Holden Revisited

Why is Finding a Job So Hard for Holden Caufield? 

As many will recall, the hero of The Catcher in the Rye,  Holden Caufield (age 17), spends a three nights in Manhattan right after getting kicked out of yet another prep school.   Holden is a very sensitive guy who's a "hell of" an observer of the human condition.  Salinger's naturalistic language, his ability to tell an action packed story with scores of digressions (all of which actually relate to the plot), and the profound maturity of the book's themes have conspired to make The Catcher a permanent classic since its release in 1951; it continues to be one of the top ten most banned books in the United States.  

In one scene, Holden's sister, Phoebe, presses him to state what he wants to be; does he want to be a scientist, a lawyer maybe? What does he want to be when he grows up?!     

Finally, he answers: "I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around -- nobody big -- except me.  And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff.  What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff -- I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out form somewhere and catch them.  That's all I'd do all day.  I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all." 

Now, unless one does some re-framing of other professions like teaching and nursing and firefighting, there aren't a lot of jobs opportunities out there for catchers in the rye.  It's a systems problem in the sense that there are lots and lots of people who want to do things that the systems that they are embedded in don't really accommodate.  

A very smart guy in the systems thinking field, Barry Oshry, has done a lot of thinking, writing and intervening regarding the ability of systems to embrace lots of

Barry Oshry

different types of people while continuing to function in some sort of holistic and directed fashion.  He inquires into the nature of "robust systems," i.e., systems that can be a lot of different things and still be one thing at the same time; systems with real staying power and a lot of resilience.  Oshry looks at all human systems in terms of four features that every living entity will share in one degree or another:

1. Integration, i.e., the degree to which a system has a shared objective/mission that everyone in the system understands and adheres to in some fashion.

2. Differentiation, i.e., the degree to which a system has different ways of interfacing with the environment.

3. Homogenization, i.e., the ubiquity of norms, mores, behaviors, information within a system; the degree to which everyone does and knows the same thing, such as speaking the same language, possessing shared mythology, dressing in some way that others experience as appropriate, and 

4. Individuation, i.e., the degree to which a system allows and enables individuals to be freely themselves and express themselves as most befits who they are. 

Some illustrations:  

A great orchestra can be a highly robust system. There's a shared mission of producing great music that honors the creativity and inspiration of the composer. There are many different types of music that can be played and the system can be subdivided in many sorts of ways to interact with its audiences and its larger environment (chamber music, quartettes, full orchestra symphony, public performances, private concerts, recording sessions, visits with the media, political events, etc.). Everyone knows the score, i.e., they all know the scales and they wear a uniform that enable everyone looking at them to say, "Oh, I must be at the symphony!" And, they can tolerate and encourage a great range of individuality. Really good musicians get to do what they're good at, what they really most want to do.    

Rigid systems don't have this sort of pliability. They require people to hoe the "party line", for example. You can never do enough to demonstrate what a believer you are in whatever the system's doctrine might be.  Rigid systems tend to be simpler systems in that they don't have a lot of differentiation, i.e., they do a finite set of things in relationship to their environment and they don't easily generate new modalities of activity.  They are also seriously into conformity.  People dress the same, talk the same, and know pretty instinctively how not to get out of line. (Think North Korea and the Taliban.) As you might expect, rigid systems are also not big on individual freedom and expression...unless you're natively the type of person who really likes to pound the drum in just exactly the way the rigid system wants you to.  

Inchoate systems are big on differentiation and individuation. Everyone gets to do h/er own thing and there are a zillion small groups that are really adamant advocates for what they want and really adamantly antagonistically against what some other group wants. (Think of the litigious conditions of the U.S. or the political blogosphere.)  Unfortunately, inchoate systems tend to have too little integration and homogenization.  No one agrees on any core principles and there are no overarching norms or information bases.   So, everyone is sure that they are right, but the system as a totality isn't moving along any particular pathway.

