What do you Want to Achieve & By When do You Want to Achieve it?

Cutting to the Chase:

If you’d like an overview of clients and expertise click this link to the Expertise page

 

Here’s what I do –

1st Working with your Executive and Leadership Groups I’ll Open Your Eyes to Change: By helping your organisation become aware of what is shifting right now and what future change in your industry could occur;

2nd I’ll Guide Your Decision Making: By taking your key team through a process for defining what you need to do in order to prepare for the emerging future both to mitigate risk and prepare to grasp the opportunities;

3rd I’ll Help Facilitate the Forward Game Plan: It will be a tailored engagement based on your desires and capabilities. You’ll end up with a specific and deliberate plan for action that sets a clear desired end target, the actions you’ll take and how you’ll know whether you are progressing as planned.

Check out the Client Portfolio Page to see the multidisciplinary clients I’ve worked with. You’ll find that this means you’ll access exceptional experience to your organisation’s advantage.

 

If you need to become more aware of change, mitigate risks and develop an effective path forward then contact me today. But please note – it’s depth you’ll find, not sugar hits and pseudo corporate jargon! I’m interested in your organisation taking action for a future you want to create, starting now. All you have to do is contact me today to get started

 

A quick update: the previous ‘Free Articles and Papers‘ section is now called ‘The Future Of…‘ with articles moved under a theme such as ‘water’ or ‘people’ or ‘technology’ and so on. Some articles will also appear in multiple locations given the broad reach of some topics. They’ll all still be there and they are all still free!

Looking Up Feeling Good is a business that helps you to move towards Getting Your Future Right. If this is your first visit, below you’ll find an overview of where to look to find the information you need; and if you are a return visitor, welcome back:

Strategic Thinking: If you want ideas to kick start strategic thinking, go to The Future Of tab above, where you’ll find a whole series of free downloadable papers and thought starters on a range of topics. That might be sufficient for your needs. If you want something customised for your organisation’s specific needs or alternatively if you have any questions about the ideas in the articles and ways to use them in your business by all means contact us

Media Coverage: If you are looking for some of the media on topics where Strategic Futurist Marcus Barber has presented or provided comment, go to the Free Articles tab and you’ll see them listed in the first part of that section. If you are a journalist or media organisation looking for a comment about ‘the future’ please contact me directly via email or my ‘roving landline’ if you need an immediate comment for a story on the day

Facilitation, Consulting & Speaking Requirements: If you are looking to find a futurist for a key note speaker or require a consultant to assist you with Facilitation, Innovation, Strategy or Futures work then you’ll probably want to talk to us first.If you’re wanting to enhance your organisational strategy, we’d be more than happy to provide you with an obligation free, no cost one hour consultation to discuss your needs, to determine if we are the best ones to assist you and to find out exactly what you are wanting to achieve, or put you in contact with someone better suited. Call us on 03 96 444 588

Client Feedback: Interested in reading what others have gained or said about our services? Go to the Great Client Feedback tab and find out for yourself the quality of the types of results of using our skills in your business

Products & Services: Whether you’re thinking about training, skills development, external sources of Environmental Scanning or more, you’ll find most of what you need listed in either the Products or Services tabs. These fully customisable sessions and products are aimed at delivering to you an increased strategic awareness capability and have been used successfully in almost all industry sectors and by clients of varying sizes. Call us if you have any questions on 613 96 444 588 or email us here

Areas of Latest Focus and upcoming Events: If you’re interested in finding out what specific projects have our attention at the moment, or want to know some of the latest events on the horizon that we feel worthy of knowing more about, check out the Events tab or the Latest Focus tab

Understanding the Role of Feedback

Feedback plays an important role in the success of organisations of all sizes and can help us determine how our efforts are producing desired results or may need to be adjusted to achieve the goals we want.

Traditional forms of feedback are usually ‘echoes from the past’, just like trend spotting is nothing more than identifying things that are already happening, rather than things that could happen. We would like you to consider that an ‘echo from the future’ can be even more valuable feedback which is why businesses come to us to help them consider what their future might look like.

‘Getting Your Future Right’ ™

Check the following questions and see if they fit the kind you want an answer to. If so, we can probably help you. I have an extensive network of content experts and specialists, an am able to put you in the right direction with someone who can assist

“What does the future hold for our Industry and what should do about it?”

“How do we ensure we get the type of future we want?”

“Where should we be looking to maximise our opportunities and minimise our potential risks?”

“How can we build our organisation’s capacity for Innovation to ensure continued success?”

“Is it possible to get a jump on our major competitors?”

If you’ve ever asked yourself those questions or ones like them then we have a sense for what you want to achieve

On this site you will find enough information to be able to make the kind of smart decision that will deliver what you want and greatly benefit your business. And you’ll still probably want to talk to us – we’d be happy to hear from you and to answer those questions you have about what you need from us.

And YOU have to take action and MAKE THE CALL today!

