September 9, 2025 • 30 mins
“Disruptive innovation in parks rarely starts big. It’s often the small changes that reshape how people connect with the outdoors.”
Episode Highlights
00:42 How a small cooler forever changed camping and visitation.
05:23 – RVs and modern camping units disrupt campgrounds built in the 1930s.
09:13 – Digital platforms can drive unexpected visitor surges.
10:52 –Reshaping reservation systems and campsite use.
14:44 – Why leaders must act, not react when disruptive innovations emerge.
15:50 – QR codes, drones, and geocaching are examples of disruptive tech in action.
21:37 – Monitoring trends to keep parks relevant.
25:34 – Shifting demographics and expectations require adaptation, not resistance.
27:35 – Small steps of change often matter more than sweeping cultural shifts.
Disruptive innovations don’t always arive with fanfare. In fact, they tend to be more subtle. In parks its the seemingly small coolers, gadgets, or trends that change everything. This conversation explores how small shifts reshape recreation, why leaders must act rather than react, and how to spot the next disruption before it takes hold.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Welcome to the Park Leader show, where we are changing the landscape of
leadership in parks and conservation. And I have a
topic that is not leadership that really changed parks
and conservation. In 1957, a park
ranger was walking the campground and saw something a
ranger had never seen before. 1957 was a
(00:24):
while ago, so you may not guess what this is even
if I gave you time to do so. Well, in 1957, that's when
Coleman introduced the plastic cooler. You may
be saying, why is that even a big deal? I see them everywhere.
Exactly. That's my point. And to that park ranger,
1957, he may not have thought it was a big deal. What
(00:47):
may have seemed like a novelty to that ranger turned out to
be a disruptive innovation unlike anything parks had
ever seen before. Well, what was the big deal
about the plastic cooler? For one, it made coolers
more affordable. Anybody could now get a
cooler. And once you had a cooler,
(01:09):
that then allowed park visitors to stay in
parks longer. It allowed visitors to bring
cold beer into parks, and, you know, cold
beer really disrupted things. Once it was in parks, the
plastic cooler really enhanced the visitor experience.
They could come and camp longer. They could have meals in
(01:31):
the park on a picnic. Beverages changed because you could
keep them cold, and what you could bring changed. Food changed.
This really started to enhance the visitor experience
and made a cultural shift in camping.
It increased park visitation to new heights,
all from a plastic cooler that probably seemed like
(01:54):
a novelty the first time it showed up in a park. And the next
plastic cooler, whatever it may be, is in our
parks today. And we may see it as a novelty, we
may even see it as an annoyance, but we need to
examine disruptive innovations. And we're going to have
that talk with the semi regular guest
(02:16):
co host of the Park Leader show, the retired
director of South Carolina State Parks, Phil Gaines.
My first question for you, Phil. I talk about
1957. There was a park ranger patrolling the campground, saw something
that had never been seen. Did that happen to be you?
(02:37):
No, I came along in 1907.
Well, I'm just giving old ranger Phil a hard time. Of course, it
was not Phil Gaines, but, Phil, I think
this is a topic that needs to be
discussed. Disruptive innovation. I'll tell you first that I
learned this whole concept from you. I don't know if you remember it. The
(02:59):
very first time you were a guest on the Park Leader show, you introduced
me to the term disruptive innovation. And then
I came up with this story, a true story
about the cooler. In 1957, when
I was Asked to speak at the national
association of State Park Directors conference in Nevada.
(03:22):
And after talking with them about what topics would be ideal
for the audience and for their program, we came up
with disruptive innovation. So that is the story
I use to introduce the whole program, which included you, it
included Donald Forgioni, it included someone from
Hawaii, state parks, Indiana and New Jersey.
(03:44):
Right. So we covered a lot of disruptive innovation. But I
always, I feel like I can't talk about disruptive innovation without talking
about Phil Gaines. First because you are disruptive, and then two
because you gave me this idea initially. Wow,
you sound like my teachers from all of my academic
classes in elementary school and high school. I was
(04:06):
disruptive, talked entirely too much, and was capable of doing much better
work. That was on all of my report. Cards, but I believe
it. I love the cooler thing because we kind of take that for granted now
because the cooler is such a standard of
camping. But you go back to your example of 1957
and how it kind of transformed camping, even picnicking
(04:29):
and all the things that we, we utilize in parks. And you
know, when we first started talking about disruptive innovations years ago
in the first podcast that I appeared on of the Park
Leader show, it was a lot about equipment, but on a
larger scale, like campers, tents
and those kind of things. And dealing with the reality
(04:52):
of. A lot of our campgrounds were designed in the
1930s and, you know, by the Civilian Conservation Corps even after
that in the 40s and 50s. And the campsites themselves
were a certain size that, you know, when the 70s and
80s and came along, camping units became larger.
And now a lot of camping units are, you know, the,
(05:14):
the slide outs and the fifth wheels and all that stuff. They won't
fit on the campsites that were designed by the
Civilian Conservation Corps. And not only that, you know, you went from
25amp service to 30amp service to
50amp service. And now people are, you know, bringing
small homes with them that have stuff that we couldn't even imagine,
(05:36):
you know, back 30, 40 years ago of what a campsite would look like.
So that little cooler is kind of like this little small item
that if you start analyzing. So how did you, how did we
manage these disruptive innovations to
adapt and adjust what park people do really good. And
you think about camper sizes, equipment on
(05:58):
campers, 50amp service, full
hookups with water and sewer, and, you know, a lot of
places now dump stations are not as in use
as they used to be because every, a lot of sites have their individual
hookups. But, you know, it's kind of this
morph of you're always constantly learning and
(06:19):
adjusting and adapting to these disruptive innovations.
