The Future of Money

Have just spent a few hours discussing the Future of Money, hosted by James Bibby at Microsoft in Sydney and facilitated by Peter Vander Auwera from SWIFT/Innotribe. I’d like to flag that everyone understood that the session was way too short for such a big topic and everyone would agree that we just scratched the surface (not that the scratch would leave too much of a mark just yet). The session was a kick start for a group from a wide variety of interests: banks, payment providers’ IT specialists and some specialty consultancies.

 

The framing of the day enabled us to get a handle on the way Innnotribe run their innovation events/interventions and the group was given some opportunities to discuss some ideas about money, where digitial currencies may be headed and to have some idea starters (provocations) tossed into our thinking space.  All in all a most enjoyable way to chat about what could become a very dry topic.  I was the first of the provocationists with the overall brief not to pose solutions but to toss some ideas at the group they might not have considered.  Value Systems came into play again.  I’ve made a couple of small adjustments to this PowerPoint to ease things for those not in the room, and the last slide includes some of the notes I took from the day.  Marcus Barber’s Future of Money presentation

Social Issues Hackathon co hosted by Casey and Dandenong

Jul 25, 2019

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 >

Beyond VUCA – the VUCA 2.0 concept

Jul 9, 2019

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 >

Is Manufacturing Output Data a Reliable Indicator of Economic Activity

Mar 19, 2019

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 >

The Drive to Make Futures Thinking Pragmatic

Mar 13, 2019

  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 >

Australia, We Are Killing Ourselves

Jan 28, 2019

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 >

2019 The International Year of the Cooperative

Dec 30, 2018

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 >

Can the United States Survive the Childish Tantrums of an Incompetent President?

Dec 23, 2018

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 >

When will the next Federal Election be held in Australia?

Dec 3, 2018

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…

Read More >

Asia on the Rise – why Australia’s Neighbours Will Leave us Behind

Oct 30, 2018

The Asian Productivity Organisation has shifted gears from being a centre for member countries to talk about productivity, to one that now wants to upskills its member countries. We’ve just completed the first chunk of helping National Productivity secretariats to ready their staff for a more proactive, future facing approach to their Country’s development  …

Read More >

10 years on from the Australia 2020 Futurists Summit

Oct 18, 2018

The question is, ‘how does the thinking inside this document stack up?’ Turns out, pretty good. What we spotted and what problems we said we’d have to watch out for, are just about spot on   When it was discovered that the then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was going to hold the Australia 2020 Summit,…

Read More >