While one can find plans, schemes, strategies and packaged programs to match almost any challenge, we have plenty of evidence that change takes root in the healthiest ways when the innovation is adapted to match local conditions.

Saving the salmon in a river in Oregon will be different from saving salmon in Washington, British Columbia, Maine, Tasmania or Scotland. The rivers are different, the salmon are different and the elements of the plan must be matched to special combinations of factors.

Introducing wireless laptop carts to middle schools in three different towns in Oregon with three different groups of students and teachers will work best if each school creates its own plans matched to special conditions. The same would hold true for laptop carts in elementary or high school classrooms in Oregon or middle school classrooms in Tasmania, Dunedin, Blackpool, Dallas, Sydney or Victoria.

In the case of the grape arbor project outlined in this article, the grape vines were preexisting and quite old. They were situated along a curved terrace that would make a single straight arbor an impossibility. The setting included several other levels of terraces, each with different kinds of plants, some of which might be hidden by a structure too tall.