Australia’s 2020 Future – the Futurist’s report
You’d think that given a focus on the future, you’d ask specialists in the future to have some input, and whilst that didn’t occur for the PM’s Summit in Canberra over the weekend, some of Australia’s Futurists had already done the leg work to contribute their thoughts on the future of Australia. That report is now available and it would appear, given some of the initial media coverage suggesting that ‘nothing new’ emerged in Canberra, the Futurists have once again shown that their aproach to thinking can be a significant benefit
Whilst it is harsh to suggest that, given a very limited window of opportunity, 1000 people could be given the chance to explore in depth a number of radical, interesting and useful ideas and generate some pure gems, Prime Minister Rudd’s Summit has achieved at least one key outcome – people are now actively and consciously talking about the Future of Australia in a means that has not appeared feasible for some time.
And we’d urge people to hold judgement as to the success or otherwise until we see what comes of the process because the proof of the pudding as they say, is in the tasting, not just in the making.
The focus on Australia’s future neither suggests anything better or worse, just different from recent history and it is this ‘difference’ that can provide significant leverage. Which is why the Australia 2020 Futurists Summit was convened by Strategic Futurist Marcus Barber from the outset. Although the futures community was hopeful of obtaining a ‘seat at the table’ in Canberra over the weekend, most Australia Futurists are for more realistic and grounded in likely outcomes. To that end then, there was a strong chance that the experts in the futures field were going to be sidestepped at the Canberra process, which is what happened.
Taking the perspective that assuming involvement in the Canberra summit was not a ‘fait accompli’, Marcus Barber gathered a group of Australian Futurists together to tackle each of the 10 themes and the output of that thinking is now publicly available
You’d think that given a focus on the future, you’d ask specialists in the future to have some input, and whilst that didn’t occur for the PM’s Summit in Canberra over the weekend, some of Australia’s Futurists had already done the leg work to contribute their thoughts on the future of Australia. That report is…
Read More >Some of Australia’s leading futurists gathered in Melbourne in March to provide a specialist Futures approach to addressing the Australia 2020 Summit in Canberra. The outcome of that Summit and the development that subsequently followed has led to the creation of the report ‘Australia 2020 Futurists Summit’ that has worked through each of the ten…
Read More >Strategic Futurist Marcus Barber will meet with eminent ABC radio presenter Jon Faine on Wednesday the 16th of April to discuss the outcomes of the Australia 2020 Futurists Summit and Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s Australia 2020 Summit in Canberra on the weekend With a focus on the future of Australia it would be only natural…
Read More >A group of leading Australian Futurists gathered over the weekend to consider the 10 core themes set to be tackled at Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s Australia 2020 Summit in Canberra in April. Convened by Strategic Futurist Marcus Barber, the 2020 Australia Futurists Summit utilised some of the advanced facilitation and strategy development techniques as a…
Read More >As preparations continue for the Prime Minister Rudd’s ‘1000 heads’ ideas summit in Canberra in April, a group of Australia’s leading futurists are gathering in Melbourne this weekend for the ‘Australia 2020 Futurists Summit’. The futurists attending the summit work across Australia, in corporate, not for profit and Government agencies in a variety of fields…
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Read More >Strategic Futurist Marcus Barber will join Tim Cox on 774 ABC as part of the conversation hour next week Tim is filling in for Jon Faine whilst he takes a well deserved break and Marcus will join him for the conversation hour kicking off at 11am on Thursday the 13th of December, where they’ll discuss…
Read More >At the AustForesight 2007 Conference, Strategic Futurist Marcus Barber and fellow Futurist Steve Tighe presented their take on what is required to enable futurists to be seen as more relevant to the Corporate world. Drawing on their shared experience as facilitator and client, they detailed the journey of foresight and futures across the past 50…
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