Advanced Strategic Planning Workshop in Melbourne

Just a handful of places are left for The Australian Strategic Planning Institute’s one day Advanced Strategic Planning workshop at Karsten’s in Melbourne on the 26th of May. Please note that there are no places available for the June workshops in both Brisbane or Sydney, and the Adelaide workshop in July is half filled though yet to be promoted! We hope to run another date later in the year for both Brisbane and Sydney if both Steven Bowman and Marcus Barber are in the country at the same time

If you’d like to secure a place for Melbourne, please phone Marcus Barber directly on 03 9445 0289 or email him.  He will respond as quickly as he is able.  For workshop details you can also check The Australian Strategic Planning Institute website

A 2003 Prediction about 2015 One Step Closer to Coming True!

Oct 14, 2014

Sometimes when you look at enough assorted pieces of information a clear pattern emerges. In a previous role I was tasked with looking at the Future of Education, a topic I delved deeply into for almost 3 years. And in 2003 in a piece titled ‘The Future of Commercial Education’ I predicted that by 2015,…

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How Digital Agencies Will Fail Everytime

Sep 30, 2014

Tomorrow I’ll be at the State Library of Victoria as part of the #V21 Digital Summit. In my futurist, pragmatist role I’ll be presenting few ideas about why ‘Your Future is NOT an App’, then later in the day facilitating an onstage debate about Disruption’s role in Innovation. And if it is anything to go…

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Are Interest Rate Levers too Clumsy for a Teetering Economy?

Aug 16, 2014

I’ve been having a think lately about whether the use of Interest Rate movements by the Reserve Bank is actually too clumsy an instrument for effective economic management. The potential weakness has emerged only in recent times as the signs of a world-wide economic melt down have begun to expose one of the limitations of…

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Leading with One Hand Tied behind Your Back

Aug 4, 2014

There’s a few problems with the successful leadership lists that bounce their way around the internet. In my opinion they lack context – the reality check that only comes by having a full appreciation of an individual organisation’s particular circumstances. Unfortunately many of these lists of ‘required leadership behaviours’ offer shallow quick fix advice that…

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Why Coal’s biggest problem right now, is not renewables

Jul 24, 2014

There’s no doubt that coal has a legitimacy problem with large swathes of the public around the world. Once a darling of energy and still in relative abundant supplies, Coal provides significant levels of energy per gram consumed. Yet the end outcome is now known to be incredibly harmful to localised communities needing to breathe…

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How do you handled ‘the unsettled’ transitions?

Jul 11, 2014

At almost every stage in a shift in the way societies and organisations operate, there comes a period of extreme ‘unsettled-ness’. This period may show itself in the form of the doldrums (where things seem unusually calm but nothing seems to be happening) or in busyness (where there’s lots of activity but nothing seems to…

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Things I Should Have Said But Didn’t

Jun 17, 2014

Sometimes when we have the chance to say something, we don’t. About two years ago one of my uncles died and I should have spoken at his funeral. This personal post is what I should have said to the public gallery that attended ‘Hi everyone. I’m Marcus and Jim was one of my three uncles.…

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The Loud Secret: Underestimating your Internal Skill Sets

Jun 12, 2014

I’ve just posted a quick overview on LinkedIn called The ‘Loud Secret’ – Underestimating your internal skill sets which you can find at the link below   The ‘Loud Secret’: Underestimating Your Internal Skill sets. If you have any troubles accessing the story let me know and I’ll see what I can do

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Queues – coming to an Emergency Department near you

May 1, 2014

Health Care costs in Australia are rising and are likely to continue doing so as our population both grows and ages. Which means attempts to address this issue are warranted. Equally warranted is an assessment of the impacts for addressing or ignoring the issue. If, as has been mooted, the Australian Government introduces an $8…

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Towards the one step replacement of damaged DNA & promise of living forever

Apr 12, 2014

We’ve been getting far more effective at understanding the way our brains work especially as they relate to the idea of ‘mind’. Simply, the idea that we make decisions based on our conscious understanding, appears limited at best and highly flawed at worst. And now, the step towards longevity, perhaps even the fountain of youth,…

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