Art of the Future concentrates on the design, creation and maintenance of Life Sustaining Organizations, those organizations that recognize,celebrate and promote the vitality of the people comprising the organization, of themselves as living systems and the natural ecology supporting us all.  As living systems, life-sustaining organizations emphasize the importance of protecting and fostering both logic and creativity in all manifestations. 

Sensitive, thoughtful, aware people, like Holden Caufield, can thrive only in the context of life-sustaining organizations.   Knowing they need catchers in the rye, these organizations honor those who step up to the role.  As organizations evolve from mechanistic to organic sef-perceptions, may we be fortunate enough to be associated with those open to such possibilites.   May we be courageous and diligent enough to assist in their creative evolution. 

References: Barry Oshry: Seeing Systems (2007) and Leading Systems (1999); Michael Sales, "Understanding the Power of Position: A Diagnostic Model" in Organization Development: A Jossey-Bass Reader (2006); Michael Sales and Anika Savage, Life Sustaining Organizations (2011)

News from the Future

A Report on the World Future Society's 2012 Conference

Michael recently spent a very rich two days at the annual conference of the World Future Society and thought you might appreciate his views and comments. The conference was held in Toronto, Ontario, one of North America's most highly diverse and multicultural cities. This vibrant setting was ideal for an international event that brought over 700 dynamic people focused on the future together.  It's impossible to give you an accounting of what went on in all 58 sessions and workshops.  Even as peripatetic as he is, Michael couldn't be in more than one session at a time.  But, he sure hit a few!  Here are some highlights:

Brian David Johnson

Brian David Johnson, Intel's resident futurist, a most energetic and warm human being, took us through a history of computer memory to remind us that we now store more information on a jump drive than the guys who went to the Moon had in their capsule.  "Meaningful computing power will approach zero by 2020.  Blood flow will power a computer.
Anything will be turned into a computer. We've moved from 'Can we?' to 'What do we want to do with it?'"  We're entering an era where the biggest challenge that humans face will be to "change the story that people tell themselves about the future they'll live in."  Johnson's thinking along these lines is elaborated in his book,  Science Fiction Prototyping, and in his activities at Intel's  The Tomorrow Project.    

 

Lee Rainie

Lee Rainie is the director of the Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project which studies the social impact of the Internet.  "More for Me" (i.e., technology will enhance my life) versus "More for Them" (i.e., technology will make it easier for those that wish to track me in order to manipulate me) was the general theme of Lee's talk. Pew polled hundreds of "experts" of all different sorts regarding a variety of paired polarities related to this general theme to see how they expected it to play out.  For example, 53% of those polled thought that "Big Data," (e.g., the kind of information Facebook has on 1,000,000,000 users world wide) will generate a better future providing each of us with an "Endless You" loop through which we can continuously enjoy and expand ourselves.  On the other hand, 47% worried all that data about you is going to turn into something like a "No You," when anything and everything you might do is comprehended by the ruthless algorithms of computation.
The "Poverty of Imagination" panel session featured noted Australian futurist, Richard Slaughter, co-founder of the Global Business Network, Jay Ogilvy, former OECD program manager, Riel Miller, director of the Centre for Futures and Innovation at Glamorgan Business School, Martin Rhisiart, and senior fellow at Korea Development Institute, Cheonsik Woo.   Miller, who hasn't published anything in a while but may have a book coming out shortly, was quite brilliant in his thinking about the metaphors people and organizations use to anticipate the future.  "Everyone uses industrial language.  Everyone

Riel Miller

wants to be at the top of the pyramid. The race is on for greater and greater  efficiency.  This way of thinking creates enormous stress, and its a losing battle just to stay in place.  This is not an imaginative conceptualization process; it is drawing on imagery that is "out of gas."  "Our politics have become defensive and reactionary.  The hatred of science that we're seeing is coincident with the notion that things can and should last forever.  We are willing to use war and authoritarianism to preserve what is, because of a fear of change and the inability to imagine a really good future.  Ogilvy elaborated on these themes.  "We underrate our capacity to change the world.  Nietzsche, in "On the Use and Abuse of History for

Jay Ogilvy

Life," critiques 'monumental history,' i.e., using history as a way to prove that one thing or another thing 'had to happen.'  Things unfold in a 'necessaritarian' fashion.  Contrarian history shows us the knife's edge of history.  The present is always plastic.  We've set the bar too high.  We've privileged peace as a condition rather than pushed ourselves to get good at peacemaking."    Slaughter picked up on the plasticity of the present theme in noting how "counterfactual" histories [such as Philip K. Dick's Man in the High Castle] present a highly plausible alternative history that demonstrate that inevitability exists largely in hindsight. 

