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In 2021, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee history professor Thomas Haigh began teaching a course on the history of computers. Haigh, the coauthor of a book on the subject published around that same timenoticed that many classic histories of computing from the 1990s assumed that readers would have firsthand knowledge of technology from around that eradesktop PCs and Macs, early game consoles, and the once-ubiquitous floppy disk. But for many of his students, that equipment was obsolete before they were born. While it might make millennials grimace, Windows 95 and Nintendo 64s GoldenEye 007 are now firmly in the purview of the history department. With today’s undergraduates, they’re just as distanced from the days of the Apple II, or the IBM PC, or the first Mac as people [then] were from ENIAC and the very earliest computers, Haigh says. Haigh can’t practically show his students how to use the ENIAC or the other room-sized machines from the mid-20th century. But he realized he could stock a lab with equipment from the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, letting students experience and understand what it was like to load a spreadsheet from floppy disk on an Apple IIe, boot up Windows on a Gateway PC, or play a game on a vintage Atari or Nintendo 64. The idea isn’t to collect one of everything, and it’s also not really to collect rare and exotic things, Haigh says. We’re more interested in recapturing what the typical experience was of using computer systems in different eras. Haigh believes the Retrocomputing Lab, or simply Retrolab, may be the only such lab run out of a U.S. history department. Its one of a handful of university labs around the country that provide students and researchers with access to machines and software from before the age of ubiquitous internet and cloud computing. Its stocked with a mix of eBay purchases, university surplus, and faculty hand-me-downs (meaning students are sometimes greeted with the names of users from decades gone by when they load vintage operating systems or floppy disks). Lab organizers say the labs help students and researchers understand how computing and communication technology has evolved, both for better and for worseand help them use ideas from the past to understand and shape what the future of tech might be. What I’ve noticed, especially in the last year, is that young people are just fascinated and utterly compelled by typewriters, by technology that they can see into, that they can understand how it works, that they sometimes can open up, says Lori Emerson, founder of the Media Archaeology Lab (MAL) at the University of Colorado Boulder. And especially the pieces of tech that we have in the lab that’s not connected to the internet, that’s not surveilling them, tracking them, collecting data. Its something that emulation, which can make it possible to use vintage software and games on modern equipment, doesnt fully capture. Emerson founded the lab in 2009 while working as a professor in the English department and teaching students about a digital poetry project called First Screening, released on floppy disk in the 1980s by the celebrated Canadian poet bpNichol. Emerson wanted to show students how the poems would have been seen on the computers of their day. The lab she set up for that purpose continued to expand, ultimately growing into a sprawling collection thats now available for use by students, visiting researchers, and curious members of the public. I think that was pretty much the beginning of the end for me as an English professor, says Emerson, now a professor in the media studies department. And then I just couldn’t stop collecting old pieces of technology, and I couldn’t stop convincing people to give me their things. Even with commercial software, the tactile experience of using particular keyboards, mice, and disks, and the entire concept of unpacking disks and manuals from a store-bought box, just cant be simulated. One of the things that surprises students is that software used to come in a box full of manuals and stuff, Haigh says. They just think of software as this purely immaterial thing that downloads. Emma Culver, a Ph.D. student in UW-Milwaukees media, cinema, and digital studies program, says she discovered installing and playing The 7th Guesta 1993 DOS horror adventure that helped pioneer the use of the CD-ROM for full-motion video and inspired a generation of game designerswas far from smooth, experiencing firsthand the trial-and-error frustrations of PC gaming in that era. And it’s much more satisfying once you actually sit down to play it after you’ve been through all that effort to set it up, she says. But though todays students will likely play a role in the next steps in technologys evolution, its not clear whether theyll be able to show future generations the technology they currently use. Thats because over the past decade or so, software has become dependent on connections to cloud servers, AI models, or online gaming infrastructure cant easily be archived in fully operational form. In the future, once systems aren’t there to activate copies and download patches and so on, none of this stuff is still going to be accessible unless