And, you know, and we think immediately about the things that have
that we see every day, like equipment and starting off with a cooler all the
way up to fifth wheel campers that have slide outs. And you know
what, all it takes to handle those disruptive
innovations. But if you think about it, it's more than just those
(06:41):
obvious things. Think about in the last 10 years, things that have
happened in parks that have really kind of
disrupted the normal operating procedures that we've had to come
up with a way to address or adapt
or, you know, change to a modern world that
if we don't, we'll become kind of obsolete and people
(07:04):
will find other ways to enjoy their leisure time. Think of something that
come to your mind when you, you know, when you go past just big
stuff like campers and water and sewer and electricity,
and it starts getting really, I mean, they're everywhere. These little disruptive innovations
are everywhere. Well, the little
disruptive innovations, I think are worth talking about because if you
(07:26):
look at the cooler, if you were in
1957, 1958, 1959, if
you were a park manager or superintendent who spent most of your time
in the office, this little item of a
cooler made a cultural shift and you didn't
even notice it because you weren't in the campground to see it. And I say
(07:48):
that not to make comments about park managers being in the office,
just to say that that was 1957,
when things happened slow. Now you could have something that
small that creates such a shift in how
people operate inside your park that
happens before you even notice. I'm going to give the three
(08:10):
examples from that presentation. So what we did
is we had three different states come up
and talk about a disruptive innovation that happened in their park,
just to give an idea of what some of these disruptions are.
And Phil, I know you're going to remember these. The first one I'm going to
say, although this isn't the time to talk much about this one, but Hawaii
(08:33):
came and talked about a natural disaster being a disruptive
innovation. It disrupted a park, but it led to a lot of
innovation within that park. They were able to do things they couldn't have before.
Really interesting story. Beautiful story, how it turned out,
but not what we want to talk about today. But a natural disaster
sure can be a disruptive innovation. New Jersey,
(08:56):
they had one. The very short version of it
is a spot that you had to Have a reservation to drive
a vehicle onto the beach. And they had a lot of people showing
up and they could not figure out why, where it was coming from. Well, it
turned out it was from social media. An
influencer had did a post and given the spot
(09:17):
of where they were on social media and people just started showing up.
And because parks was not monitoring social media
in that way, they were overrun with visitors in
a place where you had to have a reservation to be there. That is a
good example of a recreational shift that
happened and was in place before you even knew it
(09:40):
happened. Yeah, Indiana had another good one. I did not
even know this was an issue. Didn't know it was even taking
place in parks. But there are people who will
make reservations in parks. I'm sure this happens
everywhere, not just Indiana. Now they have
reservations spread throughout the summer on a separate
(10:03):
website or however they do it. They will rent
RVs to customers, then they will drive the
RV to the spa in Indiana, set it up, and
now the person. So let's say, and I don't know the numbers,
let's say it cost $30 for a campsite reservation in
Indiana. That's what the state of Indiana made, thirty dollars.
(10:24):
But this independent third party
would charge a hundred dollars for RV rental for the night,
and then they would go set it up, and the person who paid for
it would come, they'd have an rv, they'd stay for the weekend, they'd drive away,
and that third party would come and get the rv. I did not even know
this was going on. It was well established before
(10:47):
Indiana parks even figured out it was going on. Very
disruptive. The reservation system, all that
was never created with that. The intent for that to happen.
By the time they discovered it, it was very well entrenched.
So there's another example of a big shift that happened.
And by the time we in parks realized it was going
(11:10):
on, it was well established. And now how do you
stop it? What do you do about it? So those are
two examples. Phil and I think in the past, we may not
have talked about it on an episode, but we've even talked about the
flashlight was a disruptive innovation because before that you
needed a lantern, which was also a disruptive innovation. There's
(11:32):
a lot of small things that. That completely change the way
visitors recreate in your park. And they
happen faster now than they ever have before. Yeah.
And you know, and I think I want to throw out a couple of other
little ones that we did or that has happened. So here's
one. And then I want to tie them all up with this thought process.
(11:53):
So the small stuff is like, think about
backpacking and backcountry camping and
what's changed and now who does this? So
in 1950s and 60s and even regular tent
camping. But if you were doing a major hike to the Grand
Canyon, to the hike to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, or do rim to
(12:14):
rim in the Grand Canyon, the equipment that you had was,
you know, canvas tents and aluminum water
bottles. And so it was bulky, it was not
efficient. It was, you know, and it kept a lot of
people from. That's not my thing. Because it's. It's a lot of work
and it's hard and it's. And it's not really comfortable to do all this kind
(12:37):
of good stuff. And now, you know, the tents that you have are. Are
made with this great material. And hiking sticks. Think about the
evolution of hiking sticks and all these little things that
now the out of doors is exposed to a whole new set
of people that all of a sudden, if you were to wake up in this
time warp, you're going like, who are all these people? And, you know,
(12:59):
the diversity of people who are coming from
backgrounds to males and females is all
because of a lot of this technology has changed. Gps,
all that kind of stuff is really changed. And then go back to the simple
ones that we talked about with equipment from, like, motorhomes
and fifth wheelers and then a procedural thing
(13:22):
or somebody being entrepreneurial in the
Indiana case, and that goes on and on. So as park
leaders, I think one of the things you have to do is you have to
get in that mindset because things happen so rapidly, and you
just put technology out there as a category, and there's all
kinds of things that happen with technology all the time, from
(13:43):
reservations to all this kind of stuff that's out there right now
that you can think of a thousand things. But the most critical thing
for park managers, park rangers and park leaders
is you have to manage this process, and you have to
do it in a very strategic, thoughtful manner, because
these disruptive innovations happen now, routinely,
(14:06):
and they happen real quick. And I think probably the best thing to
keep in mind when you're doing that is an old
philosophy of you act and don't
react. So a lot of times on technology, we tend to say,
oh, my gosh, what are we going to do? And you react to what that
is, and you say, well, we're not going to let them do that in
(14:27):
Indiana, or we're not going to change our campsites.
