UDIA
Designing 2050: Creating 21st century
sustainable prosperity .
Concepts bank and tool kit.
Peter Ellyard
Preferred Futures Institute
9 March 2012
In this presentation I will cover three
broad themes. I will:
• Examine the big picture processes and trends of
current global change so that we can understand
emerging global arrangements, power shifts,
markets and ethics. In particular I will discuss how
how our climate and our future are being
endangered by our current behaviors.
• Explore what mindsets and behaviors are needed
to ensure future personal, organizational and
community success, and planetary sustainable
prosperity through to the year 2050- and including
a climate-safe future for all of us.
Parental legacies.
• A worthwhile life involves leaving a legacy to our children
and grandchildren and their generation that is greater
than the one we received from our parents.
• My parents generation sacrificed in war so that we might
live in peace.
• Leaving a legacy of inaction about climate change will
create lasting damage to our children’s and
grandchildren’s environment, pass the costs of our
negligence on to them and restrict their future options.
• My definition of a parent is one that works for a
generation to create a successful adult.
• When we shape the future we must always think time
frames as parents and consider the legacy we are leaving.
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We shape the future through six core processes:
Leadership : being a purposeful future-maker.
Management : being a resilient future-taker.
Planning : Applying the different forms of planning
(including land use, urban, community, transport, social,
financial, industrial and economic planning).
Design: Utilizing design based professions including
engineering, architecture, all forms of design (such as
industrial, systems, fashion and graphic design).
Innovation: developing new means (ways and wares) to
do old and current things better, and new things first.
Learning : increasing our knowledge and capabilities,
changing our mindsets and belief systems in order to
become more future effective, and discover new options,
possibilities and opportunities.
If you are involved in urban development
• Developers should use all of these six core processes to
shape the future not just some of them.
• You are in the business in creating legacies that outlast
you. Therefore your work should be to create outcomes
that are as future-relevant and future- resilient as they
can be. That means you need to visit the futurist within
you more often.
• Success goes to those who get to the future first (Gary
Hamel)
• What is also important is that these six processes should
be informed by the same body of values (paradigm)- and
discussing these values openly and building values
consensus is essential. More on values shortly.
As future-shapers we must regularly engage the futurist
embodied in each of us. This futurist in us is:
Part Prophet – who asks what will be the future?
the trend analyst who responds to perceived trends.
the way of the Manager in each of us.
Part Visionary- who asks what should/could be the
future?
 the imaginer of, and the dreamer about, the future.
 the way of the Leader in each of us.
The difference between these two parts of ourselves is
summarized thus:
Some people see things as they are and ask why, I see
things as they could be and ask why not! (George
Consider growth and development
• We are too occupied with growth
and not enough with development.
• Development is about
transformation into something
more appropriate for the needs of
the times. None of us want a 2
metre tall 80 kilogram baby .
Tool kit for being a 21st century successful shaper of the future.
• Be an effective manager-of-self and leader-of-self, being a resilient futuretaker and a purposeful future-maker
• Shape one’s life and career path though clarifying one’s destiny (through
insight), by consciously choosing or creating destiny appropriate
employment and life destinations (through foresight) and by examining
and learning from one’s derivation (through hindsight).
• Embody the values of Planetism, the emerging global paradigm which
requires that we give first priority to planet over nation and tribe, and
which will shape 21st century markets, ethics and jobs.
• Know how to initiate, nurture and amicably terminate interdependent
relationships.
• Practice lifelong, learner-driven, just-in-time and collaborative learning.
• Commit oneself to continuous innovation - doing both old things better
and new things first – creating ways and wares for emerging Planetist
markets.
If you want to consider legacy
Consider this question:
• Ten years after your death your
children and grandchildren are
standing at your gravesite/memorial
remembering you .
• In one sentence how are they
remembering you?
Part 1 : Global trends
Understanding the 21st century: where are
we now headed?
