The future ain't what it used to be.

Yogi Berra

What would you like our Minnesota Futurists' learning community

to have done that has a global impact within 5 years? (2008-2013)

Want to make $10 Million? Google Impact Project 10 to the 100th

What are Critcal Sucess Factors we must consider?
Scan: Five Regions of the Future ... Planet U
Revisit: ALL-WinWin ... Virtual Team Tactics

What are you willing to do to bring it about?

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The future ain't what it used to be.
What would you like our Minnesota Futurists' learning community
to have done that has a global impact within 5 years? (2008-2013)
What are you willing to do to bring it about?
The New Literacy: Learning and Unlearning
1. To Increase Performance at Work 11/29/07
"How to think" NOT "What to think"

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1. I'd like to continue the Saturday meetings, and add others, devoted to more in-depth explorations of topics. Currently we have what amounts to twenty minute or half hour presentations, with an hour of interruptions. This is good, in a way, but it's also bad. . htom

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2. When the "inturruptions" are on-topic, it is generally good; when they represent a personal opinion which we have heard before and is only peripherally related, that is not-so-good. We also need to pay more attention to whether the presenter wants discussion interspersed or held to the end, and do a better job of respecting that preference, rather than having a default behavior that dominates.

3. The other meetings of in-depth exploration could be presented by experts from outside the group.

4. I'd hope that members would have been attracted who have skills and enthusiasm for getting the word out that the group exists who also have time to donate to make that happen.

5. I would hope that the gender and age diversity would be more balanced. I would also look for us to somehow have picked up wih Earl's practice of regularly teaching how forecasting is done by professionals. I don't seek for us to always be limited to a professional approach, but I would like it to be obvious to a newcomer that a knowledge of the way forecasters think is part of our cultural background as futurists. Lyn

6. I would like the Minnesota Futurists to not only forecast future change, but also learn how to deal with future change.

Critical Thinking

Creativity

Bright Ideas Innovative Minds

Systems Thinking (Presponse)

Wikinomics

What Is A Good Futurist

Assessing Rational Processes

and The Challenge of Change

R. Rydberg

7. The future of the Minnesota Futurists lies in its ability to make a difference. Some of the strategies to achieve this goal include: development of a robust MNF business plan, implementation of an effective and ongoing outreach plan, continuous involvement of its membership, focused professional development and application, the addition of 'professional' meetings and community participation, and renewed membership recruitment activities. The measure of this strategy will be the recognized ability of the MNF to impact the future of Minnesota through applied futures expertise. (kubik005@umn.edu)

8. Here is a true story, which by analogy, may help us increase our membership. Recently under new management, my health club quadrupled its membership, which included many new young men and women. First, the new owner made architectural changes that I thought were tacky. They replaced much of the carpeting with tile, wooden trim with marble, and hardened the look of the walls with more tiles to match the floor. To me it now looks more like a Roman grotto than a health club.

They also added a new spa for hair care, massage, and tanning… a new snack bar, which sells all kinds of energy products in addition to health food. They added mannikins featuring outfits for sale, and advertisements over the sound system punctuate the music, which often sounds like the performers are in agony. All of this sells. The club has many new members. I’ve noticed 3 or 4 times more cars in the parking lot than it used to have.

What can we learn from this dramatic transformation? I’m not sure but I suggest that we consider what we’re willing to sacrifice for a more diverse membership. I was real comfortable with the old arrangement. How can we benefit from younger people? What can we do to attract them? I hope we can do better than my health club which,in my opinion, has become trashed with noise and excesses.

Jack Carter

The New Literacy: Learning and Unlearning

To Increase Performance at Work 11/29/07

Roger asked me to put my method of adapting to change in writing, the method I presented prior to Part 1 of my presentation of the Tofflers’ latest book, "Revolutionary Wealth."

The Tofflers’ vision can be summed up in one quote,

“The illiterate of the 21st Century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn.”

So how then, do we unlearn and relearn?

I’ve been a student and practitioner of John Naisbitt’s and Alvin and Heidi Toffler’s insights for almost 20 years. I thought the analogy of how paradigms shape our knowledge as lenses shape light was brilliant. I wrote an article years ago that merged Naisbitt’s and the Tofflers’ insights into a single table, which had 7 rows and 2 columns (see table Industrial vs. Informational Paradigms.ppt). The paradigms in the left column, taken together, form an appropriate industrial mindset, whereas the paradigms in the right column form a knowledge-based mindset. It so happens, magically I thought, that the paradigms in the left and right columns complement each other.

Rather than having a black and white difference between industrial and informational mindsets, it is better to acknowledge a continuum between the two. Rather than choose between a top-down and bottom-up management paradigm, it’s best to combine the two in light of what you’re trying to accomplish. Leaders have to convey a vision to subordinates, but to motivate workers they have to empower a subordinate's vision, his or her response to that top-down view.

This is important in global competition because firms have to innovate to succeed. The top-down management paradigm creates a global race-to-the-bottom, whereas bottom-up empowerment creates a race-to-the-top, as individuals are able to apply their knowledge, talents, and ambitions. Stated another way, the more developed people are in any discipline, the more ambitious and creative they can be. Or the other way around, people who are interchangeable, as those on a typical assembly line, have little opportunity to innovate or earn higher wages.

Let’s take another example from the table. The industrial paradigm of scarcity on the bottom left side is the opposite, but complementary to the paradigm of abundance on the right. In today’s global competition, we should always be working somewhere between the two boundaries, like football players work between the goal posts. Scarcity restricts and imposes limitations, but when we have time to think, we might innovate. We might come up with new ways that eliminate or minimize raw materials. Or do the job faster and more cost-effectively.

So we mix and match paradigms, appropriate for a particular task, place, and time, like a photographer chooses cameras and lenses appropriate to a particular occasion, such as a wedding, as it flows inside and out of doors.

Changing doesn’t have to hurt. It can be fun. Traditionally, we think of what we know as part of our identity. So when someone questions our knowledge, isn’t she doubting us? She impugns our identity because what we know is part of our ego. This is a psychological stumbling block that prevents people, organizations, and nations from growing, and it encourages other nations to take advantage of our inability to change.

To innovate, for example, our auto manufacturers must empower employees as much as possible to increase uniqueness, as well as growth and profit. Yes, these are often conflicting goals. But innovation can only come from people. And who knows better about all the different facets of creating and manufacturing automobiles than the people who do that kind of work?

The idea that people go to work to play politics: executives against executives, unions against management, manufacturers against dealers… is a consequence of ignorance of paradigms and abuse of power.

Jack Carter