Opening Plenary   Grown Up Digital: Understanding the Future Through the Lens of Youth The Net-Generation has come of age. The children of the baby boom, aged 13-30, are not only the largest generation ever  they are the first generation to come of age in the digital age. The new digital media, particularly the Internet, are at the heart of a new youth culture and a new generation who, in profound and fundamental ways, learn, work, play, communicate, shop and create communities very differently than their parents. For the first time in human history children are authorities on a central innovation. This generation gap has its implications. While there are concerns about this generation, overall they are an enormously positive force for change in every institution in society. As they enter the workforce they bring a new high performance culture of collaboration and IT-enabled innovation and challenge some fundamental tenets of management. As they enter the new marketplace they are changing many facets of retail and marketing from advertising, to the brand. As they become citizens, they are beginning to change democracy and society. In their culture we can see the contours of a new future for the planet. Who should attend: Anyone interested in the learning how the new digital media will change every institution in society. What you’ll learn: Attendees will learn how the new generations will use technology to change many aspects of democracy and society. How this new knowledge can be applied: Participants can use this information to apply to new business ventures, new products, and new marketing ideas. Don Tapscott, chief executive, New Paradigm, leading authority on business strategy; author, Wikonomics, Grown Up Digital, and many others; Toronto, Ontario, Canada. key words: business, innovation, technology, social trends issue areas: Business and Careers, Learning and Education

Me The Media: The Rise of the Conversation Society

The global economy is a conversation, and this conversation is changing at the speed of light. Yet, many organizational structures have not changed since their inception. The anonymous public has emerged as a part of every organization’s business model, and they are rapidly impacting branding, product development, service benchmarks, and even market valuation. Traditional organizations accustomed to communicating to the public rather than conversing with it are suffering the aftershocks of this new reality.

In this thought-provoking presentation, the speaker discusses how the new equilibrium has transformed “The Conversation Economy” into “The Conversation Society.” He shares real examples of the best and worst practices to learn from and helps you examine where your organization can make improvements. He will show some examples of new technologies that are shaping the near future of The Conversation Society of every organization, from augmented reality and sensing networks to mirror worlds and the newest applications that can make or break new businesses.

Who should attend: Business leaders and IT leaders

What you’ll learn: Participants will learn (1) how you communicate may be the most relevant business success factor; (2) what the emerging ground rules are for “The Conversation Society”; (3) how to leverage crowdsourcing to improve core business areas; and (4) which new technologies should be on your radar for the coming years.

How this new knowledge can be applied: This new knowledge can be used to help businesses or organizations change with the global environment.

Menno van Doorn, director, VINT, Research Institute of Sogeti, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

key words: new technologies, social networks, crowdsourcing, business
issue area: Business and Careers, Technology and Science, Social and Cultural Trends

Innovation: A Business Futurist’s Tool to Manage a Complex Environment

Business futurists are often preoccupied with using our craft to create a better corporate future. This task became even more daunting as the business environment prospects turned bleak for the next few years. Senior executives expect results from futurists’ exercises much the same way they expect returns on any investment; thus, it is key for business futurists to learn how to partner with other organizations to promote our agenda, foster creativity, and promote innovation.  

The objective of this session is to suggest a new collaborative approach based on the areas in which business futurists can partner with market research and intelligence to help us meet corporate objectives.

The speakers will report on two Delphi panels conducted with competitive intelligence and research professionals, and debate how high-tech firms continue to focus on innovation and creativity even during challenging times. You will hear two different perspectives.

Who should attend: Business futurists, both veterans and newcomers to the field, will benefit from this session. In addition to people in private enterprise, planners and policy makers will also acquire a different perspective on the innovation process.
What you’ll learn: Attendees will learn the latest developments in innovation research, as well as best practices successful enterprises—both in the United States and abroad—adopt to manage the innovations process.
How this new knowledge can be applied: This session reports on very practical applications. The researchers used their sections at Future Trends and Executive MindXchange conferences, along with several in-depth interviews to capture the essence of best practices in innovation from the perspective of different industries. 

Asia Aslam, market intelligence manager, Cisco Corporation, San Jose, California
Romulo Gayoso, staff engineer, Intel Corporation, Chandler, Texas

key words: innovation, business, planning, corporate
issue area: Business and Careers, Technology and Science, Futures Methodologies

Future Markets: The Shape of Things to Come

Are there long-term opportunities in emerging regions or are they speculative bubbles? Will the global markets decouple from the U.S. markets? Can we have sustainability and economic growth? These are some of the questions that can be answered by understanding what social and geopolitical forces lurking on the horizon will shape the future of the global economic markets.