Joergen Oerstroem Moeller, former Danish ambassador to Singapore, presented a session on the evolution of Asian economies over the next decade.  Moeller, something of a force of nature, has spoken with depth and mastery at many World Future Society conferences and this talk  was another demonstration of why he's such a favorite.  Drawing on his encyclopedic awareness of data and his imaginative ideational abilities, Moeller paints a positive and a negative picture of the future of Asia.  For example, the United States's structural debts have given China a great advantage in calling the shots over the next decade, an advantage that will likely cause the U.S. to renege on its obligations in 2016 and drive Japan into the Asiatic

Joergen Oestroem Moeller

sphere of influence that it has avoided since at least the end of WWII.  As others have as well, Moeller analyzes the demographics of Asia to predict that China will become increasingly focused on technology as its population ages and that the manufacturing activity currently going on China will largely shift to other Asian nations like India by 2020.  Bangladesh, for example, is currently the world's 3rd largest producer of textiles .  "China has to invest in technology; India has to invest in infrastructure.  Will these two Asian giants manage their transitions going in opposite directions from where they are now, while simultaneously maintaining free trade with each other?"  Moeller believes that China will become a more important power than the U.S. and its Western allies because its people are more willing to cooperate with one another than those who come out of the West's individualist traditions. 

Presentations by the Singularity University's faculty and students were fascinating, albeit controversial.  The Singularity is a proposition that four intertwined exponential trends will bestow immortality on humanity by mid-century.  The  Singularity holds that the arrival of immortality will represent a discontinuity with all previous versions of humanity and, therefore, represent a state of beginning somewhat similar to that which existed at the Big Bang.  While Vernor Vinge coined the term, Ray Kurzweil, a mega-millionaire inventor and entrepreneur, wrote the book that turned the idea of the Singularity into something of a viral concept.  José Luis Cordeiro, a Singularity University faculty member, presented a powerful overview of the convergence and acceleration of NBIC technologies [Nanotech; Biotech; Cognotech (technology based on brain activity); and Infotech].  Anna Trunina, a 23 year old woman of Russian ethnicity who speaks flawless English, described the activities of the genetic counseling service, Premier Life, she is creating as an example of how the Singularity University's ideas are migrating into use in the world.  Some futurists see the Singularity as a rigid way of thinking about the future and, therefore, as a digression into prediction rather than anticipating the flexibility of possible futures, which is more consistent with futuring as a discipline.