enthusiasts do a huge amount of work to replicate parts of that system, Haigh says. But for now, universities are working to share and preserve what they can of the digital past. At Georgia Tech, a similar retroTECH program run out of the university library similarly helps archive and share with students vintage technology from the slide rule to millennial favorites like The Oregon Trail and early Mario Kart offerings. Games for historic consoles are a big focus, especially since they were released as static products rather than updated and patched over time like PC games, says digital accessioning archivist Dillon Henry. Students are sometimes intrigued by how quickly cartridge-based games could load compared to todays releases, and the games are often accompanied by print gaming media of the day, so students can see how they were advertised and promoted in outlets like Nintendo Power. The library has hosted informal gaming nights, but its also seen plenty of use by students in classes looking at everything from interactive narrative storytelling to game design. Engineering students also learn to fix the vintage machines. It’s a win-win, because you can’t o to an Apple Store today and ask them to fix your Apple II, Henry says. Theyre also inspiring students to make their own creations. One student brought classmates from a game design class to the lab to study elements of Final Fantasy IX9 (released for the original PlayStation in 2000), Henry recalls, and visitors are also often intrigued by the evolution of video game interfaces and forgotten elements of the industrys history. The collection includes technology like the Virtual Boy, a famously odd Nintendo VR system from the mid-1990s, and the Fairchild Channel F, which introduced the concept of removable cartridges and featured a unique, joystick-like controller. Now controllers are getting more or less standardized, Henry says. It was kind of a Wild West there at the beginning of the gaming world, when people were just trying stuff that hadn’t been done. The retroTECH programs vintage material isnt all computer-based. The library has an Edison wax cylinder phonograph from 1902 and a set of blank cylinders, and Henry hopes in the future to work on recording projects based around the medium, perhaps in conjunction with the universitys celebrated music technology program. Historic technology is also a creative medium at CU Boulder. The Media Archaeology Lab has hosted a residency series thats attracted artists creating work with the equipment, and seen musicians perform using vintage music software and computerized keyboards on site. The lab has also recently begun acquiring typewriters and other historic printing and copying equipment, and Emerson and lab managing director Libi Rose Striegl plan to offer zine-making workshops in the near future. Students weary of AI and cloud computing have generally been showing an interest in technology from before the age of the always-on internet, Emerson says. A theme that’s been coming up recently is that they say, I feel like my mental health would be a lot better if I used these machines, she says. And we laugh, but were also like, yeah, it probably would be.
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A variety show thats still revered for its absurdist, slapstick humor debuted 50 years ago. It starred an irreverent band of characters made of foam and fleece. Long after The Muppet Shows original 120-episode run ended in 1981, the legend and legacy of Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Gonzo and other creations concocted by puppeteer and TV producer Jim Henson have kept on growing. Thanks to the Muppets film franchise and the wonders of YouTube, the wacky gang is still delighting, and expanding, its fan base. As a scholar of popular culture, I believe that the Muppets reign, which began in the 1950s, has helped shape global culture, including educational television. Along the way, the puppets and the people who bring them to life have earned billions in revenue. Johnny Carson interviews Muppet creator Jim Henson, Kermit and other Muppets on the Tonight Show in 1975, ahead of one of an early The Muppet Show pilot. Kermits origin story Muppets, a portmanteau of marionette and puppet, first appeared on TV in the Washington, D.C., region in 1955, when Henson created a short sketch show called Sam and Friends with his future wife, Jane Nebel. Their motley cast of puppets, including a lizardlike character named Kermit, sang parody songs and performed comedy sketches. Hensons creations were soon popping up in segments on other TV shows, including Today and late-night programs. Rowlf the Dog appeared in Canadian dog food commercials before joining The Jimmy Dean Show as the hosts sidekick. After that show ended, Rowlf and Dean performed on the Ed Sullivan Show, where Kermit had occasionally appeared since 1961. Rowlf the Dog and Jimmy Dean reprise their schtick on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1967. From Sesame Street to SNL As Rowlf and Kermit made the rounds on variety shows, journalist Joan Ganz Cooney and psychologist Lloyd Morrisett were creating a new educational program. They invited Henson to provide a Muppet ensemble for the show. Henson waived his performance fee to maintain