It is likely you are an organisation looking to answer some key questions for your future. You may have a changing marketplace, emerging supply chain issues or you may be witnessing a shift away from your traditional products and to alternative competitor offerings. You may be aware of managerial challenges to available employee numbers or sense that ‘times are changing’ and want to know what those changes mean for you.

Potentially your senior management group or business unit has grappled with the idea of change and has explored some strategic plays and thinking – but the choices are uncertain. This level of uncertainty needs addressing because ‘we had good intentions’is not a satisfactory response to the questionWhat went wrong?And potentially, your business is not yet satisfied with the answers it has generated to the strategic questions it is trying to answer.

For Looking Up Feeling Good the various issues (whatever they may be) indicate opportunities for growth and possibilities for collapse. None of our clients have considered ‘collapse’ an option and we doubt you do either, which is why you are here.

Companies like yours come to us for a number of reasons and those reasons tend to fall into two main areas:

1. Your company is aware that the old way of doing business and textbook 101 answers are no longer providing the desired level of ‘payback’ to the organisation and you are being (proactive)at creating the future you want

and also common –

2. Your company has reached a crisis point and is looking to rescue itself (reactive)

So you know we can help. On these pages you’ll see some of the services we make available to you, from strategy development, innovation processes, various training sessions and presentations to high end strategic information services. And at the end of the day, I deliver the outcome: ‘Getting Your Future Right’ ™ So – ask away!

Send us an email or call the Sandringham Office: 613 96 444 588

.

Organisations should know when to stop being one of the pack…

Unlocking the promise of ‘teleworking’

Nov 19, 2013

One of the great things about technology (especially of the instantaneous ‘social’ kind) is the ability to attend a conference without leaving your office. Which is a salient point because yesterday I followed a number of the presentations looking at the idea of tele-working or remote workers, and did so by following the tweets of…

Read More >

Keeping your Future, grounded to Reality

Nov 18, 2013

About once a week I get a call from a client or a media group asking if I can tell them what the future will be like. The conversation usually goes something like this – Me: can I ask what you’re trying to discover? Journalist: Oh you know, something really catchy, about how the world…

Read More >

The 2013 Melbourne Cup – a Futurist Decides

Nov 13, 2013

Now before any of you rush out and stick your hard earned on anything I say here, please note that a) I’m answering this because I get asked every year and b) My track record is appalling. Still I’ve put a bit of thought into a near term prediction to see who you might like…

Read More >

Celebration of Hope fundraiser for Brain Cancer

Oct 17, 2013

Tonight I have the privilege of being the MC for Blackwood 8’s Celebration of Hope Gala Ball at the Manningham Function Centre in Doncaster. Blackwood 8 raise funds to find a cure of Brain Cancer and are strong supporters of Dr. Charlie Teoh’s Cure for Life foundation. With a crowd of around 300 it’s going…

Read More >

Marcus Barber’s Presentation from the V21 Digital Conference in Melbourne is available

Oct 2, 2013

‘ve just spent a delightful day learning about digital issues at the v21 Digital Conference at the State Library and my presentation at that conference is now available at the link below. My all too brief summary of presentations is also provided   Sessions have covered Branding, Blogging, case studies, education & health; future of…

Read More >

The ever increasing computing power replacing jobs by the thousands

Sep 23, 2013

When it comes to ‘anti-technology’ thinking, a term often thrown disparagingly at people is ‘Luddite’. Luddites were indeed anti-tech BUT contrary to modern day thinking, they had a particular dislike for technology that would put people out of work. If technology helped keep people employed or created more jobs they were all for it. Which…

Read More >

Australia’s 2013 Election – LNP in a Landslide

Sep 6, 2013

Or is it? …Over the past six years, the mainstream media polls have consistently shown the Liberal Party /National Party Coalition as well ahead of the Australian Labor Party. Those polls turned out to be wrong last time around when Tony Abbott failed to get enough of the vote to defeat Julia Gillard. Or should…

Read More >

Looks like some Soaps kill off more than Germs!

Aug 19, 2013

In my view ALL futures thinking about ‘big issues’ starts with futures thinking about personal issues. The idea that we take for granted the way our lives operate has for millennia been shown to be a high risk assumption. From the food we eat, to where we live, to products we use (and how we…

Read More >

For a Futurist, Focus is a Key Issue

Aug 16, 2013

What you look at, how you look at it and where you find your information are critical elements for developing far more effective strategy.  Futures work is about removing the organisational blinkers to increase awareness of risks and emerging opportunities often through Environmental Scanning (ES).  ES comes in all sorts of guises and the key…

Read More >

Innovation has to start somewhere, but where?

Aug 5, 2013

How do you innovate? Where do you innovate? Why do you innovate? How do I start innovating? These and a truckload of other similar questions are often tied to the idea that innovation is the silver bullet or panacea to mediocrity in organisations. And maybe it is. There’s a whole raft of ways in which…

Read More >