Michael Marien, publisher of Global Foresight Books, William Halah, president of TechCast, Richard Slaughter, and Thomas Homer-Dixon, chair of Global Systems at the Center for International Governance Innovation) addressed an overflow crowd on the “Global MegaCrisis: Four Scenarios on the Future of Progress” demonstrating exactly what an anxious age we're living in.  The Global MegaCrisis is postulated as an emerging "perfect storm" of climate change, economic crises, joblessness, growing inequality, corruption, terrorism and more.  In other words, it's a mighty bad place.  Marien and Hallah have described four possible scenarios, "Decline to Disaster," "Muddling Down," "Muddling Up," and "Rise to Maturity", as responses to the emerging and present crisis for several years. Marien and Slaughter take a pessimistic tack in discussions of these possible futures.  Hallah, in contrast, holds a quite optimistic view based on technological advances.  Homer-Dixon concentrates on the "deeply rooted psychological biases" that impact a person's fundamental orientation toward hope or despair (i.e., If one is biased toward ideational causal factors, one is likely to think that the human mind can overcome everything.  If one focuses on material causal factors, one is more likely to believe that external, structural factors will control human destiny, and probably not in a good way.).
Let's close this overview of the conference with some notes from Jay Ogilvy's brilliant report on "Lessons from Three Decades of Futures Research."  Ogilvy taught philosophy at the university level for many years.  As the co-founder of the Global Business Network, he is one of the real creators of the "Scenaric Stance" (the view that the future can evolve in many different ways and that the job of the futurist is to cultivate an openness to the possible).  He spoke of three way stations in evolution of human thinking about time and "futurity."  The first stop was the view that the future is a space in time that we just haven't gotten to yet: what the future will be is certain, "the clay just hasn't gotten dry".  The second way of thinking about the future is exemplified by Aristotle's thought of time as a "moving image of eternity" -- essentially, there is no evolution; the future is bifurcated.  We can be optimistic about the future (reading the tea leaves of the present and finding much to support a notion of progress toward something better) or we can be pessimistic(finding no meaning in a random universe).  The third way of thinking about the future, the scenaric stance, holds both the pessimistic and the optimistic views of future possibilities in mind simultaneously.  In Ogilvy's view, the scenaric stance allows us to exist on the knife edge of what the future may actually be.  In his book, Facing the Fold, Ogilvy finds numerous advantages to the scenaric stance:
 
- An acute sense of freedom from any official future
- The intellectual honesty of not knowing

- A focusing of action and intent, with knowledge of the stakes at hand
- The ability to toggle back and forth between possibilities without psychic stress or guilt
- Emotional depth, a personal feeling for what the future might be and an ability to communicate that
- A subtle frame of mind, seeing nuance in stories.   

Consider all the predictions you've been sure about that didn't pan out; that's a great way to get at the mindset of the scenaric stance.  No one knows anything about the future with absolute certainty.  That truth is a door to the freedom of exploration.  

 

MBODLG hosts Art of the Future

Applying Structural Dynamics

 to Strategic Issues Facing Organizations

You are invited to be there as Art of the Future kicks off the 2012-2013 season of the  Massachusetts Bay Organization Development Learning Group [MBODLG] with an interactive event on September 20, 2012. 

  

Art of the Future will demonstrate a framework which leaders -- at any level and in any setting -- can use to explore their thinking about the big picture issues facing their organizations.  As you know, the future is a large, complicated, exhilarating and, sometimes, scary place!  To face the future with confidence organizations need to apply both logic and insight to strategy development.  We will be using climate change and its consequences to illustrate the Structural Dynamics approach.   

Within leadership teams addressing issues critical to their future (such as climate change) there is, inevitably, a range of views, opinions, insight and depth of knowledge.  This divergence often results in either polarization or avoidance.  Structural Dynamics engages these differing points of view to explore a wide range of plausible future scenarios.  The strategies that emerge are robust in any of these scenarios.  Rather than paralysis and denial, the result is the ability of organizations to move confidently into their future.

Participants in the session at Mass Bay Organization Development Learning Group session will:

• Explore their own thinking on a complex issue

• Experience a powerful strategic framework to develop a comprehensive set of scenarios

• Use this framework to facilitate collaborative, non-polarizing strategic conversations that lead to robust decisions on large, complex issues.

Please join us on September 20 for a session designed to stretch your thinking and expand your capacity to lead dialogues on complex issues shaping an organization's future.

  

The MBODLG is a community of Organizational Development professionals, that keeps it members informed of industry trends and supports their overall professional development and growth.  MBODLG's welcomes non-members to their events.  The atmosphere allows for great learning opportunities among entry-level professionals, mid-level practitioners, senior executives, coaches, trainers, academics and related disciplines.  MBODLG promotes the idea that conversation breeds increased knowledge and everyone has something unique to bring to the table.  This workshop will certainly demonstrate that philosophy! 

Click here to go to the Registration link. 

Organizations can be like Falling Water

A few weeks ago, we visited one of Frank Lloyd Wright's many masterpieces, Falling Water, the Kaufman house in Mill Run PA.  Wow! What an amazingly beautiful place!