And so by reacting you may be missing an opportunity
or a way to manage that problem. So I think what as a leader you
should do is you go through the process and figure it out and you
act, don't react. And some of the things that I can think of that, that
a lot of places reacted instead of
(14:49):
thinking through the process of how to do that. Remember
geocaching? And you know that when geocaching
first come out and a lot of people reacted and says, nope, you can't
do it, no geocaching in this part. And then you found out all of a
sudden it don't matter if you want geocaching or not, there's a cache in
your part, whether you know about it or not and go to this website and
(15:11):
it was like, what? Oh my goodness, nobody asked us. So you can't
just react, you got to act. You got to figure out how you're going to
manage it, how you're going to educate people so that you do it in the
right way. Drones, the use of drones is one of those,
is still evolving. Is it good or bad? And you can't just
say, no, we're not going to do it. You got to figure out what are
the consequences, what are the benefits, and more
(15:34):
importantly, how are you going to manage this? Because some things you
really have to manage because you can't just say we're not going to do that
because before you know it, it's there whether you want it or not,
like geocaching or you know, some of the other technological
things. And you know, and I think about, I've watched this
phenomenon come and go. QR codes is like, what am I going to
(15:57):
use? QR codes? And they kind of, you can do great things with QR
codes. Then it kind of went away for a little bit, but they're pretty strong
again now because they have these applications and I see QR codes
all the time on interpretive panels where you want to find another
layer. So you can't just say we're not going to do QR
codes because it's this disruptive innovation. The ongoing
(16:18):
debate of Wi fi in parks, the ongoing
debate of the use of social media. And I, I
guess my point of bringing all these out is that you have to really be
open minded and really focus on not reacting
to all these disruptive innovations because they continue
to happen on a yearly basis for sure, if not more
(16:40):
frequently than that. And so you've got to analyze it and figure
out what the consequences are, what's the good and what's the bad.
And then figure out how you're going to address it or how you want to
manage it or it'll manage you. And the next thing
you know, it's, you're not going to be able to control or
control in the right, in the right way of providing the services
(17:01):
and doing that stewardship and service that we all talk about as
parts. So don't always react when something
comes up and say, you know, this is going to cause us real problems. It
may, but you got to figure out how to do that instead of just saying
we're going to forbid that, we're going to prohibit that because it may,
it may be a really good thing that changes our world, like
(17:23):
coolers and lanterns and equipment.
Because this change in equipment, like with
tents and backpacks and water bottles
and those kind of things, it's really changed our
clientele and the people who use parks. And we see a lot more people in
our parks today. I think one reason is the
(17:44):
equipment is so easy to use and so much better and you feel
more comfortable of being able to find things and,
and go places and, and the equipment is so much better. I mean,
remember those old canvas, you're too young, but old
canvas backpacks and canvas tents, when they got wet,
man, they were wet forever. And the equipment we have
(18:07):
now, it allows you to do serious backpacking and
backcountry camping where, you know, we couldn't even think of that 50 years ago.
Phil, as always, hits on some great points. And
disruptive innovation is not always a bad thing.
The cooler is a great one. The cooler made
recreation affordable and accessible to people that
(18:30):
could have never done it before. And I think we look at it now and
we would say we're glad we have the cooler. But Phil, would you guess
that, that in the late 1950s there would have been a park manager that
said, oh no, we don't need, we don't need those plastic coolers in our park.
No, I mean, now you can't imagine it because I mean,
coolers are such a fabric of our leisure activities
(18:52):
now, whether it's at a park or a ball game or
a backyard picnic or when company comes over. My guess
is probably some of those park rangers thought,
what's going inside of those coolers? And you know, and how's that going to cause
us problems? And. But it's like, you know, you can't imagine some of these things
now without the cooler and the backpacks that we
(19:14):
have. And you know, in the lantern, the old fashioned Coleman lantern
is still out there. But it's not like it used to be because
like you said, the flashlight and all the different variations of
flashlights and lanterns now that you turn on
because you got a battery instead of, you know, pumping up the fuel
and, and all that kind of stuff. And so it's, you know, the way
(19:36):
we cook on a stove, like when you're backpacking is opened
up the wilderness and opened up the parks to a whole
new set of people who would never dreamed about
being outdoors for any length of time because of the equipment. Well,
Phil, let's give some ideas on how to keep
up to date with what might be coming because
(19:58):
you could miss something, but I think if you stay on top of it, you
might be able to keep up. I think walking the
campground regularly, you will be surprised. I know so
many park rangers already do this. Rather than. Or in addition
to walking the campground for patrol, for compliance,
for registration. Take a look at what games people are
(20:21):
playing. Take a look at what devices they have, because
I can even think of two or three games I had never seen
before that I discovered for the first time when visitors in
the campground were playing them. And we have those yard games
now, but that's where I first discovered them. You could get ahead
of a game that you're going to see because usually a game
(20:43):
like ladder ball, you will see that one or two
times one summer, then it's common the next summer, then it's
everywhere the summer after. This is just a small example.