This speaker will present a systematic look at how to spot signals that could indicate how these forces will impact the financial investing environment. Brief scenarios will explore trends, cycles, disruptions, and regulations that we can anticipate to create shifts in the global market trajectory and what factors can counterbalance those trends.

An updated assessment of the emerging regions of the world will highlight potential risks and opportunities, and the strength of their long-term development.

Who should attend: Economists, businesspeople, financiers, and investors interested in understanding what will influence the future financial markets.
What you’ll learn: Attendees will learn how to decipher news, market behavior, and financial instruments that fuel the emerging markets.
How this new knowledge can be applied: Attendees can use the framework to assess long-term market potentials and risks, as well as how to identify signals as part of their personal and corporate capital investment strategies.

Joan Foltz, principal, Alsek Research, publisher of Edgy Economics, Chandler, Arizonaj

key words: global economy, stock markets, investment, globalization, technology, financial assets, trends
issue areas: Business and Careers, Governance and Communities, Futures Methodologies

Canceled  Build Your Own Organizational Strategy for the Future

There are several things both inside and outside of our organization that influence the strategic planning process. One is how to take into consideration our organizational subject area. Is it an area where we are going to deal also in the future, or would like to broaden or even change our subject area? Then how many outside customers do we have and how many will we have in the future—what is desirable? What about our personnel? How do we combine short-term and long-term demands? How do we make all these strategic factors part of everyday life in our own organization in a way to look forward? How do we measure these factors? As a result by a good strategy planning process, we will ensure that our organizations are ready to confront the different demands of the future.

Who should attend: Anyone involved in strategic planning for their organizations.
What you’ll learn: Participants will learn the money factors that influence the strategic planning process.
How this new knowledge can be applied: This knowledge can be applied in your own company, organization and even in your everyday personal life.

Meimi Lahti, senior lecturer, Satakunta University of Applied Sciences, Pori, Finland

key words: strategies, futures, planning
issue areas: Business and Careers, Futures and Methodologies, Governance and Communities

The Living Organization: A Leader’s Guide to Success in the 21st Century

We all know that 2009 is not the same as 1909. Life moves faster, change occurs more frequently, and we are part of a global community instead of a local community. This raises a number of questions. Can the business model that took root in the early 1900s still work in the twenty-first century? What can we learn from the trends in business over the last 100 years? Is there a new model? How would it be different and how would it be the same? What are the implications for today’s leaders? This speaker will share insights about how the modern corporation is changing. We can no longer simply tweak a twentieth-century design and expect it to work in the twenty-first century. Norman will present a model that accounts for not only the machine nature of the past, but also includes the living organic nature required for the future. This model provides a new framework for how to view businesses’ role in our society and a new map to navigate toward success in the twenty-first century.

Who should attend: Futurists, business leaders, consultants, and anyone involved with creating a successful business.

What you’ll learn: Attendees will have an easy to understand model that addresses all the complexities of today’s businesses. They will learn how to establish a frame of reference that will ensure long-term sustainable success, discern and apply the right solutions to the right problems, understand the new role of tomorrow’s CEO and what you can do to prepare yourself, and learn how creating a profitable twenty-first-century corporation will also create a sustainable society.

How this new knowledge can be applied: This will add more depth to the maps used by today’s leaders. It will provide a new framework that will allow them to see solutions they would otherwise overlook. It will answer the questions why a profit-oriented CEO will be as interested in people development, culture, and even spiritual matters. It will show that CEOs will be the new spiritual leaders of society.

Norman Wolfe, president and CEO, Quantum Leaders, Inc., Irvine, California.

key words: business, leadership, values, spirituality
issue areas: Business and Careers, Values and Spirituality, Social and Cultural Trends

Leading Change in a $1.3 Trillion Industry

This is the story of Operation Mindshift, a consortium of 15 leading companies in the commercial real estate industry. The story shares how an individual identified a need and opportunity for dramatic change that attracted industry leaders to open a dialogue. The problem was summarized as a commercial real estate industry that consistently produces a poor product with excessive waste and harm to the environment. The initial dialogue soon became a consortium. The story shares how the consortium broke away from existing paradigms to design a new delivery model that promises to significantly reduce the cost and waste from the building process and make sustainable buildings the norm rather than the exception.

