. Colgate toothpaste wasn’t made until 1873. In 1837 John Deere was a frustrated blacksmith in Grand Detour, Illinois trying to make plows that cut through the area’s clay. When he started to make his plows with cast steel, he started the John Deere Equipment Company. In 1866 David McConnell sold books door-to-door. To appeal to women customers he offered free perfume. When the perfume became more popular than the books, McConnell founded the California Perfume Company – which became Avon. Change changes us.

By the end of 2011 the Coca-Cola Company plans a change – to put nutrition facts – what Coca-Cola calls “energy information” – on the front of almost all its packaging worldwide. This change is in response to the public wanting this information easily visible and to the American Heart Association adding sugar to its list of heart hazards. The AHA recommends women have no more than 100 calories from added sugar a day and that men limit those calories to 150. A 12-ounce can of Classic Coca-Cola contains 140 calories. Things might go better with Coke – just not so much.

A few years ago activist/entrepreneur, Jeff Berman, told farmers in Dove Creek, Colorado that he would build a plant to convert sunflower seeds to biodiesel if they would grow the sunflowers. Convinced there was more money per acre in sunflowers than in beans and wheat, farmers were growing thousands of acres by 2008 and the plant was under construction. That’s when federal subsidies for biofuels ended. Berman’s plans had to change. Instead of biofuel, the sunflower seeds make food-grade sunflower oil. Nevertheless, hulls and pieces of plant material are turned into gas to help power the plant. Both sunflowers and hope continue to grow.

Even Australia’s male southern brown tree frogs have had to change. The increase in urban traffic noise is drowning out their mating calls, causing a sharp decline in their population. In some areas the distance a mating call can be heard has dropped from hundreds of meters to 20-50 meters. To increase the distance they can be heard, the males have learned to change their calls to a higher pitch. Unfortunately, female frogs associate a higher pitch with a smaller or younger, less experienced frog. What’s needed is female frogs willing to take a leap of faith.