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April Manager's Column

LIKE MONOPOLY, ELECTRICITY STANDS THE TEST OF TIME

by Robert L. Hance

Grand Ole Opry. The Gateway Arch. Mall of America. South Beach. Johnson Space Center. Disney World. Wrigley Field. Times Square.

It’s a list of well-known places in our great country. Places of relevance, if you will, in today’s pop culture.

This list represents some of the squares available for purchase in Monopoly’s most recent offering: Here and Now. Developed under the premise, “What if Monopoly were invented today?” this version offers updated game scenarios, properties and tokens. It offers relevance to a new generation of Monopoly players.

Instead of railroads, the new version features large international airports including Atlanta’s Hartfield-Jackson, Chicago’s JFK and O’Hare, and LAX. Air, evidently, is a more relevant mode of transportation today than the railway. The Luxury Tax was replaced with Interest on Credit Card Debt and Internet Service now sits where Water Works once did. Income Tax is apparently as relevant today as it was when the game was first introduced decades ago as it still holds a prominent spot on the first stretch of the game board.

But what about the electric company? Once proudly located on square 13 of the original board, the electric company has been replaced by cell phone service on the Here and Now edition.

Electricity is evidently not relevant today, at least as far as Hasbro is concerned.

I would argue otherwise. And while I don’t think Hasbro was attempting to offer up significant social commentary with their Here and Now edition, it is disappointing that the electric company didn’t even make the board.

From the moment we awaken in the morning until that time that we hit the sack at night, electricity impacts nearly everything we touch. Even the cell phone and internet services that became the utilities of relevance on the Here and Now game are empty vessels without the good old electric company.

As a society, we have come to take our electricity for granted. We rarely stop to consider everything that this behind-the-scenes commodity allows us to do. I encourage you to stop and consider for a moment everything in your house that is connected to the electric grid, and then tell me that electricity is no longer relevant.

More than any other game, Monopoly has stood the test of time, and the good folks at Hasbro are successfully bringing new generations into the fold with their updates to the old standard. But not everything loses relevance with the passing of time. Electricity was relevant when Thomas Edison demonstrated the first incandescent light bulb in December 1879. It was relevant when cooperatives formed to bring light and power to rural America in the 1930s. And it’s more relevant than ever today as we power our way through life and work on the heels of the electric current.

Next time you pull out the old Monopoly board, think about the lighting that allows you to play and the temperature control that keeps your home comfortable. Consider what cooled or cooked the beverages or snacks that surround you, and the sound of music or television in the background. We make electricity irrelevant because we take it for granted; it’s always there and available at the flip of a switch. Only by valuing the commodity will it have the place of relevance that it deserves.