Who should attend: Futurists interested in practical applications of strategic foresight and leading innovation.
What you’ll learn: How to identify an opportunity, frame the concept, recruit support, lead the discovery, instigate transformation, survive the set backs and get paid well.
How this new knowledge can be applied: This process will work on a local community level, within organizations and for industries. 

Rex Miller, thought leader, Mindshift; author, The Millennium Matrix, Southlake, Texas. 

key words: innovation, change, strategic foresight, real estate, leadership
issue areas: Business and Careers, Social and Cultural Trends, Futures Methodologies

Leading Innovation

Everyone recognizes the importance of innovation as a key component of an organization s success. Research indicates that most people are naturally creative and ready to be innovative. Yet, as leaders, through words and actions, we may unwittingly be creating barriers that actually inhibit innovation. Participants will be challenged to look at leadership behaviors in their own organization and consider whether their leaders are either inhibiting or fostering greater innovation. Four distinct barriers to greater innovation are discussed, along with their specific effects on innovation.

Who should attend: Any leaders who want to foster more innovative and creative thinking within their organizations.
What you’ll learn: Attendees will learn how managers’ leadership style fosters or inhibits innovation and how even small changes in leadership behavior can drive innovation. 

How this new knowledge can be applied: Participants will learn a practical model for gauging their own leadership style in terms of supporting or stifling innovation in their business or other type of organization.

William Beane, senior vice president of client services, Psychological Associates, Inc., St. Louis, Missouri

key words: corporate culture, motivation, leadership, management style
issue areas: Business and Careers, Futures Methodologies

Employment Trends in a Post Recession Economy

The current recession, which began in December 2007 and is expected to be the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, will surely put to rest one-time concerns about looming labor shortages, right? Probably not The recession, if it has any impact at all on long-term employment trends, will only delay the inevitable. This speaker will address how labor shortages, immigration, globalization, outsourcing and other trends impacting employment and the workplace will be impacted by our current economic situation and what we can expect to see on these fronts in five, 10 and 20 years.

Who should attend: This presentation would be valuable for nearly every attendee, providing valuable insight in the current economic crisis and its impact on labor.
What you’ll learn: Attendees will gain a better understanding of the employment situation and its impact on the workplace.
How this new knowledge can be applied: Participants can use this knowledge for future employment decision-making.

John A. Challenger is chief executive officer of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc., the global outplacement consultancy that pioneered outplacement as an employer-paid benefit in the 1960s.

key words: work, innovation, emerging economies, employment trends
issue areas: Business and Careers, Governance and Communities

Facilitated Thinking Environments: The Assembly Line for an Information Age Workforce

The rapid increase in change is outpacing our ability to handle it. Clearly, society must now develop information workers who apply on-demand cognitive tools to think through change in addition to training and to learning their way through change. The future in education and business training is to prepare workers with new skill sets.

Industrial age worker education was answer and problem-solving orientation, content memorization, and analytical, rational, and logical thinking skills. Thinking is based on using past and present data that already exists. In contrast, the information age worker’s education is question and innovation oriented, focused on accessing content on-demand, is change-adept, and promotes innovative thinking skills, as well as thinking based on using present and future data that does not yet exist.

Just as the invention of the assembly line and factory automation tools improved industrial-worker labor productivity, the invention of Facilitated Thinking Environments (FTEs) and cognitive tools, called thinklets, will improve information-worker thinking productivity.

Who should attend: Anyone who wants to become a more innovative and change-adept thinker.
What you’ll learn: Each participant will walk away with knowledge and some tools on how to become an innovative thinker in three facilitated thinking environment areas: (1) personal innovation, (2) collaborative innovation, and (3) enterprise team innovation.
How this new knowledge can be applied: Cognitive tools will be given to the participants. These tools can be applied to help participants develop more and better innovative ideas.

Robert Pavlik, assistant director, Institute for the Transformation of Learning, Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Dennis Heindl, founder and president, Nth Degree Software, Inc., Greendale, Wisconsin.

key words: innovation, creativity, education
issue areas: Business and Careers, Learning and Education, Futures Methodologies

Session Canceled -- It’s All About HYPE: How to Choose the Right Innovation at the Right Time 

Hype is the primary ingredient in innovation that can lead to disappointment and ultimately failure. In this presentation, the speaker will discuss how to make informed decisions that will allow business, developers, and investors alike to strategically time decisions that will provide innovations with the best chance for adoption and success.