We can predict a great deal of what is ahead of us:
In preparing for the future, we can also predict:
 what products and services will be in demand in 2025 and beyond;
what new products and services and job categories will be present
then and which of those those present today will disappear
 what new industries need to be established and innovations created
to ensure our collective future prosperity;
 what new ethics and values will emerge; and
 what new skill sets and capabilities people will need, if they wish to be
successful in the future.
What follows is how we can do this:
We can understand how global trends are shaping
emerging markets, goods ,services and by tracking how
values shift.
 Values determine what people value and regard as
valuable.
 What people value and find to be valuable, they will
want to acquire more of.
 What they want more of will determine what they seek
in markets.
 What is sought in markets will shape emerging
innovations, products, services and technologies.
 I call the main innovations : Capacities and Capabilities
and Ways and Wares (more on these later)
Meanwhile a global conversation about
the year 2050 has commenced
• We are collectively concerned about what needs to be
accomplished for humanity to create a climate-safe world by 2050.
• This is two generations hence and it is worth celebrating that we
are having this conversation at all and thinking about agendas to be
accomplished two generations hence : humanity has not been
traditionally renowned for being far sighted and altruistic.
• Climate change is just one challenge , albeit an important
challenge, facing those would like to leave a legacy of opportunity
and possibility to their children and grandchildren which is greater
than the the legacy they inherited form their parents
• Two generations is about the right time-frame to consider these
issues, because it is both far enough away not to threaten any of
the current holders of political power, and yet close enough
because it involves visualizing a world which we can design and
construct where our own grandchildren and their generation can
thrive.
Asking a big 21st Century question
• If we are to create a global society which is
prosperous, sustainable, secure, harmonious and
just by the year 2050 what would the
components of a vision of such a future and
what would be on the list of strategic actions,
and how should humanity collaborate, to realize
this ?
• This is the purpose of the Designing 2050 process
- and my last published book Designing
2050(2008) and my new book Destination 2050
(2012)
There are three major drivers operating which are currently
shaping emerging 21st century society.
1. Globalisation : increasing interdependence and
interconnectedness such as through trade and investment and an
increasing awareness of our shared destiny and vulnerability. We
are signing many global agreements to help us manage our planet
better. We are increasingly recognising the oneness of humanity
and we are ceding independence as we appreciate the shared
synergies/benefits delivered through increasing interdependence.
2. Tribalisation : old empires are breaking up to form many smaller
tribal states, where we increasingly value and celebrate cultural
difference. We are simultaneously breaking old political imperial
arrangements and joining new political interdependent
arrangements. The number of members of the UN has doubled in
50 years and will continue to grow albeit more slowly.
3. Technological interconnectivity : the Internet, global
communications and global media are enabling us to collaborate
and become even more interdependent/interconnected.
More about Tribalisation. 1
• The old Russian empire –the Soviet Union - is now 15
separate nations.
• The old Serbian empire -Yugoslavia – is now 7 nations with
both Montenegro and Kosovo only recently gaining
independence from Serbia.
• The Javanese empire – Indonesia- is struggling with Timor
Leste already independent, and Aceh, and West Papua
amongst others seeking independence from Javanese
dominance and even repression.
• The Han empire – China – holds together and its future as a
single entity is far from certain. Tibetans and Uyghurs are
seeking independence and facing Han oppression when
they do. How many more non Han vassal states will
eventually follow?
• Question: when a dependent state seeks freedom and
democracy which side is global public opinion on? – eg
Libya, Egypt, Tibet.
More about Tribalisation. 2
• Lithuania for example was dependent of the Russian empire
the Soviet Union as a vassal state. All the important
decisions were made by Russians or by compliant
Lithuanians. With the fall of the Berlin Wall Lithuania
became independent. After a brief period as an independent
nation, it then sought interdependence by joining the
European Union
• Will Catalonia, the Basques, Scotland and Tyrol follow? They
will because each of these can now how have their cake and
eat it too. They can celebrate their own unique culture as a
tribal state but also have the benefit of belonging to a large
interdependent union based on mutual respect ,mutual
obligations and the collaborative pursuit of prosperity.
• Globalization and tribalization are interacting to reshape our
planet.
