Can GM food rescue the planet’s appetite for Food?a

‘World – we have a problem’ (apologies to astronaut James Lovell). We are killing ourselves with food and it’s happening at both ends of the continuum – millions starve each day whilst a gluttony caused obesity epidemic is killing others off in different ways. We have a growing global population requiring sustenance, whilst Climate Change is making it harder to supply that food. We have farmers and consumers wanting to go back to bio-organic farming whilst multinationals offer a GM silver bullet. In many nations we throw out tons of perfectly good food every day. And we don’t seem to be able to solve the problem, till now

I have an answer and in the ‘current focus’ area of the website I suggest that GM foods and the multinationals that have created them could well be the ticket to feeding the planet – on one proviso…  Click here to jump to my thoughts on how GM foods could hold a legitimate place in the global food production cycle.  You’ll need to scroll down a couple of paragraphs

Singapore – The Hub of Great Futures Work

Sep 3, 2009

I’m heading to Singapore for a few days to facilitate a scenario planning workshop on behalf of the Asia Business Forum. There is something intimately exciting for a futurist to be going to arguably the most future focused of all countries and to spend just a brief time immersed there. There’s no doubt that great…

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The risks of ‘greenwashing’ in a recession

Aug 14, 2009

Greenwashing is a term used to define marketing actions by organisations, claiming to take an environmental approach to their products or services, when in fact, they are doing nothing or very little. Greenwashing is a form of marketing hype, and in turbulent times, many companies may be contemplating ‘sexing up’ their image by tapping into…

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Marcus Barber to Keynote at Australian Computer Society Conference

Jul 15, 2009

Strategic Futurist Marcus Barber will be the key note speaker at the Australian Computer Society’s annual conference to be held in Adelaide on July 30 at the Adelaide Convention Centre With the theme ‘Survive and Thrive’ Marcus will discuss the likely issues of the near term future and why right now, organisations do not have…

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Adelaide Advanced Strategic Planning One Day Workshop

Jun 10, 2009

The next Advanced Strategic Planning one-day workshop being run by The Australian Strategic Planning Institute will take place at Rydges in Adelaide on the 13th of July and bookings are now open   The TASPI workshops are jam packed with ideas and processes to ensure that your operational, business and strategic planning efforts deliver the…

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The Bubble to end all Bubbles?

Jun 1, 2009

Hands up if you remember the dot com bubble? Or how about the Y2K bubble? Housing bubble? ‘Bubbles’ as they apply to all things economic are little more than an oversupply of positive confidence in a particular area of economic concern. In fact ‘Bubbles’ are caused by the SAME things as ‘Recessions’ just at opposite…

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Advanced Strategic Planning Workshop in Melbourne

May 18, 2009

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…

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Vale Richard Pratt

Apr 28, 2009

Richard Pratt has succumbed to a battle with prostate cancer and there’s no doubt that many words will be written on paper destined to end up as recycle materials at his VISY Industries plants. There’s a harmony in that thought – all those words of type and paper discussing Richard Pratt will be recycling through…

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How to Spend your $900 – think about your future needs first

Apr 19, 2009

Thousands of Australians are just receiving or are about to receive a pretty handsome cheque from the Federal Government as part of the economic stimulous package. The question then is ‘what do I spend this on?’ Below I offer a futurist’s view on where certain generational types might consider spending the bonus.   As a…

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Australia 2020 – one year on, now what?

Mar 31, 2009

It is almost a year since the Australia 2020 Summit was held in Canberra and it is expected that Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will provide feedback on the summit, the ideas it generated as well as the ideas of those not at the summit who provided input and thinking. Of course a lot has changed…

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Wearable Technologies coming to some clothing near you

Mar 16, 2009

A few years ago whilst researching and generating ideas for the National Geographic Channel’s futures based TV shows ‘Future Matters’ I discussed the idea of what I then called ‘WEs’ or Wearable Electronics. I mentioned that this was a substantially different approach than portable electronics, which is what most mobile phones and laptop computers were…

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