Organic architecture was Wright's first principles,  a coherent integration of the whole experience; the the context of site and structure as one.   This unity is manifested in the combination of natural stone and other elements of the site with man made materials in a many ways at Falling Water.  For example, the fireplace, pictured at right, is built around the stone outcroppings already present.

The idea of holism with nature applies to all human endeavor.   We are, after all, animals who inhabit the natural world.  Art of the Future is particularly interested in the application of this design principle to organizations of all types.   Organizations could thrive by relishing the life that sustains them.  They could work with that life energy to create contexts that are flowing with positive energy in a completely fluid and natural way.  When people are truly at home in their organizational contexts, they are both deeply relaxed and highly energetic.  They are engaged. Their organizations are life-sustaining. 

Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer have recently published  powerful and rigorous research on the deep satisfaction of hard work:  "As long as workers experience their labor as meaningful, progress is often followed by joy and excitement about the work. 'This time it looks good! I feel more positive about this project and my work than I’ve felt in a long time,' one programmer wrote after she’d completed a small but difficult task.  This kind of rich inner work life improves performance, which further supports inner work life — a positive reinforcing loop."  Note the use of the word "joy" in this description: when people love their jobs, they're having fun.  They're like kids at a swimming hole.  Nobody has to tell them how to act.  They know what to do...and they'll take real risks with true gusto. 

Unfortunately, most organizations are not life-sustaining.  In fact, it's arguable that a majority of people hate their jobs.  The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, which has been polling 1,000 Americans a day on how they're doing since January 2008, gives us Americans a very troubling "D" grade on happiness.  Quoting Amabile and Kramer, "People of all ages, and across income levels, are unhappy with their supervisors, apathetic about their organizations and detached from what they do. And there’s no reason to think things will soon improve."  The social price tag is ENORMOUS! Estimates run as high as $300,000,000,000/year!"

It's not just people working in organizations who feel miserable.  Everyone interacting with a life draining organization is affected by its toxicity: its customers, its partners, the communities in which it operates, and, of course, nature, which has to accommodate a dead zone.

We experienced of the truth of this concept  recently at a shopping mall.  I was hunting for a New York Times to read over lunch.  Going into a Duane Reed, I asked two employees standing at the counter if I could buy a newspaper: "You get one of those from a news stand.  This is a pharmacy."  I pointed out that I was standing right next to an entire rack of chocolates and candies; so, the store carried more than medical items.  "Yeah, well, we don't know about that."  Being already in the store, I bought something else I needed and approach the counter to pay and check out.  The women were engaged in an extremely vulgar conversation about a third person they both knew and didn't like.  I was astonished that I was even hearing that kind of language in a work place.  They hardly looked up to make any eye contact with me as I handed them my credit card.  I didn't exist, and it was unpleasant. All I wanted to do was leave.

We turned next to Best Buy to find a land line telephone.  None of the three employees [again engaged in conversation amongst themselves] knew the stock and only one out of three could point in the general direction of telephones.  We found many types of phones with myriad distinctions in specifications and price points, so we sought help to make a choice.  Only a "phone specialist" could help and no one knew where to find him.  When we did get the specialist, it turned out that he didn't know the differences between the items and would we please wait while he spoke with his superiors.  He clearly didn't know where to start with his own inventory and we had to guide him through the options that were available to try to gain clarity on what  would best fit our needs.  Another experience we wished we weren't having.

We decided that we needed to compare the phones at Best Buy with the ones on sale at a much smaller Radio Shack store a few doors down the way in the mall.  Two clerks were at the main counter.  We approached and described what we were looking for.  A young woman spoke right up, and "Sure, I can help you," and we started feeling pretty good.  She proceeded off to a direction in the store where there were no phones and had to come back to main counter to ask her co-worker, with a giggle, do you know where we keep the phones.  Things were not looking up.  We then did proceed to where the phones were and were again confronted with the problem of a sales assistant who had no idea how to help us find our best option and manifested a sort of detached boredom through the entire transaction, as though something much more interested was going to be happening on her cell phone just as fast as she could get back to it.  Again, we didn't get what we wanted substantively or emotionally. 

