Cover Art: “The Only Constant Is Change”

"No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man." This quote, attributed to the Greek philosopher Heraclitus, reminds me that our lives are constantly changing. Just as the waterfall constantly erodes and reshapes the surrounding rock, our environment is constantly reforming us and informing our choices. I have to thank a friend of mine for helping me realize Heraclitus was right—we should respond to the gentle nudges our lives offer, just as rock gives way to a stream

Changes And Challenges In Uncertain Times: When The Only Constant Is Change

The Forums Since 1997, the annual ACUTA Forum for Strategic Leadership in Information Communications Technology has provided a unique for campus leaders to exchange ideas and discuss issues relevant to the use technology in meeting the goals of higher education. Held in conjunction with ACUTA\u27s Annual Conference and Exhibition, this forum brings together men and women of vision, foresight, and authority to discuss strategic directions for the campus of the future. Goals To provide a venue for the examination of issues and challenges facing the higher education community as we grapple with planning, financing, and implementing technology on our campuses. To establish a forum in which senior university leaders with responsibility for information communicates technology can meet with their peers, share their collective expertise, and come away with solutions that will meet their institutions\u27 needs

The only constant is change : exploring the evolvement of health and social care integration

Introduction: Health and social care services, in Sweden and worldwide, struggle to provide comprehensive care and support for people with complex needs. As these services are currently structured, it is difficult to provide service users with such care. This difficulty is especially acute for patients with mental illness. However, many challenges exist in the effort to achieve cross-sectoral cooperation of health and social care services. This thesis addresses one of these challenges: the evolvement of long-lasting integrated health and social care services in mental health care. Aim: This thesis explores the organisational dynamics of long-term health and social care integration. Methods: A qualitative research approach is taken in a longitudinal case study. The research consists of three studies on integrated health and social care: two studies take an organisational (managerial) perspective; one study takes a service user perspective. Data were collected in individual and group interviews and from steering committee minutes. Findings: The findings from the three studies are summarized using four theoretically and empirically based themes related to the evolvement of long-term mental health and social care integration. Shared structure and ongoing refinement: The integrated services were co-located under co-leadership management. A shared mission on the value of integrated health and social care was essential for establishing a culture of shared values and for sustaining the required long-term collaboration and cooperation. Continuous learning: The continuous exchange of competencies and experiences was prioritized. Forums were established in which the various stakeholders could exchange information, interact, and learn in a culture of improvement. Team members were encouraged to help find effective solutions to the problems encountered when providing equal health and social care. Cooperation as a guiding principle: The integration of health and social care services, which was based on the principle of cooperation, encouraged the participation of informal caregivers and of other parties such as stakeholder/service user associations, service user representatives, and municipal and county representatives. Service user centeredness: The central role of the service user was formalized by an agreement that specified the individual care and rehabilitations plans. Attention was paid to service users’ holistic needs and to their abilities and strengths in the focus on finding best-possible solutions to their individual circumstances. Conclusion: This thesis identified three main factors that proved to play a central role in the achievement of long-term integration of health and social care services. First, partnership building between the health and social care services, as well as with service users and service user associations, enabled the sharing of responsibility for the integrated services and a long-term orientation in decision-making. The formulation of an overall agreement, a shared mission, and the involvement of all stakeholders in the steering committee of the integrated services were activities that exemplified this. Second, person-centeredness was important in the design and provision of the integrated services, as well as during encounters with service users. Co-location of services, co-leadership, and interprofessional-teams were some of the strategies that were used to meet service users’ holistic needs. Third, organisational learning was a strategy to overcome obstacles resulting from cross-sectoral cooperation, and to continually adapt and align services to the changing needs of service users. In conclusion, the findings in this thesis suggest that the emergence and long-lasting integration of health and social care services were based in the capacity to manage differences and changes by relying on the concepts of partnership, person-centeredness, and continuous learning

The Only Constant Is Change: A Narrative on Ten Years of Collaborative Chat Reference Service at San Jose Public Library

This article documents and highlights the evolution of collaborative, web-based chat reference service at a large metropolitan public library from 2000 to 2010

Correlation Of Change Communication Factorswith Perceived Success Of Change Initiatives In A Selected Organization

Everybody is aware of the fact that today, everything (almost everything) is changing and the only constant is change itself. Regardless of who we are – students, workers, stakeholders, shareholders and so forth, we are all subjected to various types of changes in our lives. In other words, change is a part of our life. Change has intrigued, scared, excited, and mystified man for many centuries and continues to challenge individuals from all walks of life, yet it is inevitable and has become the very nucleus of human life (Szamosi & Duxbury, 2002). Correspondingly, the ter

Leading Through Change

In this webinar, you will learn how to leverage periods of change to develop better leaders. We all hear that the only constant is change and that change is hard. What if there was a different narrative? What if organizations going through change actually resulted in higher performance, engagement and better leadership? It is widely known that effective change management requires sponsorship — this means every leader, from the C-Suite to the front-line supervisor. This webinar will share practical and repeatable ways to help all leaders improve the way they lead change

Educational Leaders’ Attempts at Holding the Fort: A Transformative Endeavor in Lebanon

Despite its small size, Lebanon has had its fair share of nationwide turbulences that further instigated conflict and instability among the Lebanese population. The crises have weighed heavily on the educational system in Lebanon and has impeded its operations on many fronts. However, educational leaders have attempted to adopt transformative practices in addressing the anticipated and unanticipated challenges. Educational leaders in Lebanon have learned to perceive that ‘the only constant is change,’ and have come to realize and acknowledge that their goals of enhancing educational experiences remain the same but the paths to achieve these goals are nonlinear

An integrated approach to business process reengineering management

Abstract: Business Process Reengineering (BPR) or simply reengineering is an initiative undertaken by organisations that seek to fundamentally redesign their existing business processes. In the current business landscape, the only constant is change; hence organisations should always strive to conduct their businesses effectively and efficiently. However reengineering has not always yielded fruitful results, as indicated by the 70% of the initiatives that have failed. The failure rate of the reengineered initiatives partly results from neglecting the “human element” involved when revising processes. Literature has not dealt extensively with how stakeholders react towards dramatic change brought about by reengineering, and the current paper is primarily concerned with this issue, through the proposal of the Business Process Reengineering Management (BPRM) concept

Hail and Farewell: An Interview with Fafnir’s Departing and Arriving Editors-In-Chief

The only constant is change, and thus we at Fafnir are both excited to welcome a new editor-in-chief – Dr. Essi Varis – and sorrowful at the departure of a much-valued and long-serving member of the editorial team – Dr. Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay. We asked each of them about their thoughts on Fafnir and speculative fiction more generally