Find a Futurist
Are you wanting to Find a Futurist for your next conference or Business meeting? Perhaps you’re after someone to assist you with some strategy setting workshops or to challenge your team with a new way to assess opportunities in your industry sector? Whatever your need, be it a social comment for a story in the media, an ad campaign for an emerging product or even a talk at a local college, there’s a fair chance we could find someone to fit your needs. Simply send us an email and we’ll try to assist.
Please include the date of your session, the type of event, what sort of need you have, and the location and we’ll get the ball rolling. Simply email us using this link Find A Futurist and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible.
Some of our recent engagements include Key Notes for the Australian Computer Society conference in Adelaide; the Queensland Supply Chains and Logistics conference in Brisbane; the Employee Assistance Professionals conference in Melbourne and a raft of organisation conferences around Australia. We’ve been interviewed for radio and print stories in Cairns, Canberra, Newcastle, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and more.
Email us today: Find A Futurist
Some recent feedback from Marcus Barber’s key note speeches and presentations include:
‘I loved your passion and engagement’
‘Inspirational – I’m definitely going to take the action you recommend’ and
‘I’ve seen plenty of great personal stories told from the stage and it’s the first time a speaker has talked about me (the audience) and encouraged me about my own capabilities, my own journey in such a compelling way – not to copy others, but to back myself. Two weeks on and the office is still buzzing…’
Of course you do get an occasional miss – this one from about two years ago at an IT conference is one that keeps me on my toes:
‘There’s was nothing new or interesting in what he had to say, pathetic really!’
There are a number of questions we get asked consistently, some of which are listed below. If you have a specific question by all means contact us via the ‘Contact Us’ link
Q. What is the difference between ‘Foresight’ and ‘Strategic Foresight’?
A. Foresight is the ability to think about some time in the future. Most people have this ability but tend not to think about the future in a deliberate and in-depth way. Strategic Foresight is a consicous and deliberate approach to attempting to learn about, consider and explore potential future developments, in the light of a specific context and then questioning our assumptions and expectations to see if they are valid and realistic
Q. What are Human Values?
A. Human Values are those inherent perspectives of the world that drive our behaviours. The issue of right and wrong or acceptable behaviour varies considerably depending on which ‘Values lens’ you are looking through. Our work with the Human Values approach is informed by training with the National Values Centre in the USA and is based on the Spiral Dynamics model. We’ve introduced it to some of the largest corporate and government agencies and smaller firms and NGO’s in Australia and beyond. There’s plenty that has been written about the model and its applications and successes are exceptional
Q. How does your approach to Innovation differ from any others?
A. Good question – we hold a much higher expectation for innovation than many others who see almost any creative endeavour as ‘innovative’. Whilst connected, we do not believe that creativity and innovation are the same. Further we help organisations overcome the barriers that prevent them from being more innovative. But first, you have to know how to find those barriers – that’s where we come in!
Q. How do we contact you?
A. Glad you asked – via email here or on 613 96 444 588
If you are interested in developing your skills as a futurist or looking to join an organisation dedicated to exploring the future, you might be interested in Joining the Association of Professional Futurists. You can find out more about the APF at their website via this link. And if you’d like to talk to me personally about the APF, feel free to send me an email here. There’s also a wikipedia entry for the APF just here
There are other organisations such as the World Future Society which has great general futures articles (link here) and if you’re looking for a strong academic feel, then the World Futures Studies Federation might be more your go (link here)
How to Brief Your Futurist. Before you engage a futurist it can be very useful to have a clear process to enable an effective level of information exchange as you consider your options. Things to consider are not just the experience of the futurist, but also elements such as process types, methods and tools and the desired outcome of participants to any workshop or process. This Two Page guide can offer some straight forward guidance to help you when engaging or sounding out a futurist for a possible future project – How to Brief a Futurist
Marcus Barber’s Media Image File
There’s a little problem with food production in the world that not many people want to talk about. About half the world is being starved to death whilst we are seeing a spike in obesity due to over-consumption of food. The strange thing about that issue is that both ends of the food consumption divide…
Read More >My most recent long term client contract had me specialise in Employee Engagement, something I’d done consistently at the Senior and Middle Managers level. But this client need was across the board and at a time when major changes were occuring. With a previous survey of their staff in two states and across three…
Read More >Great to see some quality collaboration between the City of Casey and City of Greater Dandenong aimed at addressing or tackling Social Issues and importantly bridging the divide between ‘our area’ and ‘their area’ artificial boundaries. Well done to both Councils Here’s the oveview of what they’re doing. This one looks to be an…
Read More >Most people who’ve been involved in planning and strategy development will have heard of VUCA – Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous. Emerging out of the US War College in 1987, it’s come to be more widely used by consultancies aiming to at least ‘sound smart’. But that’s not the main problem with its usage Instead…
Read More >In short – ‘No’. In days of yore manufacturing data meant jobs being done, employed people being paid, sales being made. But with robotics and off-shoring in many parts of Australian manufacturing, it’s no longer the value indicator it once was. In the US it is an even less reliable indicator because in the…
Read More >I’ve writen a fair bit over the years about the need to move futures thinking out of a theoretical approach and into a more applied model. Recently I’ve come off a 6 month project working with the Asian Productivity Organisation, an entity that brings together 20 member countries and their core government policy…
Read More >Every where we look we are being given clear signs of the blatant stupidity and arguably outright criminality of a toxic system of decision making. The Menindee Lakes and Darling River disaster is one example A couple of years ago I was invited to speak at a Private Equity conference at a lovely resort…
Read More >Every year I aim to identify what I think a major focus of the upcoming year will be and in that light I’m declaring 2019 the International Year of the Cooperative. I’m prompted by a multitude of signals that my daily research has uncovered, many of which will be familiar to you – Cost of…
Read More >Here we are with the last posting of the year looking at the potential for wide ranging strategy for a country like the United States. Arguably the United States is undergoing its own version of #Brexit though without the vote of the people. Instead the dictatorial nature of what I see as an incompetent strategic…
Read More >I’m reluctant to make predictions but am getting a few calls so: My tip is on a March 2019 election – the 9th or 16th But that will be an attempt to protect the existing NSW Government hoping that voters will have sufficiently vented. That said though, it also required a Federal Minoroty Government to…
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