Walk the trail. See what hikers have. Ask about
equipment, ask about trails. You may notice
maybe some new social trails showing up. Well, that could be because
(21:06):
of an Instagram spot. You never know. Monitor social
media. Keep a geolocation tag,
watch for your park. Do hashtag watches for
your park for different spots in your park. I don't think you can
ignore that anymore. Social media right now
is a wonderful way to have park visitors
(21:28):
volunteer what they're up to and what they're doing while
they're at your park because they're posting about it. All you have to do
is take the time to watch. Yeah, I was taking
notes while you were talking about, you know, what some of the
things you can do. And the number one thing I wrote down was stay
social. And what I mean by that is your point about social
(21:50):
media. And I know social media has this negatives and this bad
stuff and. But if you want to find out what's going on,
it's important to be on some social media things. You don't have to
contribute. But if you want to find out what trends are, what people are
talking about, stay social, because it's out there.
And you will learn a lot from social media, from your
(22:12):
visitors, but also of what trends are. And
could this be a problem because it's trending over here.
And so I think staying social is really important,
and it's part of that bigger concept of staying
relevant. And the way that I advise folks,
one of the best ways to stay relevant from a leadership standpoint,
(22:34):
I use this phrase a lot, is that you really have to expand your
table of like your leadership circle in your table.
If you look around at your leadership table,
your leadership circle where you try to stay relevant, and
everybody in that circle or at that table looks like you
has the same background of you, is the same age as
(22:56):
you, then, man, you're, you're missing a lot.
So some way you've got to find ways to expand your
table of influence so that there's
young people in there, there's different genders in
there, there's different people who look different than you are,
just because everybody does stuff different. And, you
(23:19):
know, it's. It's fascinating when you go on to a park now
and you observe people and look at things just in my
career in state parks, one of the things that I find so fascinating
and rewarding, I think it's a great thing when I
go hiking, and I'm an avid hiker, and I like to
hike during the week so I don't have to be there when everybody else
(23:42):
is there. That's terrible for a park ranger to say, isn't it? But so when
I hike, I usually hike during the week and do some serious trails.
And there are as many or more
women that are hiking now than they ever have been before.
And I think a couple of things are behind that. It's.
They feel safer because there's better equipment,
(24:05):
there's more connection with the phones and, and with
maps and GPS and all that kind of good stuff.
And I see a lot more younger people hiking than I ever have
before. And so what does that tell you? What is that observation? Is it. It
means that for these people who were coming, that wasn't
always coming 50 years ago or 30 years ago, are you doing the right
(24:27):
things that keep them engaged and they become
advocates and supporters of parks? You know, one of. One of
the things that you'll see on golf courses is the addition
of bathrooms. In the main reason that they first started putting
in bathrooms at golf courses was because women. More women started
playing golf. And if you want women to play golf, you got to have a
(24:51):
bathroom. And some of the work I do with site design and
part development and then on the class, I teach Eclipse,
and I'm a big advocate for bathrooms. And one of the
observations is, is if, if you want older people,
if you want families, if you want women,
and if you want people to stay there longer, longer than an
(25:14):
hour, you need to think about putting a bathroom there. And so some of that
is just observation of disruptive innovations,
is you've done all this social media stuff, you've got new equipment stuff,
and now you got this whole new generation of people who are coming that these
parks really wasn't designed for all these kind of people. And.
But isn't that a great thing? Because that's the people who we want. You want
(25:35):
to see all of this, you know, this new group of people who care and
love their parks that feel comfortable about going. And now you got to do some
things that really make them feel comfortable so they'll keep coming back. Because
the more people who come to our parks, I think the better our parks
are long term to survive for future
generations. Phil is right on, and I think
(25:56):
this is it. Camping has changed, hiking has changed. Camping is
a great one. Our campgrounds, so many of them were
built and designed in the 1930s, and if they weren't, they're a
copy of what was built and designed in the 1930s.
But as demographics change, as families change, camping
changes. And Phil talked about more bathrooms.
(26:19):
So I think the point is, and this is a great point to end on,
watch what's going on. And then rather than enforce
outdated old policies, maybe it's a chance
to encourage a change to be more in line
with where the culture has shifted to. Because
just like a cooler changed how people recreate, and
(26:43):
I imagine it also encourages larger groups to camp
at once. So just like the cooler change, be watching
for things like that happening in your park. And maybe
you can encourage a change that will move away
from something that just isn't as relevant anymore.
Maybe it can move a change where if nothing else, we
(27:05):
need an outhouse or a pit toilet at this trailhead because it's
gotten so much. At minimum, you can find where
if a trail's getting more use, it will likely get more
litter. Okay, we just need to to add a
trash can at the trailhead now in a place where we didn't have one before.
I just think looking for things like that most
(27:27):
disruptive innovation is small,
small little steps. It's not cultural changes.
All Those, those, those do happen. But I think
you have a role in watching for the small
steps of change and that if you can keep up with those,
I don't think you ever get left behind. Phil, I will give you
(27:49):
a chance to give the last words before we
wrap up. Well, I think you, you nailed it, Jody. And all I would
say is that, you know, there are disruptive innovations
that are out there right now or that are certainly coming in the
next few months that we don't even know what they are. And you know, it
goes back to that awareness of your park and your visitors that
(28:12):
you serve. And, and I really like your, you know,
your recommendation of you got to get out of your truck, you got to get
out of the vehicle and, and walk that park and not only
talk to your visitors, but see what they're doing and ask them and
really see and experience your park through the eyes of a visitor.
And instead of being afraid of disruptive innovations,
(28:35):
embrace them so that you can figure out where the
opportunity is in that innovation. I would have loved to been in the
room when Mr. Coleman says, Hey, I got this idea for a cooler
because it's literally changed how we do leisure. And
a cooler is a focal point of, of any trip you do now and
you're able to do it because it's, it's easy and convenient. Pretty
(28:58):
good disruptive innovation for the most part, I would think.
