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

Marcus Barber invited to attend World Water Week in Stockholm 2007

May 11, 2007

Futurist Marcus Barber has been invited to present at the Stockholm International Water Institute’s prestigious World Water Week conference to be held in Stockholm later this year. His abstract submission ‘Life versus Lifestyle: the emerging clash between consumer demands and water availability’ forms part of the key workshop item of ‘Managing Future Consumer Demands’ which…

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May Brainnovation Session now open

Apr 26, 2007

The May Brainnovation session is open for bookings. If you’d like to be invited to attend this highly focused, creative and thought provoking session please contact us. We’ll send you an invite and as these sessions are strictly limited to no more than 15 people, it’s ‘first in – best dressed’ for acceptances! You’ll be…

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Authenticity & the Craft of Brewing Beer

Mar 29, 2007

Every now and again you discover something well ahead of the general public that is worthy of further investigation. That is the key advantage of being a futurist – you get to spend a lot of your time just looking for signals of change. In this case it is the soon to be opened Barleycorn…

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Strategy and Game Shows

Feb 27, 2007

Marcus Barber joined Brigette Duclos on the Channel 10 program ‘9am with David & Kim’ to discuss strategy and the game show ‘Con-Test’ How do game shows reflect our approach to strategy and what does it mean for the business decisons we make? This will be the subject of an upcoming ‘Ideas Piece’ to appear…

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Advanced Organisational Strategy (AOS) Events

Jan 24, 2007

Your Advanced Organisational Strategy events coincide with a specific need for your business and lead to excellent outcomes. These events are customed tailored to help you solve an organisational challenge or to answer a key exploratory question for you. The AOS focuses on two main objectives – to create a specific ‘How to’ for solving…

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Innovation & Counter Intuitiveness

Jan 23, 2007

The idea behind Innovation is to create something new, that has yet to be conceived. A lot of the times that requires Counterintuitive thinking and that can be a very difficult challenge because it needs to break the habits in our thinking styles. For me the essence of being a futurist is the essence of…

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