Finally, like people who had been out on the dessert too long, we arrived at an Apple Store to ask a technical question about a couple of our products.  We were handled seamlessly from the moment of intake by a friendly young guy who not only was ready to set us up with an appointment with a technical specialist but who said, "While you're waiting on that, why not tell me what the problem is and maybe I can fix it," which he did in about 15 minutes, finally providing us with a moment of psychological completion after a series of frustrations. The transaction occurred in a bright and pleasant environment, didn't cost us anything and provided us with a nice connection to an assistant we'd be pleased to work with again.  It was the type of life affirming moment that a lot of people associate with their customer experience at Apple, and it was an example of how that trait contributes to the brand's popularity.

Apple's customer interface isn't perfect, and, in fact, the company has started using that horrid, scratchy muzak while you're on hold that drives us nuts. (The security firm, ADT, has made this torture into an absolute art form, by the way, requiring everyone making an incoming call to be rung out on an auric rack for a minimum of 13 minutes.)  We're hoping that this isn't a retreat from the sort of design integrity that was such a passion for Steve.  (And we sure do hope that someone at Apple is reading these comments and coming up with a fix!  It's an annoying problem, and Steve would bite your head off if he knew about it!)

But, in the main, Apple delivers a customer experience that is head and shoulder above everybody else.  And this adds tremendously to the obsession that customers have for this brand.  It's a phenomenon.

And we think the phenomenon goes beyond the sheer functionality and the beautiful look and feel of Apple's products.  We think that there is such a level of longing to interact with organizations that have a life sustaining quality that any organization that does is mobbed by people who have longed for something they couldn't name and just want to eat it up on those rare occasions when they find it.

Organizations like Apple have a lot in common with Elvis on any other superstar.  Because so few organizations are manifesting a high level of vitality, those that do are in extraordinarily high demand.  It's not that they are ultimately so different or that its people are so dramatically unique.  Rather, it is simply that a life positive climate has been established that encourages people to bring more of themselves into the organization and to construct an organizational strategy that makes it easy for employees, customers, and members of the local community to do so, by hiring extraordinarily diverse teams of talented people drawn from all different creeds, colors, nationality, appearance and sexual orientation, for example. 

Many, if not most, people feel good coming to an Apple store because they are coming home, in a sense.  They are in an environment that sustains their life on many levels.

And that's great, but there's a definite down side.  Apple is one company and the staff at its stores are largely under the age of 30.  This company and these young men and women cannot be expected to pick up the slack for so many scores of thousands of life-draining organizations.  That's a sure recipe for burnout for Apple employees and the company as a whole.  (After all, look at what happened to The King.)

So what's the answer?  Lots and lot of organizations all over the world need to become life sustaining. (We've written a book with our ideas on how to do that.)  It is not the heroes that save society; it's the society that is constantly improving its standards of everyday organizational behavior that saves itself.

Living in the Question

Some Critical Uncertainties of the Era

"A ball of confusion/that's what the world is today!"  So exclaimed The Temptations four decades ago and things haven't changed that much since then. There are probably many more questions about what the future is likely to look like than there answers.  Maybe that's always been the case, but it certainly is now. 

For many of us, that is an uncomfortable reality.  Chronic uncertainty can breed unpleasant stress and anxiety.  On the other hand, not knowing how things are going to turn out can be exciting.  It makes life an adventure!

In this blog entry, we explore some critical uncertainties in an effort to identify the universe of big questions within which we all live.  Critical uncertainties are dynamic forces whose direction matters a lot on an international basis -- or at least a national one.  A true critical uncertainty is outside the control of any one entity, even a very powerful one like the government systems of the US or the EU or China.  How it tips should impact the zeitgeist of an entire era.  The tone of a society, a set of societies or  a significant industry should tilt one way or another depending on what happens to a critical uncertainty or to a set of interwoven critical uncertainties.  What moves a critical uncertainty one way or another and when it is going to tip can’t be fully known or understood in advance.  However, having a good handle on might shape the destiny of the future, i.e., knowing what questions to ask and what possibilities to follow, is an important compass to use in comprehending what might  be unfolding, even if the exact outcome and destination cannot be foretold.  