So it's really fun to think about these things and kind of
be aware that they're going on right now and what you think, no, I don't
know if this will make it or not. It may be what makes it and
really changes our whole landscape. So I will say that time to
think about it is certainly is a good time. And I'll say that Phil and
(29:20):
I are not in the parks as much or in the way that you
are. If you are seeing something that you think
is a disruptive innovation that Phil and I don't know about,
we want to hear. So reach out. Let us know.
You can reach me at Jody. Jody
parkleaders.com Jody parkleaders.com Let us
(29:41):
know what you're seeing out in the parks. Phil, another
great conversation. People always enjoy it when, when you join us
as a semi regular guest co host. Always enjoy being with
you, Jody. And thank you for listening to the park leader.
Welcome to the Park Leader show, where we are changing the landscape of
leadership in parks and conservation. And I have a
topic that is not leadership that really changed parks
and conservation. In 1957, a park
ranger was walking the campground and saw something a
ranger had never seen before. 1957 was a
(00:24):
while ago, so you may not guess what this is even
if I gave you time to do so. Well, in 1957, that's when
Coleman introduced the plastic cooler. You may
be saying, why is that even a big deal? I see them everywhere.
Exactly. That's my point. And to that park ranger,
1957, he may not have thought it was a big deal. What
(00:47):
may have seemed like a novelty to that ranger turned out to
be a disruptive innovation unlike anything parks had
ever seen before. Well, what was the big deal
about the plastic cooler? For one, it made coolers
more affordable. Anybody could now get a
cooler. And once you had a cooler,
(01:09):
that then allowed park visitors to stay in
parks longer. It allowed visitors to bring
cold beer into parks, and, you know, cold
beer really disrupted things. Once it was in parks, the
plastic cooler really enhanced the visitor experience.
They could come and camp longer. They could have meals in
(01:31):
the park on a picnic. Beverages changed because you could
keep them cold, and what you could bring changed. Food changed.
This really started to enhance the visitor experience
and made a cultural shift in camping.
It increased park visitation to new heights,
all from a plastic cooler that probably seemed like
(01:54):
a novelty the first time it showed up in a park. And the next
plastic cooler, whatever it may be, is in our
parks today. And we may see it as a novelty, we
may even see it as an annoyance, but we need to
examine disruptive innovations. And we're going to have
that talk with the semi regular guest
(02:16):
co host of the Park Leader show, the retired
director of South Carolina State Parks, Phil Gaines.
My first question for you, Phil. I talk about
1957. There was a park ranger patrolling the campground, saw something
that had never been seen. Did that happen to be you?
(02:37):
No, I came along in 1907.
Well, I'm just giving old ranger Phil a hard time. Of course, it
was not Phil Gaines, but, Phil, I think
this is a topic that needs to be
discussed. Disruptive innovation. I'll tell you first that I
learned this whole concept from you. I don't know if you remember it. The
(02:59):
very first time you were a guest on the Park Leader show, you introduced
me to the term disruptive innovation. And then
I came up with this story, a true story
about the cooler. In 1957, when
I was Asked to speak at the national
association of State Park Directors conference in Nevada.
(03:22):
And after talking with them about what topics would be ideal
for the audience and for their program, we came up
with disruptive innovation. So that is the story
I use to introduce the whole program, which included you, it
included Donald Forgioni, it included someone from
Hawaii, state parks, Indiana and New Jersey.
(03:44):
Right. So we covered a lot of disruptive innovation. But I
always, I feel like I can't talk about disruptive innovation without talking
about Phil Gaines. First because you are disruptive, and then two
because you gave me this idea initially. Wow,
you sound like my teachers from all of my academic
classes in elementary school and high school. I was
(04:06):
disruptive, talked entirely too much, and was capable of doing much better
work. That was on all of my report. Cards, but I believe
it. I love the cooler thing because we kind of take that for granted now
because the cooler is such a standard of
camping. But you go back to your example of 1957
and how it kind of transformed camping, even picnicking
(04:29):
and all the things that we, we utilize in parks. And you
know, when we first started talking about disruptive innovations years ago
in the first podcast that I appeared on of the Park
Leader show, it was a lot about equipment, but on a
larger scale, like campers, tents
and those kind of things. And dealing with the reality
(04:52):
of. A lot of our campgrounds were designed in the
1930s and, you know, by the Civilian Conservation Corps even after
that in the 40s and 50s. And the campsites themselves
were a certain size that, you know, when the 70s and
80s and came along, camping units became larger.
And now a lot of camping units are, you know, the,
(05:14):
the slide outs and the fifth wheels and all that stuff. They won't
fit on the campsites that were designed by the
Civilian Conservation Corps. And not only that, you know, you went from
25amp service to 30amp service to
50amp service. And now people are, you know, bringing
small homes with them that have stuff that we couldn't even imagine,
(05:36):
you know, back 30, 40 years ago of what a campsite would look like.
So that little cooler is kind of like this little small item
that if you start analyzing. So how did you, how did we
manage these disruptive innovations to
adapt and adjust what park people do really good. And
you think about camper sizes, equipment on
(05:58):
campers, 50amp service, full
hookups with water and sewer, and, you know, a lot of
places now dump stations are not as in use
as they used to be because every, a lot of sites have their individual
hookups. But, you know, it's kind of this
morph of you're always constantly learning and
(06:19):
adjusting and adapting to these disruptive innovations.