rights over the characters who became the most famous residents of Sesame Street. The likes of Oscar the Grouch, Cookie Monster and Big Bird were joined by Kermit who, by the time the show premiered in 1969, was identified as a frog. When Sesame Street became a hit, Henson worried that his Muppets would be typecast as childrens entertainment. Another groundbreaking show, aimed at young adults, offered him a chance to avoid that. Saturday Night Lives debut on NBC in 1975 when the show was called Saturday Night included a segment called The Land of Gorch, in which Hensons grotesque creatures drank, smoked and cracked crass jokes. The Land of Gorch segments ended after Saturday Night Lives first season. Saturday Night Lives first season included Land of Gorch sketches that starred creatures Jim Henson made to entertain grown-ups. Miss Piggy gets her closeup The Muppet Show was years in the making. ABC eventually aired two TV specials in 1974 and 1975 that were meant to be pilots for a U.S.-produced Muppet Show. After no American network picked up his quirky series, Henson partnered with British entertainment entrepreneur Lew Grade to produce a series for ATV, a British network, that featured Kermit and other Muppets. The new ensemble included Fozzie Bear, Animal and Miss Piggy Muppets originally performed by frequent Henson collaborator Frank Oz. The Muppet Show parodied variety shows on which Henson had appeared. Connections hed made along the way paid off: Many celebrities he met on those shows sets would guest star on The Muppet Show, including everyone from Rita Moreno and Lena Horne to Joan Baez and Johnny Cash. The Muppet Show, which was staged and shot at a studio near London, debuted on Sept. 5, 1976, in the U.K, before airing in syndication in the United States on stations like New Yorks WCBS. As the shows opening and closing theme songs changed over time, they retained a Vaudeville vibe despite the house bands preference for rock and jazz. The Muppets hit the big screen The Muppet Show was a hit, amassing a global audience of over 200 million. It won many awards, including a Primetime Emmy for outstanding comedy-variety or music series for which it beat Saturday Night Live in 1978. While his TV show was on the air, Henson worked on the franchises first film, The Muppet Movie. The road film, released in 1979, was another hit: It earned more than US$76 million at the box office. The Muppet Movie garnered two Academy Award nominations for its music, including best song for Rainbow Connection. It won a Grammy for best album for children. The next two films, The Great Muppet Caper, which premiered in 1981, and The Muppets Take Manhattan, released in 1984, also garnered Oscar nominations for their music. As The Muppet Movie opens, Statler and Waldorf tell a security guard of their heckling plans. Fraggle Rock and the Disney deal The cast of The Muppet Show and the three films took a break from Hollywood while Henson focused on Fraggle Rock, a TV show for kids that aired from 1983-1987 on HBO. Like Hensons other productions, Fraggle Rock featured absurdist humor but its puppets arent considered part of the standard Muppets gang. This co-production between Henson, Canadian Broadcast Corporation and British producers was aimed at international markets. The quickly conglomerating media industry led Henson to consider corporate partnerships to assist with his goal of further expanding the Muppet media universe. In August 1989, he negotiated a deal with Michael Eisner of Disney who announced at Disney-MGM Studios an agreement in principle to acquire The Muppets, with Henson maintaining ownership of the Sesame Street characters. The announcement also included plans to open Muppet-themed attractions at Disney parks. But less than a year later, on May 16, 1990, Henson died from a rare and serious bacterial infection. He was 53. At the end of Fraggle Rocks run, its characters look for new gigs. Of Muppets and mergers Hensons death led to the Disney deals collapse. But the company did license The Muppets to Disney, which co-produced The Muppet Christmas Carol in 1992 and Muppet Treasure Island in 1996 with Jim Henson Productions, which was then run by Jims son, Brian Henson. In 2000, the Henson family sold the Muppet properties to German media company EM.TV & Merchandising AG for $680 million. That company ran into financial trouble soon after, then sold the Sesame Street characters to Sesame Workshop for $180 million in late 2000. The Jim Henson Company bought back the remaining Muppet properties for $84 million in 2003. In 2004, Disney finally acquired The Muppets and most of the media library associated with the characters. Disney continued to produce Muppet content, including The Muppets Wizard of Oz in 2005. Its biggest success came with the 2011 film The Muppets, which earned over $165 million at the box office and won the Oscar for best original song Man or Muppet. Muppets Most Wanted, released in 2014, earned another $80 million worldwide, bringing total global box office receipts to over $458 million across eight theatrical Muppets movies. The Muppet Show goes on The Muppets continue to expand their fandom across generations and genres by performing at live concerts and appearing in several series and