So, in that spirit here is a list of powerful gyroscopes of change-in-motion whose spin momentum Art of the Future follows.  Add your own to this inventory!

The rights and power of women worldwide:  Many Westerners believe that the expansion of women’s rights and power are inexorable, but there are a range of  forces opposing the expansion of these rights in many places and in many belief systems.


The impact of climate change:  Many observers are absolutely convinced that human activity is jeopardizing the stability of the Earth’s climate and threatening to introduce an era of devastation.  Many others think that the threat is non-existent or overblown.


The mix of public and private power:  Will government power at all levels expand in the decades ahead, Or will the power of large corporations and other institutions supercede government influence across a range of geographies?

Designed by Deb Everson

Governmental control vs personal liberty:  Will governments use new technology to become “Big Brother” monitoring and controlling every aspect of its citizens’ lives, Or will individuals demand and achieve the right to autonomy and freedom from continuous oversight?



The internationalization of law:  Will sovereign nation states be increasingly brought under the authority of international bodies, Or will the significance of international regulation and law diminish in the face of more local forms of power?

Source:  MakingIt Magazine

Shifting Global Power Blocks:  Is a multi-polar world emerging where international economic and ideological centers will compete on a much more level playing field, Or are anticipations of the end of the single superpower status of the United States overblown and based on a faulty analysis of real world economics and military power?


Terrorism:  Will fanatical groups spring up with increasing frequency and cause unprecedented levels of disruption to civilian society Or, will dissident groups express their views by entering into mainstream politics and use non-violent means of expressing their positions?

Image source:  MedicineWorld.org

The level and type of educational achievement:  Will literacy of all types and knowledge acquisition expand in the future as millions use the web for information, Or will it decline due to population increases, limited investment and disinterest in academic work?




The city as a strategic entity:  Will metropolitan areas become increasingly integrated wholes pursuing policies to benefit urban dwellers, Or will cities be primarily inchoate regions stalemated by interest group based politics?




The availability of food and water:  Will existing food and water supply chains support human activity worldwide, Or will they be increasingly stressed by multiple breakdowns that imperil lives and well-being?




The supply of raw materials:  Will critical raw materials such as rare earths run out, creating havoc with production processes and slowdowns in technological advancement, Or will shortages be avoided through invention, miniaturization, and/or substitution?



Energy sources:  Will the number of viable energy sources supporting human activity proliferate driving down the price of production and transportation, Or will experimentation with non-carbon based forms of fuel prove to be too expensive and unreliable?


Global vs Local production:  Will trends toward the global manufacture and assembly of components parts of all sorts of goods and services continue, Or will regions refocus their concentration on what they are distinctively able to create, manufacture and trade?

Source:  Honda Motor's Assimo

The incorporation of robotics and artificial intelligence into everyday living:  Will robots and expert systems of various kinds take over many of the chores that make human existence unpleasant, Or will the technological utopias that get so much air time turn out to be mere fantasies and no substitute for hard physical and mental work?
 
Man/machine fusion: Will the explosion of computing power, genetics, nano-technology and robotics merge into new life forms, a singularity that will transform the very essence of what it is to be human, Or will these technologies fall short of expectations or be regulated in ways to prevent such a transformation?

Epidemics and treatment:  Will civilization be increasingly faced with wide-spread, fast moving epidemics for which there is no adequate response, Or will invention, innovation and investment master transitory medical threats?



Transparency and privacy:  Will social media and global interconnectivity prove to be a great boon to human inventiveness and productivity, Or will it create a hive environment where no one has privacy, the ability to be alone or the right think independently?