Who should attend: This presentation would be valuable for nearly every attendee, whether you are working to launch a new product or solution or are an industry veteran with numerous launches under your belt.
What you’ll learn: Participants will learn how hype factors into the success and failure of a launch. The presentation will reveal that good adoption decisions are based on the determination of three key factors: what is most valuable to your company, how mature a new innovation currently is, and how open or averse your company is to risk. Using examples, the speaker will outline the STREET process—Scope, Track, Rank, Evaluate, Evangelize, and Transfer—and show how each of these steps lead to sounder adoption decisions in real-world situations.
How this new knowledge can be applied: Participants can use this information as fodder for decisions on the next big thing that they come into contact with, whether it be in their personal or professional life.

Jackie Fenn, vice president and Gartner fellow, Gartner Research; author, Mastering the Hype Cycle; Stamford, Connecticut

key words: strategic decision making, innovation, technology, emerging economies
issue areas: Business and Careers, Futures Methodologies, Technology and Science

Entrepreneurial Leadership and Teamwork: The Key to Innovation in the 21st Century

Entrepreneurial leadership and continuous innovation are vital components of twenty-first-century communities and organizations. Entrepreneurial leaders must realize the importance of environmental, social, and global issues while creating an atmosphere of innovation designed to help followers become more entrepreneurial themselves. Entrepreneurial individuals and teams have the ability to recognize and capitalize on opportunities, innovate, take risks, adapt to rapid change, and marshal resources to achieve their goals. When individuals come together as an effective team, they can produce a synergy to meet the demands of a rapidly changing and competitive work environment. Therefore, entrepreneurial leaders must develop entrepreneurial individuals and teams while integrating innovation throughout their organizational culture.

Who should attend: Anyone interested in developing entrepreneurial leaders, individuals, and teams. Specific audiences include public- and private-sector leaders, managers, and entrepreneurs.
What you’ll learn: Participants will learn about the interconnectedness among entrepreneurial leadership, individuals, teams, and innovation. Audiences will learn about relevant research as well as the application to real-world situations through discussion and hand-on learning.
How this new knowledge can be applied: This is a hands-on session designed to connect theory with real-world application. Participants will be able to immediately apply the entrepreneurial leadership and innovation information learned in this session to individual and team leadership roles. Participants will learn how to strengthen their own entrepreneurial leadership capacity so they can begin to foster a more entrepreneurial and innovative culture in both their personal and professional lives.

Connie Reimers-Hild,unit leader, Kimmel Education and Research Center, University of Nebraska, Nebraska City, Nebraska
Susan Williams, district director, southeast Research and Extension Center, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska

key words: leadership, innovation, teamwork, teams, risk taking
issue areas: Business and Careers, Learning and Education, Social and Cultural Trends

The Future of Investing and Banking

Banking and investing are changing, not only because of regulation, but because of the economics of scale. There will be a battle between cost efficiencies and performance; capital and advice. Virtual relations and packaged products are two trends, as will be the way banking and investing will be both local and international. There will be competition between the large and the small.

Who should attend: Members from the business, government and investment community who want a view of how banking and investing might look in 15 years, and how regulation might affect these industries.
What you’ll learn: Trends in finance to include banking and investing.
How this new knowledge can be applied: This knowledge will be useful to those choosing careers in banking or investing, and for organizations that need to operate or use such organizations.

Bob Chernow, CEO and treasurer, The Tellier Foundation, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

key words: business, government
issue areas: Business and Careers, Governance and Communities, Social and Cultural Trends

Corporate Decision-Making: Is it “Future Proof”

Financial crisis, recession, and an uncertain economic environment are testing the abilities of management teams to foresee, prepare, and lead. Building effective strategies and proactively managing change are increasingly important to enterprises; however, only a handful of companies have developed effective “future management” systems and processes. In many instances, future-related efforts fail to engage decision makers. Maintaining the commitment of senior management to “strategic conversation” remains a continuous challenge.

Considering the current business environment and the impact of poorly prepared decisions on the future of companies, how can enterprises get more value from future-focused work? How can they put “future” in the center of decision-making processes? How can they build systems that link future-related activities to core business processes and bring tangible and immediate benefits to stakeholders across the enterprise?

