GHANA’S PROMISING
FUTURE
While far from the
epicenter of the most recent global financial crisis, much of Africa was
severely impacted by it. Faring better than its neighbors is Ghana, which
has nearly halved its poverty rate since 1992, sustained a 5% average annual
growth rate, and held peaceful elections in 2004 and 2008, according to the
International Monetary Fund (IMF).
“You do sense a
country that is moving forward,” says Peter Allum, IMF mission chief for
Ghana. “There’s an enormous amount of energy and excitement there on the
streets. You also see the poverty, and it makes you realize what a challenge
lies ahead for the country in terms of job creation for these young people.”
Foreign investment
from recession-afflicted countries has dried up, and Ghanaians working
abroad have had less money to send back home, notes IMF First Deputy
Managing Director John Lipsky. So building up economic resilience
domestically has become more imperative.
Gold and cocoa exports
have kept Ghana going, but moving forward may require it to develop another
source of new wealth: oil. Ghana is unlikely to become another Saudi Arabia,
says Lipsky, “but it could be producing enough oil to satisfy its domestic
needs with some left over for export. The key to Ghana’s future growth, of
course, is to use this newfound wealth wisely.”
SOURCE: International
Monetary Fund
LONELINESS IN AN
INTERCONNECTED WORLD
The average American
today has only a third as many friends as 25 years ago, and one-fourth have
no close confidants at all, according to recently released data from medical
researchers. The Internet may be largely to blame, says Michael Bugeja,
author of INTERPERSONAL DIVIDE (Oxford University Press, 2005).
Many people have a
swarm of friends on Facebook, but do they ever call? “Friending” is not the
same as “befriending”—being a friend—Bugeja notes, arguing that instead of
creating a global village, the Internet has distracted and distanced us from
each other.
One impact is that
lonely people have no one to turn to in hard times, whereas during the
Depression people relied on each other. Now, when people can no longer
afford the communications devices they’ve come to rely on instead of people,
they become truly isolated. As a result, suicide rates may increase, even
among young children, Bugeja warns.
LISTEN to the Radio
Health Journal podcast
ORDER INTERPERSONAL
DIVIDE by Michael Bugeja
|
 EDUCATION
SUMMIT AND LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES AT WORLDFUTURE 2010!
Robots
in the classroom, “power teaching,” and innovative problem-solving
strategies will all be explored at the annual Education Summit immediately
preceding the opening of WorldFuture 2010 in Boston, July 8-10, at the
Westin Boston Waterfront Hotel.
The
Summit will address the challenges and opportunities of demographic and
technological transformation to improve learning in the future.
DETAILS,
Futurists looking to enhance their own skills will also have a variety of
learning opportunities before the conference gets under way. Courses range
from introductory to advanced, such as how to build and use scenarios and
using patterns of inventions to predict the future.
DETAILS
The
conference program itself boasts an outstanding lineup of speakers, such as
journalist Michael Rogers, former “futurist-in-residence” for the New York
Times Company. Rogers will explore what it will mean for us to live more of
our lives “virtualized”—a social transformation that he argues is as
potentially impactful as the rise of cities.
LEARN MORE:
RESERVE YOUR
HOTEL ROOM AT SPECIAL CONFERENCE RATE:
SAVE $150!
REGISTER FOR WorldFuture 2010 BY February 26:
ALREADY ATTENDING? RSVP on Facebook |
PREVENTIVE CARE COULD SAVE TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS
Health-care
practitioners need to broaden their focus to include greater preventive
care, urges Kevin Fickenscher, Dell Perot Systems vice president of
strategic initiatives.
During a recent
presentation to the Washington, D.C. chapter of the World Future Society,
Fickenscher declared that preventive care is one way to repair the
overstressed U.S. health-care system.
The key challenge to
fixing health care is reducing the financial stresses on the system, he
says. By shifting the emphasis to include prevention as well as treatment,
Fickenscher estimates that the health-care industry could save trillions of
dollars and improve the quality of life for many.
Preventive health care
entails focusing on larger cultural issues such as lack of exercise, diet
and nutrition, and smoking. However, the current financial incentives for
medical practitioners encourage them to conduct medical tests to diagnose a
disease—but not to instruct their patients to eat healthier and exercise
more before health problems develop.
Fickenscher will speak
more on these critical issues at the World Future Society’s annual meeting
in Boston in July.
LEARN MORE
MORE FUTURIST GROUPS
SPECIALISTS VERSUS GENERALISTS: LESSONS FROM FIGURE SKATING
Questions about figure
skating’s future recently arose from 2010 Olympic silver medalist Yevgeny
Plushenko (Russia). In interviews following the competition, he observed
that the gold medalist, Evan Lysacek (USA), had failed to perform a
quadruple jump. Without proficiency in that maneuver, claimed Plushenko
(himself an Olympic champion in 2006), figure skating cannot progress as a
sport.
While many in the
(non-Russian) media dismissed Plushenko’s comments as sour grapes, he raised
an interesting issue: Should the sport (or any profession) value the
specialist above the generalist?