Globalization
 Is lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty and are
creating the massive growth of a global educated,
middle class.
 There are now 500 million educated, middle class people
in India and China alone. The educated middle class is
growing by the population of New York City every 3
months and in South, South East and East Asia it will
collectively reach 1.2 billion by 2020.
 By 2030 there will be at least one billion educated
middle class people living in tropical environments.
 Educated middle class people have similar values the
world over: want small families, tertiary education ,
democracy and to protect the environment for future
generations.
These educated middle class people are forming the core of an
emerging planetary society, a society which increasingly operates
oblivious to national jurisdictions.
 A single integrated a planetary society is being born.
 Our old arrangements of being separated into many
different tribal cultures which are often at war with one
another are disappearing.
 In its place is a single pluralistic planetary society is
emerging, which will be fully developed by the year 2050.
 This emerging society is becoming ever more integrated
and does not regard cultural and religious difference as
as a reason for disrespect and intolerance. Indeed the
opposite applies: difference is increasingly respected and
treasured.
Changes that had been under way for decades
sped up after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989
And we witnessed:
 The collapse of most command economies such as in
the Soviet Union (where economies are mostly shaped
by government investment).
 The global dominance of the market economy (where
economies are mostly shaped by customer choices) and
where purchaser choices and trade with others all over
the world world can now shape economic conditions
inside the border of a country as much as any action by
its government.
Globalization, tribalization and technological
interconnectedness are collectively:
 Weakening the power of individual nation states to shape both
the lives of their own people because they cannot influence
activities beyond their borders, while those beyond their borders
can influence the lives of citizens of particular nation states;
 Strengthening corporations because unlike governments they can
operate everywhere. The number of global corporations is
massively increasing in number. These corporations are both
commercial or non-commercial/humanitarian;
 Strengthening the growth of communities within nations,
because these communities can trade directly with the world
irrespective of national regulations, and communities of nations
such as the EU, ASEAN and Mercosur, because these provide their
people with both greater collective clout in global markets,
greater mutual prosperity through larger internal amrkets, and
better protection from unfair operations of the global
marketplace.
From the 20th century cowboy to the 21st century spaceship. 1
Modernism
• The 19th and early –mid 20th century were dominated by the
paradigm modernism.
• Modernism believed in replacing the old with the new simply
because it was new. Before it was replaced by the new the old
was declared to be ‘old fashioned’ and often treated with
contempt. People believed in Progress and established
progressive movements and progress associations which
promoted modernization. In the early 20th century people
uttered ‘you can stop progress’. ‘Progress’ to modernists was
innately good.
• Even though modernism was ubiquitous conflicts emerged about
the best means to realize modernity and this caused the great
ideological divisions of the 20th century- Communism versus
Capitalism , Fascism versus Socialism. These diverse approaches
all supported modernist ends, but the disagreements over the
means to be used to realize these ends polarized the 20th
century.
From the 20th century cowboy to the 21st century spaceship. 2
Modernism is challenged
• Modernist progress had a long shadow. In the name of
‘progress’ we ‘tamed’ and destroyed the environment and
eliminated, marginalized or assimilated indigenous cultures
and cultures deemed to be inferior as imperialism and
religious evangelism spread modernity around the world.
• As time passed the shadow caused by modernism became
too big to ignore and a backlash against it emerged.
• We began to begin to be ashamed by the things we did in
the name of modernity. The feeling which accompanied the
use of the phrase ‘you cant stop progress ‘ shifted from
enthusiasm, to resignation and then on the cynicism.
• This feeling was summed up perfectly by Joni Mitchell in her
song ‘Big Yellow Taxi’ In 1970, two years after the Earthrise
photographs, Joni Mitchell observed we now ‘paved
paradise and put up a parking lot’.
•
From the 20th century cowboy to the 21st century spaceship. 3.
Post Modernism
• Post modernism was born. We even began to change the
words we used to signify that we now value things which
we previously regarded as of having little or no value in
the modern era; swamps became wetlands, and slums
became heritage precincts.