Who should attend: Corporate executives, government officials, business leaders, strategic planners, consulting futurists, and project managers; anyone interested in helping leadership teams process the future.
What you’ll learn: How to use futures mindfulness and self-management to empower executives and how to upgrade your future management processes and tools.
How this new knowledge can be applied: This knowledge can help participants relate futures thinking to management teams or senior decision makers.

Donald Heathfield, founder, Future Map, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Mary Beth McEuen, vice president, Organization and People Potential, Maritz, St. Louis, Missouri; member, Association of Profession Futurists
Jay Gary, director and professor, School of Global Leadership and Entrepreneurship, Regent University, Virginia Beach, Virginia

key words: corporate foresight, strategic management, risk management, horizon scanning
issue areas: Business and Careers, Futures Methodologies

Winning the Global Talent Showdown: Strategies for the Next Decade

The talent pool is running on empty. Increasingly complex technology continues to set a breakneck pace of change. In industrial nations, the large baby boomer cohort is aging and moving into retirement. Succeeding generations have decidedly different views on work-life culture and overall are not pursuing technical careers in sufficient numbers. In Japan, Korea, and many European nations, populations and workforces are shrinking significantly. Even the massive populations of India and China cannot produce enough qualified talent to meet the demands of their rapid economic development. We will explore how business professionals, educators, union leaders, government officials, parents, activists, and others are crafting new education-to-employment systems for twenty-first century technology-based economies. The speaker offers an optimistic message based on years of research and international consulting experience and shows how local community action can build talent-creation systems for the jobs of the future around the world.

Who should attend: Policy leaders, business, educators, and anyone concerned about the future of the world’s high-tech economies between 2010 and 2020.

What you’ll learn: Ways to rebuild local talent creation systems for twenty-first century education-to-employment.

How this new knowledge can be applied: Organizations and business can create and participate in community-based organizations (CBOs) or non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that form community partnerships to rebuild local talent pipelines.

Edward E. Gordon, author, president, Imperial Consulting, Chicago, Illinois.

key words: work, careers
issue areas: Business and Careers, Learning and Education

Future Patterns of Work and Retirement: The Evolving Third Age

The new retirement is increasingly a mixture of retirement with some work, and it focuses on engagement. As individual interests and societal needs come together, people are retiring differently and this is likely to increase in the future. This discussion will focus on what employers and individuals need to know and how they should respond to create a better future. Data discussed will include phases of retirement, which focuses on how needs and capabilities change during the retirement period.

Who should attend: People interested in how patterns of work and retirement are evolving and how ages of transitions are shifting.
What you’ll learn: Attendees will learn what is changing in the workforce and what has changed. The roles of different stakeholders will be discussed, as will policy implications and issues.
How this new knowledge can be applied: This session can help you in human resource planning for your business, in social considerations in your community and in planning your own life.

Anna Rappaport, president of Anna Rappaport Consulting, former president of the Society of Actuaries; Chicago, Illinois

key words: work, retirement, demographics
issue areas: Business and Careers, Social and Cultural Trends

A New Benchmark for Innovation in the Future: From Incremental to Revolutionary

The future of humanity is dependant on the capacity of the global economy to sustain real growth. In order to achieve this objective, we need to change a major paradigm. Innovation will have to shift from incremental improvements to revolutionary ones capable of constantly redefining categories.

If the global strategies of the leading companies are not able to meet this challenge, then we can expect the end of real profitable growth. Competitive production centers become saturated markets and new marketing tools and approaches, and perhaps even new talents. One cannot expect to meet the challenges of tomorrow with yesterday’s tools.

Who should attend: Those responsible for contributing to the future vision of their institution or company, including CEOs, marketing managers, and R&D executives.
What you’ll learn: Attendees will learn new marketing approaches from needs-driven marketing to aspirations-driven marketing or how not to strive to be the best but how to be unique.
How can this new knowledge be applied: Participants will be able to bring this knowledge back to their own companies to help sustain real growth.

Robert Salmon, global advisory council member of World Future Society; former vice president of L’Oreal; author; Valais Switzerland
Mylena Pierremont, board member of World Future Society; president of Ming PAi Consulting BV, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Marc Bourgery, president of Kitsuccess, Paris, France
Didier Ades, journalist, Paris, France

key words: business, global markets, global strategies
issue area: Business and Careers

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
World Future Society Headquarters
7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 450
Bethesda, Maryland 20814
Web site: www.wfs.org
Telephone: 800-989-8274 or 301-656-8274; fax: 301-951-0394