There’s No such Thing as a Normal Future
The last couple of months have been hectic to say the least, with a myriad of client engagements across an array of industry sectors. And as you can see from the list below one thing is clear: EVERYONE wants to understand what is shaping their future and how they might be able to influence that more to their liking. And that is one of the reason I love what I do – being involved in facilitating a deliberate search for understanding. Many thanks to all of the clients both past and ongoing for providing that opportunity
This recent hectic period has seen me working with City of Greater Dandenong and the SEBN group exploring the future of manufacturing; Western Water assessing changes in consumer needs and water demands; Knox City Council’s central planning team looking at planning effectiveness, changing demographics and resource use for achieving the Council Vision; Investor’s Edge considering the way changing job profiles and employment will influence housing investment opportunities around Australia; I’ve delved into the way digital technologies will influence three key areas of society: ‘Cash, Cars and Coitus’ on behalf of AIMIA; worked with Dandenong Neighbourhood House in organisational strategy; guided three separate groups developing emergency housing platforms for the world (watch this space); and delivered a key note to the Property Council of Australia about emerging issues in city design and the demand for more sustainable design parameters in various constructions.
And that’s not the full list! Always varied, always interesting and always about rhe future and what can be done to shape it or adapt to it. How lucky I am to be involved! Bring on next year…
I’m going to come back to an idea I first floated back in 2004. By and large it is hard to change societal perceptions. Doing so requires on going effort, time and often resources like money to create marketing campaigns of some description. Unless you have a crisis. And right now it might be fair…
Read More >Whilst I appreciate the efforts that Greenpeace, Sea Shepherd and the various Australian Governments have given regarding their aims to have the Japanese cease their annual whale harvests, I’m not quite sure they are tackling the issue through the best means available. Sure the confrontational approach of ramming ships, climbing aboard vessels, getting in the…
Read More >I’ve just read an article about Corporate Visions and getting employees on the same page. And as happens so often, I shook my head because it offered the same flawed advice about what a leader needs to do to get their employees to buy into the Vision. And therein lays the fatal flaw You CANNOT…
Read More >As the drought in California continues to bite hard on the lives of millions, a recent article on Triple Pundit suggested that many people want to help save water, they just don’t know what else to do. Which is why California needs to look beyond its borders to the driest inhabited continent on the planet…
Read More >With the moderately surprising news that Christine Milne had decided to step out of her current political life, Dr Richard Di Natale moved into the driver’s seat for the Greens. And I flag that this spells trouble for the National Party because this shift, this change in voice and style, connected to similar passions, will…
Read More >In fact I’ll go one step further and say that many Strategic Plans are DELIBERATE methods for NOT Progressing. In far too many organisations, the process of Strategic Planning is about compliance to a process of ‘having a plan’ and typically it has nothing to do with achievement of the outcomes listed in the Strategic…
Read More >Around Australia and parts of the world like the USA, some governments and especially many large scale power utilities, are pursuing a campaign to prevent domestic solar from being fed back into (sold to) the grid. I’m assuming that the (fundamentally flawed) thinking is that by denying additional energy production points, they’ll prop up or…
Read More >I’m male. You may like to take that into consideration with the rest of what you read as, a) I’m part of the problem b) Whatever I say cannot, no matter how well intentioned, be in anyway able to represent women I’m prompted to write this particular piece following on from the ABC’s…
Read More >On a day when The Age front page ran a story of mass disconnections of householders struggling to pay their domestic electricity bill, Futurist Marcus Barber and ABC Goulburn Murray’s Joseph Thomsen discuss the future of energy – what’s happening now, what are we going to see in the future and what can consumers…
Read More >With Farmland across NSW, Queensland, & the Northern Territory under pressure from the mining sector, the quality of discussion as to which land use is of best outcome or most suitable seems to go astray. I’ve been flagging the ‘Eat’ OR ‘Extract’ challenge for a few years now and this radio interview is one example…
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