Using Foresight Thinking to Enhance the Productivity of Nations

As Nations look to develop their understanding of Productivity and more effective planning, National Productivity Councils are often the first point of call for Governments looking for ideas. The Asia Productivity Organisation has been running since 1961 helping its member countries develop more effective approaches. I’ve just spent a week in Tokyo helping a group of them think about the future

The APO https://www.facebook.com/AsianProductivityOrganization/ hosted Maree Conway of Thinking Futures and myself exploring the application of futures thinking to National Productivity. Graciously hosted by Dr Santhi Kanoktanaporn and his excellent team here in #Tokyo and attended by all the NPO heads from #Vietnam #Malaysia #SriLanka #Thailand #India #China #Indonesia and the #Philippines. We’re very much looking forward to the next phase working with each Country to build their futures thinking and strategic planning capabilities.

We introduced the group to #StrategicForesight, provided them with a series of frameworks for establishing their #ForesightDepartments and showed them how to jump the persistent and debilitating gap in most approaches to #StrategicPlanning

Australian Strategic Planning Institute work shop in Sydney fully booked

Dec 7, 2008

The Advanced one day Strategic Planning Workshop in Sydney on the 11th of December at Rydges World Square is now fully booked For inquiries about the next series of dates for the 2009 series, keep an eye out on The Australian Strategic Planning Institute website at www.taspi.com.au or contact us via email here

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Heading down the drain with the ‘4 Minute Shower’

Nov 16, 2008

Every now and again what sounds like a really good idea turns out to be less beneficial than what was hoped for. There’s lots of talk right now about technology solutions and ways in which societies can change the way they use water – there’s conferences and ‘talkfests’ a plenty featuring many of the industry…

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Blackwood 8 fundraiser assists the Ludwig Institute for Cancer research

Nov 3, 2008

The second annual fund raiser was held in late October and attended by almost 300 people. Marcus Barber offers a brief update: The Blackwood 8 commitee put together a great fund raiser on behalf of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research in Melbourne. With a delightful crowd warm up by Greg Champion of the ‘Coodabeen…

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Regional Produce Summit slides now available

Oct 21, 2008

The slides used as part of Marcus Barber’s key note address to the Regional Produce Summit are now available via the link below   Held at the Wangaratta Gateway Motel (and the first conference event staged in its very impressively redsigned function room) the conference brought together a range of speakers to discuss culinary tourism,…

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Victorian State Culinary Tourism Conference in Wangaratta

Oct 2, 2008

Strategic Futurist Marcus Barber will be kicking off proceedings at the 2008 Regional Produce Summit in Wangaratta on the 20th of October where he’ll detail some of the emerging issues likely to impact upon the tourism and food sector in the foreseeable future and suggest ways that businesses in the sector might be able to…

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Eco Industrial Parks & Community Development

Oct 2, 2008

Strategic Futurist Marcus Barber will both key note and act as Master of Ceremonies at the Lockhart Industrial symposium on the 9th of October, in Lockhart NSW. Marcus will discuss the clear business advantages that Eco Industrial parks provide to businesses, the way that symbiotic supply chains work to improve business resilience and the way…

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Marcus Barber discussing the Future on 774 ABC Melbourne

Sep 20, 2008

Marcus Barber joined host Tim Cox and co-host, author and writer Andrew Peglar on the Conversation hour to muse about the types of futures one might expect to see in coming years.   After Tim asked for clarification between a General, Theoretical and Strategic Futurist, Andrew kicked off with a question over the singularity.  The…

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Your Future Requires Planning – and so does ours!

Sep 4, 2008

Members of the Futures Foundation and the AFFA will be congregating in Pearl Beach in the coming weeks to consider the state of play in the Australian Futures community. Given the emerging challenges in Australia and around the world, the futures community requires just as much serious contemplation and forethought as does any one  …

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Robots of the Future

Jul 22, 2008

One of our many Nordic watchers, Are Thorsteinsson, has posted the Future Matters segment looking at the future of robotics, along with marking up full language captions in Danish. Although a couple of years old now, the early signs listed in this segment are only now coming into more mainstream focus Strategic Futurist Marcus Barber…

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Asking the unaskable question – Do we have a right not to die?

Jun 25, 2008

Strategic Futurist Marcus Barber has contributed a chapter to Volume Five of the ‘Death and Anti-Death’ Anthology which has just been published by Ria University. With contributors including Aubrey de Grey and Kevin Kelly and edited by Dr. Charles Tandy, Volume Five in the series is dedicated to the memory of Loren Eiseley, the renowned…

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