films. Through these many hits and occasional bombs, and the Jim Henson Companys personnel changes, the Muppets have adapted to changes in technology and tastes, making it possible for them to remain relevant to new generations. That cat of characters made of felt and foam continue to entertain fans of all ages. Although many people remain nostalgic over The Muppet Show, two prior efforts to reboot the show proved short-lived. But when Disney airs its The Muppet Show anniversary special on Feb. 4, 2026, maybe more people will get hooked as Disney looks to reboot the series The Muppet Show will be back for at least one episode on Feb. 4, 2026. Jared Bahir Browsh, Assistant Teaching Professor of Critical Sports Studies, University of Colorado Boulder This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Around 70% of large-scale corporate transformation efforts fail. That figure has remained consistent for 25 yearsand it comes from an era of relatively manageable change. Artificial intelligence will demand far more of companies: faster adaptation, more comprehensive reinvention, and continuous evolution rather than periodic adjustment. Yet more than three years after the launch of ChatGPT, only 5% of businesses report extracting significant value from their AI initiatives. If companies struggled with transformation before, the coming years will be harder still. Managing rapid change is becoming the central competency for business leadership. Every serious observer agrees that executives need to develop new skills and mindsets to navigate what is coming. Yet there is a paradox at the heart of corporate America’s response. In a recent survey of leaders at large organizations, the Center for Creative Leadership found that 82% believed leadership development offers a competitive advantage amid economic uncertainty, and 72% said that cutting development budgets would create significant challenges. Yet 71% expected those budgets to be reduced in the event of any downturn. How can leaders simultaneously believe that executive development is essential while treating it as expendable? The answer isnt confusion or hypocrisy. It is that businesses have lost faith in the solutions on offer. {"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/10\/creator-faisalhoque.png","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/10\/faisal-hoque.png","eyebrow":"","headline":"Ready to thrive at the intersection of business, technology, and humanity? ","dek":"Faisal Hoques books, podcast, and his companies give leaders the frameworks and platforms to align purpose, people, process, and techturning disruption into meaningful, lasting progress.","subhed":"","description":"","ctaText":"Learn More","ctaUrl":"https:\/\/faisalhoque.com","theme":{"bg":"#02263c","text":"#ffffff","eyebrow":"#9aa2aa","subhed":"#ffffff","buttonBg":"#ffffff","buttonHoverBg":"#3b3f46","buttonText":"#000000"},"imageDesktopId":91420512,"imageMobileId":91420514,"shareable":false,"slug":""}} The Problems With Traditional Approaches And rightly so. Traditionally, companies have turned to executive education programs to help guide them through change. But most of these programs tend to focus on information transfersharing research findings without showing how to apply them to the specific realities of an individual business. The work of translation falls entirely on the leadership team. At the same time, much of the research informing these programs is backward-looking. Foundational studies may have been conducted two, three, or even more years ago. That cadence just cant keep pace with the speed at which AI is reshaping competitive landscapes. The classic consulting model does not fare any better. Whether providing leadership coaching or conducting transformation work directly, these engagements are expensive and the results they deliver are unreliable. More fundamentally, the pace of change ahead makes it simply unfeasible to bring in external teams to reshape the organization every time an advance in AI tech delivers paradigm-shifting capabilities. This approach is not sustainable financially, operationally, or culturally. The Resources Are Already There At present, most companies see organizational change as something rare that needs to be handled episodically. As a result, they lack the embedded processes that enable continuous innovation and transformation. They invest in a leadership program here and an external engagement there without ever establishing the permanent mechanisms that can capture value from new developments on an ongoing basis. This means that every disruption must be addressed from scratch, as if the organization had learned nothing from the last one. Instead of looking outward, corporations should be making the most of the resources they already have. Most companies employ extremely capable leaders who understand how their organizations actually work far better than any outside advisor could hope to. I have seen this repeatedly in the more than thirty years I have spent leading transformation initiatives at major corporations and government agencies. The talent and the institutional knowledge are already therethey just need to be unlocked. What is missing is not capability. It is a repeatable management systemand a spark. Repeatable Management