Throughout my life, I have often heard people use the expression “the proof is in the pudding,” but I never really gave much thought to what it really referred to. So, what does it mean? Is it a reference to Jell-O shots? In the context of food, it means that you must try something to know if you like it or not. In fact, you may need to try something a dozen times or more to know for sure. In the case of incorporating new technology in the groundwater industry, it means one must try something new, maybe several times, to know if it works for you or not.
We live in a society that tends to embrace and even thrive on the polarization of issues, methods and standards that are not as black and white as one would be led to believe (e.g., religion ~ politics, nature ~ nurture, old ~ new, or good ~ evil). It is easy to discard a new process, philosophy or technology as unhelpful or cumbersome after a first failed attempt at it, but I would argue that these kinds of failures are necessary for growth and often drive innovation and invention. In fact, these dichotomies can have great value in revealing the gray areas that exist between them, and I believe that we can grow as an industry and as individuals by learning how to embrace the “pudding” that exists in the middle.