And, you know, and we think immediately about the things that have
that we see every day, like equipment and starting off with a cooler all the
way up to fifth wheel campers that have slide outs. And you know
what, all it takes to handle those disruptive
innovations. But if you think about it, it's more than just those
(06:41):
obvious things. Think about in the last 10 years, things that have
happened in parks that have really kind of
disrupted the normal operating procedures that we've had to come
up with a way to address or adapt
or, you know, change to a modern world that
if we don't, we'll become kind of obsolete and people
(07:04):
will find other ways to enjoy their leisure time. Think of something that
come to your mind when you, you know, when you go past just big
stuff like campers and water and sewer and electricity,
and it starts getting really, I mean, they're everywhere. These little disruptive innovations
are everywhere. Well, the little
disruptive innovations, I think are worth talking about because if you
(07:26):
look at the cooler, if you were in
1957, 1958, 1959, if
you were a park manager or superintendent who spent most of your time
in the office, this little item of a
cooler made a cultural shift and you didn't
even notice it because you weren't in the campground to see it. And I say
(07:48):
that not to make comments about park managers being in the office,
just to say that that was 1957,
when things happened slow. Now you could have something that
small that creates such a shift in how
people operate inside your park that
happens before you even notice. I'm going to give the three
(08:10):
examples from that presentation. So what we did
is we had three different states come up
and talk about a disruptive innovation that happened in their park,
just to give an idea of what some of these disruptions are.
And Phil, I know you're going to remember these. The first one I'm going to
say, although this isn't the time to talk much about this one, but Hawaii
(08:33):
came and talked about a natural disaster being a disruptive
innovation. It disrupted a park, but it led to a lot of
innovation within that park. They were able to do things they couldn't have before.
Really interesting story. Beautiful story, how it turned out,
but not what we want to talk about today. But a natural disaster
sure can be a disruptive innovation. New Jersey,
(08:56):
they had one. The very short version of it
is a spot that you had to Have a reservation to drive
a vehicle onto the beach. And they had a lot of people showing
up and they could not figure out why, where it was coming from. Well, it
turned out it was from social media. An
influencer had did a post and given the spot
(09:17):
of where they were on social media and people just started showing up.
And because parks was not monitoring social media
in that way, they were overrun with visitors in
a place where you had to have a reservation to be there. That is a
good example of a recreational shift that
happened and was in place before you even knew it
(09:40):
happened. Yeah, Indiana had another good one. I did not
even know this was an issue. Didn't know it was even taking
place in parks. But there are people who will
make reservations in parks. I'm sure this happens
everywhere, not just Indiana. Now they have
reservations spread throughout the summer on a separate
(10:03):
website or however they do it. They will rent
RVs to customers, then they will drive the
RV to the spa in Indiana, set it up, and
now the person. So let's say, and I don't know the numbers,
let's say it cost $30 for a campsite reservation in
Indiana. That's what the state of Indiana made, thirty dollars.
(10:24):
But this independent third party
would charge a hundred dollars for RV rental for the night,
and then they would go set it up, and the person who paid for
it would come, they'd have an rv, they'd stay for the weekend, they'd drive away,
and that third party would come and get the rv. I did not even know
this was going on. It was well established before
(10:47):
Indiana parks even figured out it was going on. Very
disruptive. The reservation system, all that
was never created with that. The intent for that to happen.
By the time they discovered it, it was very well entrenched.
So there's another example of a big shift that happened.
And by the time we in parks realized it was going
(11:10):
on, it was well established. And now how do you
stop it? What do you do about it? So those are
two examples. Phil and I think in the past, we may not
have talked about it on an episode, but we've even talked about the
flashlight was a disruptive innovation because before that you
needed a lantern, which was also a disruptive innovation. There's
(11:32):
a lot of small things that. That completely change the way
visitors recreate in your park. And they
happen faster now than they ever have before. Yeah.
And you know, and I think I want to throw out a couple of other
little ones that we did or that has happened. So here's
one. And then I want to tie them all up with this thought process.
(11:53):
So the small stuff is like, think about
backpacking and backcountry camping and
what's changed and now who does this? So
in 1950s and 60s and even regular tent
camping. But if you were doing a major hike to the Grand
Canyon, to the hike to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, or do rim to
(12:14):
rim in the Grand Canyon, the equipment that you had was,
you know, canvas tents and aluminum water
bottles. And so it was bulky, it was not
efficient. It was, you know, and it kept a lot of
people from. That's not my thing. Because it's. It's a lot of work
and it's hard and it's. And it's not really comfortable to do all this kind
(12:37):
of good stuff. And now, you know, the tents that you have are. Are
made with this great material. And hiking sticks. Think about the
evolution of hiking sticks and all these little things that
now the out of doors is exposed to a whole new set
of people that all of a sudden, if you were to wake up in this
time warp, you're going like, who are all these people? And, you know,
(12:59):
the diversity of people who are coming from
backgrounds to males and females is all
because of a lot of this technology has changed. Gps,
all that kind of stuff is really changed. And then go back to the simple
ones that we talked about with equipment from, like, motorhomes
and fifth wheelers and then a procedural thing
(13:22):
or somebody being entrepreneurial in the
Indiana case, and that goes on and on. So as park
leaders, I think one of the things you have to do is you have to
get in that mindset because things happen so rapidly, and you
just put technology out there as a category, and there's all
kinds of things that happen with technology all the time, from
(13:43):
reservations to all this kind of stuff that's out there right now
that you can think of a thousand things. But the most critical thing
for park managers, park rangers and park leaders
is you have to manage this process, and you have to
do it in a very strategic, thoughtful manner, because
these disruptive innovations happen now, routinely,
(14:06):
and they happen real quick. And I think probably the best thing to
keep in mind when you're doing that is an old
philosophy of you act and don't
react. So a lot of times on technology, we tend to say,
oh, my gosh, what are we going to do? And you react to what that
is, and you say, well, we're not going to let them do that in
(14:27):
Indiana, or we're not going to change our campsites.
