Incumbent models are vulnerable to leapfrogging technology. Here’s why:

One of the reasons I founded The Australian Strategic Planning Institute was to ensure that high quality futures perspectives were included in the Strategic Planning process. Typically they were not which meant too many businesses and organisations were planning for futures that just would not exist as expected, meaning wasted resources and sometimes and marked increase in Risk profiles. Over at the TASPI website I’ve been prompted by scientist and futurist Melissa Sterry to write an article, after looking at her involvement with the Leap Frog project in the Philipinnes

 

Here’s the full story on what happens when incumbents face new technology that can leapfrog them – ‘Cattle, Coal & Copper‘. And you can find Melissa at this site here

Australia 2030 – a view from Siemens

Aug 30, 2011

I recently attended a session with South East Business Networks where the CEO of Siemens Australasia provided some great ideas as to where Australian Manufacturing was headed and could go, and indeed perhaps needed to go. What I found most useful from Allan Goller’s perspective was the encouragement for businesses to just get on with…

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The Future of clothing

Aug 26, 2011

In this very brief chat with Vicki Kerrigan on ABC Darwin, we kick off the discussion of the future of clothing – not the ‘style’ elements but the functional elements like capturing perspiration to convert for water. You can listen to the audio via the   link available here – cue it up about a…

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Futurist Marcus Barber on Scenarios for Water Industry at World Water Week

Aug 19, 2011

Marcus Barber will present the case study of his work with Central Highlands Water and their use of Scenarios for Strategy setting at World Water Week in Stockholm this Thursday. You can follow the twitter feed via #watermanagement, #rightfuture or #wwweek This case study looks at the flaws in a reliance on forecasting as the…

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For a Futurist, 50 Years isn’t so long ago

Aug 17, 2011

A quick note for the history buffs among us – in this month of August fifty years ago, the first components of the Berlin Wall were constructed with rings of barbed wire severing Berlin into visually distinct west and east Berlin. Russia’s main challenge at that time was the 10,000 or so East Germans each…

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The Flaws in Demand & Supply thinking

Aug 7, 2011

Let me start by saying that my Masters of Science qualification is NOT held in economics and with that said I’m holding an interested person’s perspective toward wanting to know ‘why’ and ‘how’. I have some questions and thoughts about the theory of Supply and Demand and would be happy to have some feedback from…

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Cultured Meat’s potential for energy and water reductions

Jul 18, 2011

Below you’ll find this afternoon’s discussion with ABC Darwin radio in which host Vicki Kerrigan chats with futurist Marcus Barber about the emerging research into lab grown meat as a potential addition to or replacement of, existing livestock farming methods.   The program streamed live on 105.7 ABC Darwin this afternoon, discussing the University of…

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Speaking of the Future at the World Futures Conference

Jul 11, 2011

Continuing the futures discussions on ABC Darwin Radio, this time with Paul Dale who is filling in for Vicki Kerrigan whilst Vicki is handling the breakfast time slot, we discuss some of the conference sessions at the World Futures Conference here in Vancouver   You can listen to the audio stream here and cue this…

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Getting Your Future Right

Jul 8, 2011

My slides from today’s presentation on ‘Getting You Future Right’ can be found at the link below   To those at the session, my apologies for the technical challenges and hope these slides can provide more context for you – contact me if you have any questions.  Access the Slides Here

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The Future of You Part 2

Jun 27, 2011

Here’s the upload of my conversation with Vicki Kerrigan at ABC Radio Darwin. In it I offer the first three of ten steps designed to help you get your future right. In last week’s session I left Vicki with a question to ponder: Is my life headed where I want it to go, and if…

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The future of… You

Jun 12, 2011

Futurist Marcus Barber will be joining ABC’s Vicki Kerrigan in Darwin for the first of an ongoing discussion about the future this Wednesday. Each week on Wednesday afternoon’s, Vicki and Marcus will discuss the future of something, how we prepare for the future, what the future looks like for some industries and other related futures…

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