• Post modernity believes we should keep past things of
value and integrate them with the new. So we retrofitted
heritage buildings with new facilities rather than
destroying and replacing them, we created new arts and
music by showing respect to, and even appropriating from,
the best of the old. We saw that acupuncture, yoga,
ayurveda and shiatsu can complement the latest medical
treatments rather than be treated with contempt as
‘quakery’ as we did in the modernist era .
• But post modernism is only a means for us to deconstruct
modernism and prepare us for what will follow it.
Consider what has happened over the last
three centuries:
• The 19th century was the century of dependence
- most people lived in colonies
• The 20th century was the century of
independence - the majority of people now live
in independent countries.
• The 21st century will be the century of
interdependence, where independence entities
voluntarily give up some of their independence
because of the benefit and synergy that comes
from union.
These three key relationships are also related
to levels of maturity.
 Dependence – childhood
 Independence – adolescence
 Interdependence – adulthood
 In the interdependent 21st century, we
all need to know how to initiate, nurture
and successfully end interdependent
relationships.
Interdependence
• In 1624 John Donne, the first high priest of social inclusion and
interdependence , wrote:
No man is an Island entire of itself. Everyone is part of the continent, part
of the main,
If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as much as if a
promontory were.
As much if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were.
Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.
• Donne was a prophet - reminding us nearly 400 years ago that we are
members of a single human family and our differences pale into
insignificance compared with our similarities. There were few
adherents to his view then. However in the early 21st century a huge
portion of humanity, including the global educated middle class, shares
Donne’s view.
Interdependence
 Interdependence is the key word to describe our emerging
21st century global society- our increasing political and
economic interdependence, and our increasing awareness
that we share an ecologically vulnerable planetary home,
and because we recognize that we have no choice but to
find ways to coexist and thrive together.
 The core principle of interdependence is that two or more
entities who are seeking to build a closer relationship
voluntarily should relinquish some of their independence
because of the benefit from union .
 Interdependent relationships are mature relationships.
 They require that we only have rights if there are reciprocal
responsibilities to others. Give and take must be balanced if
relationships of all kinds are to prosper. The world is
growing up!
In the second decade of the 21st Century
• We now are beginning to recognize that we are evolving towards a wholly
interdependent global society where political boundaries no longer limit the
role we can play in such a society. But we are also carrying with us into this
future values which might have have be appropriate when humanity was
divided into different often warring cultural and religious groups but are no
longer appropriate for the 21st century all of humanity faces together.
• We are are recognizing our collective interdependence means that we must
now give priority to community over individualism if these are in conflict.
This in turn means that our global dialogues now must focus on ‘what forms
of mutual coercion can we mutually agree upon’ (Garrett Hardin in The
Tragedy of the Commons). This is based on a recognition that in a 21st
century interdependent integrated global society there can no longer be
winners and losers, as was he case in the modernist era. Now we can only all
win together or we will all will lose together: unless we all can benefit
together there will be no agreement. This applies whether we are trying to
create effective global trading, financial and investment systems, solve the
challenge of climate change, deal with terrorism or organized crime, grow
global communications ,or protect other species from extinction.
However all this traffic is not one way. We saw this recently in the last
two weeks when national independence
temporarily triumphed over global /regional interdependence :
• We reached a partially satisfactory agreement in the climate
change conference in Durban . However all of us know that we
have much more to do and we have to achieve a binding global
agreement involving all nations very soon. The world will keep at
this until the right agreement is finally reached, and
• David Cameron did not sign up to a more financially integrated
Europe as he wanted to protect London’s position as a financial
capital and reward his Eurosceptic conservative heartland . He will
lose long-term for first he will endanger his coalition government,
second the Europeans will now work hard to grow Frankfurt as an
alternative financial centre, and third Scotland (and perhaps Wales
as well)- who do not benefit much from the accumulation of
wealth in SE England - will seek independence and secede from
Great Britain and join Europe on their own terms.
Not everybody is part of this process and some are unwilling to accept
its inevitability - eg Governments in Burma, Zimbabwe, Libya and
North Korea, and religious terrorists
However we are already sufficiently interdependent that we
can now collectively punish the Planetary rogues by :
trade bans;
customer boycotts often driven by the internet;
freezing their bank accounts;
Withholding investment.