After the Salt Lake
City Games eight years ago, figure skating changed its scoring system to
eliminate (or at least reduce) national bias and corruption among the
judges. Now, all elements of a competitor’s program are to be scored,
minimizing the influence of spectacular jumps (which some argue are too
damaging to young athletes’ bodies anyway).
In this environment,
for Plushenko to claim that only the quadruple jump matters in skating would
be like saying only home runs matter in baseball. On a baseball team, there
may be many specialists: Without excellent pitching and precision fielding
to counter the sluggers at the plate, baseball games would always have
double-digit scores and last three days.
The difference is
that, in skating (and in many professional activities), there is no team of
specialists working toward a goal of general excellence. Rather, the
individual must strive to perform at the highest possible level in a variety
of specialties. Whether this ethos is sustainable for the future depends on
how highly we value specialized excellence—or how effectively we build our
teams.
More analysis from NBC
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OXFORD
SCENARIOS PROGRAMME
17-21 May or 6–10 September 2010, £4,750 (ex VAT) all
inclusive, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford.
This programme helps you identify the crucial drivers of
change shaping the wider context. With the future in mind, you will learn
how to develop strategies, policies or programmes to prepare your
organisation for tomorrow's turbulent and uncertain business climate.
DETAILS/CONTACT:
mailto:caroline.williams@sbs.ox.ac.uk
http://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/execed/strategy/scenarios
|
CLICK OF THE MONTH:
WEINER, EDRICH, BROWN, INC.
http://WeinerEdrichBrown.com
A fresh new look and
unique resources are featured on the Web site of this pioneering
business-future consultancy, led by chairman Arnold Brown, president Edie
Weiner, and vice president Erica Orange, all of whom have been frequent
contributors to WFS publications and conferences.
In the “From Our
Files” section, WEB offers five years’ worth of downloadable archived
working papers drawn from research analyses for their clients.
Don’t miss their
Futurist Glossary, showcasing ideas so unique that they require a new
vocabulary for futurists and trend watchers: e.g., “accumulous cloud”
(information accumulating in data-rich cloud computers) “betweenity” (time
between life stages), and “dividual” (a person fitting in more than one
demographic or lifestyle category).
NEWS FOR THE FUTURIST COMMUNITY
STRATEGIC FORESIGHT
SEMINAR: The University of Houston’s Strategic Foresight Seminar is an
intensive, five-day, project based workshop, running May 17-21. Sponsored by
the Futures Studies in Commerce program and conducted by Peter Bishop, the
seminar offers a certificate in strategic foresight. Registration is now
open, with seating limited to 25 participants.
DETAILS and REGISTRATION
* WRITING IN AND ABOUT THE FUTURE: The
Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland, will be hosting Creative Nonfiction’s
all-day conference on Writing the Future on March 20. Panelists include New
York Times interface specialist Nick Bilton, social publishing visionary
Richard Nash, and Lee Gutkind, author of
ALMOST HUMAN.
DETAILS
Editor’s note: Writers interested more in
writing about the future may also want to check out the Futurist Writer’s
Workshop at the
WFS conference in Boston
* CALL FOR PAPERS: THE
JOURNAL OF FUTURES STUDIES will be publishing a special issue February 2011
on “Path Breaking and Path Creation.” Editor Victor Tiberius is seeking
papers of 5,000 to 7,000 words offering insights on path dependence theory
and futures research.
DETAILS and SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
* HIGH SCHOOL ESSAY
CONTEST: The World Future Society is now accepting entries for its second
annual essay contest for high school students. Essays should explore the
impacts of trends on future career choices and what we can do to prepare for
the jobs of tomorrow. The winner will receive $300, a three-year membership
in the Society, and complimentary registration at WorldFuture 2010 in
Boston.
DETAILS
***************************************************
FUTURIST UPDATE: News
& Previews from the World Future Society is an e-mail newsletter published
monthly as a supplement to THE FUTURIST magazine. Copyright © 2010, World
Future Society, 7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 450, Bethesda, MD 20814, USA.
Telephone 1-301-656-8274; e-mail mailto:info@wfs.org Web site http://www.wfs.org
Editor: Cindy Wagner,
mailto:cwagner@wfs.org
Senior Editor: Patrick
Tucker, mailto:ptucker@wfs.org
Staff Writer: Aaron M.
Cohen
Network Administrator:
Jeff Cornish, mailto:jcornish@wfs.org
mailto:sechard@wfs.org
To subscribe, enter
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To unsubscribe or
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line.
The WORLD FUTURE
SOCIETY is a nonprofit, nonpartisan scientific and educational
association with a global membership. Regular membership in the Society,
including a subscription to THE FUTURIST, is $59 per year, or $20 for
full-time students under age 25. Professional and Institutional membership
programs are also offered; contact Society headquarters for details:
http://www.wfs.org
Networking with WFS:
Facebook:
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Membership required):
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