And so by reacting you may be missing an opportunity
or a way to manage that problem. So I think what as a leader you
should do is you go through the process and figure it out and you
act, don't react. And some of the things that I can think of that, that
a lot of places reacted instead of
(14:49):
thinking through the process of how to do that. Remember
geocaching? And you know that when geocaching
first come out and a lot of people reacted and says, nope, you can't
do it, no geocaching in this part. And then you found out all of a
sudden it don't matter if you want geocaching or not, there's a cache in
your part, whether you know about it or not and go to this website and
(15:11):
it was like, what? Oh my goodness, nobody asked us. So you can't
just react, you got to act. You got to figure out how you're going to
manage it, how you're going to educate people so that you do it in the
right way. Drones, the use of drones is one of those,
is still evolving. Is it good or bad? And you can't just
say, no, we're not going to do it. You got to figure out what are
the consequences, what are the benefits, and more
(15:34):
importantly, how are you going to manage this? Because some things you
really have to manage because you can't just say we're not going to do that
because before you know it, it's there whether you want it or not,
like geocaching or you know, some of the other technological
things. And you know, and I think about, I've watched this
phenomenon come and go. QR codes is like, what am I going to
(15:57):
use? QR codes? And they kind of, you can do great things with QR
codes. Then it kind of went away for a little bit, but they're pretty strong
again now because they have these applications and I see QR codes
all the time on interpretive panels where you want to find another
layer. So you can't just say we're not going to do QR
codes because it's this disruptive innovation. The ongoing
(16:18):
debate of Wi fi in parks, the ongoing
debate of the use of social media. And I, I
guess my point of bringing all these out is that you have to really be
open minded and really focus on not reacting
to all these disruptive innovations because they continue
to happen on a yearly basis for sure, if not more
(16:40):
frequently than that. And so you've got to analyze it and figure
out what the consequences are, what's the good and what's the bad.
And then figure out how you're going to address it or how you want to
manage it or it'll manage you. And the next thing
you know, it's, you're not going to be able to control or
control in the right, in the right way of providing the services
(17:01):
and doing that stewardship and service that we all talk about as
parts. So don't always react when something
comes up and say, you know, this is going to cause us real problems. It
may, but you got to figure out how to do that instead of just saying
we're going to forbid that, we're going to prohibit that because it may,
it may be a really good thing that changes our world, like
(17:23):
coolers and lanterns and equipment.
Because this change in equipment, like with
tents and backpacks and water bottles
and those kind of things, it's really changed our
clientele and the people who use parks. And we see a lot more people in
our parks today. I think one reason is the
(17:44):
equipment is so easy to use and so much better and you feel
more comfortable of being able to find things and,
and go places and, and the equipment is so much better. I mean,
remember those old canvas, you're too young, but old
canvas backpacks and canvas tents, when they got wet,
man, they were wet forever. And the equipment we have
(18:07):
now, it allows you to do serious backpacking and
backcountry camping where, you know, we couldn't even think of that 50 years ago.
Phil, as always, hits on some great points. And
disruptive innovation is not always a bad thing.
The cooler is a great one. The cooler made
recreation affordable and accessible to people that
(18:30):
could have never done it before. And I think we look at it now and
we would say we're glad we have the cooler. But Phil, would you guess
that, that in the late 1950s there would have been a park manager that
said, oh no, we don't need, we don't need those plastic coolers in our park.
No, I mean, now you can't imagine it because I mean,
coolers are such a fabric of our leisure activities
(18:52):
now, whether it's at a park or a ball game or
a backyard picnic or when company comes over. My guess
is probably some of those park rangers thought,
what's going inside of those coolers? And you know, and how's that going to cause
us problems? And. But it's like, you know, you can't imagine some of these things
now without the cooler and the backpacks that we
(19:14):
have. And you know, in the lantern, the old fashioned Coleman lantern
is still out there. But it's not like it used to be because
like you said, the flashlight and all the different variations of
flashlights and lanterns now that you turn on
because you got a battery instead of, you know, pumping up the fuel
and, and all that kind of stuff. And so it's, you know, the way
(19:36):
we cook on a stove, like when you're backpacking is opened
up the wilderness and opened up the parks to a whole
new set of people who would never dreamed about
being outdoors for any length of time because of the equipment. Well,
Phil, let's give some ideas on how to keep
up to date with what might be coming because
(19:58):
you could miss something, but I think if you stay on top of it, you
might be able to keep up. I think walking the
campground regularly, you will be surprised. I know so
many park rangers already do this. Rather than. Or in addition
to walking the campground for patrol, for compliance,
for registration. Take a look at what games people are
(20:21):
playing. Take a look at what devices they have, because
I can even think of two or three games I had never seen
before that I discovered for the first time when visitors in
the campground were playing them. And we have those yard games
now, but that's where I first discovered them. You could get ahead
of a game that you're going to see because usually a game
(20:43):
like ladder ball, you will see that one or two
times one summer, then it's common the next summer, then it's
everywhere the summer after. This is just a small example.
Walk the trail. See what hikers have. Ask about
equipment, ask about trails. You may notice
maybe some new social trails showing up. Well, that could be because
(21:06):
of an Instagram spot. You never know. Monitor social
media. Keep a geolocation tag,
watch for your park. Do hashtag watches for
your park for different spots in your park. I don't think you can
ignore that anymore. Social media right now
is a wonderful way to have park visitors
(21:28):
volunteer what they're up to and what they're doing while
they're at your park because they're posting about it. All you have to do
is take the time to watch. Yeah, I was taking
notes while you were talking about, you know, what some of the
things you can do. And the number one thing I wrote down was stay
social. And what I mean by that is your point about social
(21:50):
media. And I know social media has this negatives and this bad
stuff and. But if you want to find out what's going on,
it's important to be on some social media things. You don't have to
contribute. But if you want to find out what trends are, what people are
talking about, stay social, because it's out there.