Systems If the internal resources are already there, why aren’t companies already building these management systems on their own? The answer is that potential is not the same as momentum. Most organizations need something to break through the inertiaa catalyst that disrupts established patterns and creates the conditions for change to take hold. This is where outside expertise remains essential. But the nature of that expertise must change. The goal is not to perform the transformation work on the organization’s behalf. It is to provide the spark that sets internal capabilities in motion: diagnosing the current state, establishing the right frameworks, and building the confidence that allows leadership teams to take ownership of what comes next. Think of it as the difference between hiring someone to drive your car and hiring an instructor who teaches you to drive yourself. Both involve external help. But only one leaves you with a capability you can use forever. The key is establishing repeatable management systems that can be applied consistently across different challenges. When transformation processes are repeatable, each new disruption becomes an occasion to deploy proven methods rather than an emergency that demands improvisation from scratch. Building repeatable management systems is not a matter of snapping one’s fingers. But all the core ingredients exist within most large organizations. Outside partners can help establish the frameworks and get things moving in the right direction. But once an organization has built the engine to manage its ongoing evolution, it should not have to keep returning to the well again and again. The Compounding Advantage Businesses cannot afford to keep approaching change in the same way they have for decades. It has not worked well historically, and it will work even less well in the years ahead. The companies that thrive will be those that stop waiting for external partners to perform transformation on their behalf and start building the internal systems that make continuous adaptation part of how they operate. The organizations that get this right first will build a compounding advantage. Once the spark has been provided and the engine is running, each successive change becomes easier. The organization leans from one transformation and applies those lessons to the next. Meanwhile, competitors who remain locked in cycles of episodic external intervention will struggle to keep pace with technological shifts that arrive faster than any outside partner can respond to. Five Steps to Unlock Your Internal Transformation Capability Recognize that the capability already exists. Stop assuming that transformation requires importing talent or expertise your organization lacks. Audit the skills, institutional knowledge, and leadership capacity you already have. The gap is rarely capabilityit is the management systems and confidence needed to channel that capability toward change. Seek sparks, not ongoing support. When you bring in outside help, structure engagements around ignition, not dependency. The right external partner diagnoses your current state, establishes frameworks, and builds internal confidencethen steps back. The measure of their success is whether your organization can manage the next transformation on its own. Establish permanent change infrastructure. Create the internal systems, frameworks, and repeatable processes that will allow your organization to manage continuous evolution. This includes clear decision-rights for transformational initiatives, standardized methodologies for workflow redesign, and protocols for evaluating and deploying new capabilities. The goal is to make transformation a core organizational competence rather than an occasional intervention. Move transformation ownership to the CEO. Stop treating leadership development and organizational change as HR functions or IT projects. When the chief executive owns the transformation strategy, it becomes integrated with business objectives rather than running parallel to them. Development initiatives should be evaluated against strategic outcomes, not training completion rates. Build learning loops into every change. The compounding advantage comes from treating each transformation as an opportunity to strengthen your capacity for the next one. After every significant change initiative, capture what worked, what failed, and what you would do differently. Feed those lessons back into your frameworks and processes so the organization genuinely learns rather than simply moves on. The age of AI demands a new approach to how organizations change. The old modelswhether executive education or traditional consultingserved a slower world. That world is gone. The companies that will lead in the years ahead will not be those that find the best external partners to perform transformation for them. They will be those that find the right spark to unlock the transformation capability they already possess. {"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/10\/creator-faisalhoque.png","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/10\/faisal-hoque.png","eyebrow":"","headline":"Ready to thrive at the intersection of business, technology, and humanity? 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