John Naisbitt (1929–2021)

Yeah, I read it. Read Alvin Toffler too. Megatrends had its 15 minutes, which unfortunately, ran all the way into the 90's. There were a number of authors who did the same dance, sang the same song. One thinks of George Gilder, Esther Dyson, or Faith Popcorn. These books serve some purpose, if nothing else they get us to think about where we are going as a society. The sad thing is that we only think about it till we get bored, or distracted by some new fad. Then the future comes up on us quick and takes a bite out of us. We need to stop think in 10 second sound bits, powerpoint slides, and start thinking and solving for the long term.… (more)

Questo fa coppia con il libro sui cigni neri, con la differenza che è stato sritto nel 2006 - fa coppia come esempi, come spavalderia, come saccenza. Le intuizioni di N. sono abbastanza pratiche: il mondo nel quale vive l'autore è tuttavia un mondo lussuoso, tra alberghi a cinque stelle, interessi artistici, grandi nomi del gotha economico e politico. Puo' darsi che quello sia un punto di vista privilegiato per capire dove andrà il mondo, ma istintivamente ne rifuggo. (anche se la previsione dell'Europa futura, destinata ad essere meta di turisti ricchi asiatici e americani - e non più luogo di produzione, innovazione e lavoro, nel lungo periodo - è tristemente condivisibile).… (more)

John Naisbitt begins this book with a reference to the story The Little Prince by Antoine De Saint Exupery. If you’ve not read that book then I strongly recommend that you do. It’s a ‘children’s’ story, (he talks of reading it to his six year old), and can be read in even the most hectic of schedules.

The reference Naisbitt makes to ‘The Little Price’ is to how we don’t see what is before us, only what we are able to see, and this idea echoes throughout the book.

In the first half of the book he describes eleven mindsets or ways through which we see and understand the world. The key point here is that the world doesn’t exist for us to observe, it exists because we observe it, and exists only in the ways that we are able to observe it.

In the eleven mindsets the description covers both what we see because of how we see, and what we may be able to see should we be able to change how we see.

I won’t list the eleven mindsets, but a few of them I found particularly useful,

4. Understanding how powerful it is not to have to be right
5. See the future a as picture puzzle.
9. You don’t get results by solving problems but by exploiting opportunities.
11. Don’t forget the ecology of technology

In the second half of the book he then takes some of these mindsets and applies them to what we are encouraged to call the ‘real world’ and extrapolates some futures.

Here there are some interesting thoughts on our movement towards a visually centered culture, an economic shift from nation states to economic domains and some scathing perspectives on Europe. Personally whilst this is the part of the book that attracts most attention, I find this less interesting. Having described the mechanism of mindsets as the vehicle to see in new ways, to then suggest what we will see in the future seems to offer answers and obscure the fact that the real jewel of the book is that he is inviting us to ask questions.

However this is a thought provoking book, and well worth reading.… (more)