And you will learn a lot from social media, from your
(22:12):
visitors, but also of what trends are. And
could this be a problem because it's trending over here.
And so I think staying social is really important,
and it's part of that bigger concept of staying
relevant. And the way that I advise folks,
one of the best ways to stay relevant from a leadership standpoint,
(22:34):
I use this phrase a lot, is that you really have to expand your
table of like your leadership circle in your table.
If you look around at your leadership table,
your leadership circle where you try to stay relevant, and
everybody in that circle or at that table looks like you
has the same background of you, is the same age as
(22:56):
you, then, man, you're, you're missing a lot.
So some way you've got to find ways to expand your
table of influence so that there's
young people in there, there's different genders in
there, there's different people who look different than you are,
just because everybody does stuff different. And, you
(23:19):
know, it's. It's fascinating when you go on to a park now
and you observe people and look at things just in my
career in state parks, one of the things that I find so fascinating
and rewarding, I think it's a great thing when I
go hiking, and I'm an avid hiker, and I like to
hike during the week so I don't have to be there when everybody else
(23:42):
is there. That's terrible for a park ranger to say, isn't it? But so when
I hike, I usually hike during the week and do some serious trails.
And there are as many or more
women that are hiking now than they ever have been before.
And I think a couple of things are behind that. It's.
They feel safer because there's better equipment,
(24:05):
there's more connection with the phones and, and with
maps and GPS and all that kind of good stuff.
And I see a lot more younger people hiking than I ever have
before. And so what does that tell you? What is that observation? Is it. It
means that for these people who were coming, that wasn't
always coming 50 years ago or 30 years ago, are you doing the right
(24:27):
things that keep them engaged and they become
advocates and supporters of parks? You know, one of. One of
the things that you'll see on golf courses is the addition
of bathrooms. In the main reason that they first started putting
in bathrooms at golf courses was because women. More women started
playing golf. And if you want women to play golf, you got to have a
(24:51):
bathroom. And some of the work I do with site design and
part development and then on the class, I teach Eclipse,
and I'm a big advocate for bathrooms. And one of the
observations is, is if, if you want older people,
if you want families, if you want women,
and if you want people to stay there longer, longer than an
(25:14):
hour, you need to think about putting a bathroom there. And so some of that
is just observation of disruptive innovations,
is you've done all this social media stuff, you've got new equipment stuff,
and now you got this whole new generation of people who are coming that these
parks really wasn't designed for all these kind of people. And.
But isn't that a great thing? Because that's the people who we want. You want
(25:35):
to see all of this, you know, this new group of people who care and
love their parks that feel comfortable about going. And now you got to do some
things that really make them feel comfortable so they'll keep coming back. Because
the more people who come to our parks, I think the better our parks
are long term to survive for future
generations. Phil is right on, and I think
(25:56):
this is it. Camping has changed, hiking has changed. Camping is
a great one. Our campgrounds, so many of them were
built and designed in the 1930s, and if they weren't, they're a
copy of what was built and designed in the 1930s.
But as demographics change, as families change, camping
changes. And Phil talked about more bathrooms.
(26:19):
So I think the point is, and this is a great point to end on,
watch what's going on. And then rather than enforce
outdated old policies, maybe it's a chance
to encourage a change to be more in line
with where the culture has shifted to. Because
just like a cooler changed how people recreate, and
(26:43):
I imagine it also encourages larger groups to camp
at once. So just like the cooler change, be watching
for things like that happening in your park. And maybe
you can encourage a change that will move away
from something that just isn't as relevant anymore.
Maybe it can move a change where if nothing else, we
(27:05):
need an outhouse or a pit toilet at this trailhead because it's
gotten so much. At minimum, you can find where
if a trail's getting more use, it will likely get more
litter. Okay, we just need to to add a
trash can at the trailhead now in a place where we didn't have one before.
I just think looking for things like that most
(27:27):
disruptive innovation is small,
small little steps. It's not cultural changes.
All Those, those, those do happen. But I think
you have a role in watching for the small
steps of change and that if you can keep up with those,
I don't think you ever get left behind. Phil, I will give you
(27:49):
a chance to give the last words before we
wrap up. Well, I think you, you nailed it, Jody. And all I would
say is that, you know, there are disruptive innovations
that are out there right now or that are certainly coming in the
next few months that we don't even know what they are. And you know, it
goes back to that awareness of your park and your visitors that
(28:12):
you serve. And, and I really like your, you know,
your recommendation of you got to get out of your truck, you got to get
out of the vehicle and, and walk that park and not only
talk to your visitors, but see what they're doing and ask them and
really see and experience your park through the eyes of a visitor.
And instead of being afraid of disruptive innovations,
(28:35):
embrace them so that you can figure out where the
opportunity is in that innovation. I would have loved to been in the
room when Mr. Coleman says, Hey, I got this idea for a cooler
because it's literally changed how we do leisure. And
a cooler is a focal point of, of any trip you do now and
you're able to do it because it's, it's easy and convenient. Pretty
(28:58):
good disruptive innovation for the most part, I would think.
So it's really fun to think about these things and kind of
be aware that they're going on right now and what you think, no, I don't
know if this will make it or not. It may be what makes it and
really changes our whole landscape. So I will say that time to
think about it is certainly is a good time. And I'll say that Phil and
(29:20):
I are not in the parks as much or in the way that you
are. If you are seeing something that you think
is a disruptive innovation that Phil and I don't know about,
we want to hear. So reach out. Let us know.
You can reach me at Jody. Jody
parkleaders.com Jody parkleaders.com Let us
(29:41):
know what you're seeing out in the parks. Phil, another
great conversation. People always enjoy it when, when you join us
as a semi regular guest co host. Always enjoy being with
you, Jody. And thank you for listening to the park leader.
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