The supply of skilled workers:  Will economic conditions of low consumer demand and diminished horizons create a permanent reserve of highly trained personnel ready to work for low wages for at least a decade ahead or will demographic trends and burgeoning emerging economies and aging industrial ones stretch the supply lines of skilled workers very thin and in surprisingly short order?


Community and individual:  Will individual see themselves as members of a larger community toward which they owe allegiance and responsibility, Or will they think of any group with power as unwarranted and unnecessary constraints upon their own liberty?


Unions:  Is the labor movement dead because it impedes private enterprise, Or will it become revitalized as a result of the growing power of labor in the emerging economies and globalization?

Source:  Reuters 2007

Violence and security:  Will people with opposing interests and objectives increasingly resort to violence against each other leading to an endless cycle of anxiety-laced security measures and retaliatory action, Or  will norms of behavior and civility bring ever-larger segments of the population into self-regulating mutual respect?

Gary "Ironman" Passler, 58

Health and well-being of the aging:  Will the aging population be increasingly unwell and despairing, requiring ever-greater investments in their health and well-being, Or will the aging become more mindful of the need to stay healthy and active with the financial and physical ability to achieve such objectives?

Source of picture: keplarllp.com

Stability of the financial system:  Will central bankers, economists and political leaders agree upon means to achieve and maintain global financial stability, Or will governments prove insufficient to the task and plunge the world economy into an extended era of self-protectionism?

Source:  Thinkstock

Innovation and inventiveness:  Will scientists and entrepreneurs discover and develop new “killer apps” that revitalize global, national and local communities, institutions and organizations, Or are we entering a “me-too” era where investment in research and development will slow down and new ideas be slow to emerge and slower to find acceptance?

From an article by Andrew Wye

Consciousness: Are radically new realizations regarding the human potential, such as mental telepathy or the use of dreams as guides to life, about to break through into common use, transforming the human prospect, Or are these supposed possibilities no more than the hogwash of pseudo-science?

Design integrity:  Will consumers  demand products that are well designed and aesthetically pleasing, Or will price be the primary and, in many cases, the only factor affecting purchasing decisions?

Ataturk/Khomeni

Secularism versus Sectarianism:  In the US, the population is split between those who hold traditionally sectarian views and those who have a secular orientation.  A nearly equal number believe that the Earth was formed according to the biblical description vs those who believe that it evolved according to the scientific view. Proponents and adversaries of abortion and sex education are also in standoff positions.  Will social schisms based on religious and spiritual beliefs proliferate, Or will a new openness emerge mitigating disputes that seem intractable from the present perspective?

Source: Flickr User MakeMoneyMall

Income inequality:  In many societies, including the US, Brazil and China, the gap between the lives of the Haves and the Have-Nots is widening and concern about this bifurcation is increasing.  Will the trend toward greater social and financial inequality continue, Or will the needy manage to overthrow entrenched plutocracies?


Racial and ethnic dynamics:  Diversity, integration and multiculturalism are often lauded as not only moral but as smart business.  Will this view prevail, Or will a will sense of threat from change and suspicion of outsiders–reliable and long-standing human tendencies–endure?
 

Monitoring via electronic skin

Remote care:  Distributed electronics make it possible to treat many health ailments remotely.  This, coupled with innovations such as the ability to make, print and apply new skin tissues and limbs, will create new health care options.  However, many do not to trust technologically-mediated medical approaches due to potential malfunctioning, lack of empathy and judgement, etc..  Will remote care be widely adopted, Or will it remain a relative oddity, full of unfulfilled promise?

Source:  Second Life

The nation state vs. the cyber state:  The internet enables world spanning communities of all sorts.  Very powerful stateless communities may bond in cyberspace with little or no physical location or contact.  Will national governments lose clout as people conduct business and social relationships in cyberspace, Or will there be the sort of continued sense of citizenship and unity of national identity?


Space travel and colonization:  Will the ancient urge of humanity for adventure take it past its planetary boundaries into an never-ending era of exploration, Or will the huge investments required and the fear of a greater unknown than has ever been broached prohibit off-world excursions?