The need for war to punish them is actually declining. And wars
are seldom fights to the finish any more but now are used to
position oneself for negotiation which global public opinion will
pressure both sides to undertake. If they don’t do this they will
be dragged before the International Criminal Court (ICC) which
will punish people who commit crimes against humanity such as
through genocide. In future those who commit crimes against
nature will also be brought before the ICC.
Imagine
 Finding ways to nurture interdependent relationships
by negotiating mutual obligations through the ceding of
some independence, so that we can mutually benefit
from the synergy that follows the development of a
mutually beneficial, interdependent relationship.
 Relationships can be enhanced through synergism (
2+2=5), but also be undermined by it’s opposite namely antagonism ( 2+2=3)
 Developing interdependence negotiation Ways and
Wares, which assist us to identify what forms of mutual
coercion we can mutually agree upon.
The interdependent relationship
st
is characterising the 21 century
Examples are:
 the personal adult relationship;
 The workplace;
 the supply chain;
 the loyalty scheme;
 the political union such as the EU or ASEAN; and
 our relationship with the environment.
 Aggregated purchasing utilizing supply chain
interdependence and loyalty will grow in emerging 21st
century society.
Before we initiate an interdependent relationship
The three questions we need to be able to answer if we are
to place our trust in another in an interdependent
relationship are :
 Is the other honest?
 Is the other reliable?
 Is the other competent?
 All our young must become experts in initiating,
managing and amicably ending interdependent
relationship
 Imagine innovations we can create to assess
honesty, reliability and competence.
Interdependence
 Interdependence is the key word to describe 21st century
global society- political, economic interdependence and the
recognition that we have no choice but to find ways to
coexist and thrive together.
 The core principle of interdependence is two or more
entities who are seeking to build a closer relationship
voluntarily relinquishing some of their independence
because of the benefit from union .
 Imagine trust-on-line innovations we might create to assess
whether the other is honest, reliable and competent before
consummating an interdependent relationship. I call these
honesty, reliability and competency assessment ways and
wares (more on ways and wares shortly)
Interdependence
• Interdependence is perhaps the most important
word to describe the essential nature of
emerging 21st century society.
• Our interconnectedness and interdependence
so magnificently prophesied by John Donne in
1624 is now a reality and recognized by most
people.
• The most amazing thing is that since 1960 we
have travelled half way to creating this
interdependent global society.
Interdependence is just one characteristic of 21st century
society.
• We can predict a great deal more about
emerging 21st century society.
• By doing this we can become much more
effective in preparing ourselves for future
success and we can prepare to maximize our
chances for future success by getting to the
future first.
• We can do this as individuals communities
,organizations and nations.
• Here is a summary of this historic paradigm
shift.
From the Cowboy Culture
/ Modernism (1960)
Priority to Nation
To the Spaceship Culture
/ Planetism (2020)
Priority to Planet
Individualism
Communitarianism
Independence
Interdependence
Autocracy
Democracy
Humanity against nature
Humanity part of nature
Development, production,
consumption, lifestyles Unsustainable
Development, production,
consumption, lifestyles Sustainable
Patriarchy
Gender Equality
Intercultural & inter-religious
Intolerance/Hostility
Intercultural & inter-religious
Tolerance/Harmony
Conflict Resolution through
Confrontation/Combat
Conflict Resolution through
Cooperation/Negotiation
Safekeeping through Defence
Safekeeping through Security
st
21
In the middle
century the
global marketplace
• Will want innovations (what I call ways and
wares) which deliver products and services
demanded by emerging Planetist markets such
as democracy, sustainability,
intercultural/inter-religious harmony, security
and gender equality.
• These will enable the creation of sustainable
prosperity in the 21st century
To prosper in 2030 and beyond we need to be better
innovators and understand innovation better
Ways : innovations (social innovations) in what we do
in order to achieve an objective. Changes to/new
behaviours, actions, strategies and cultures.
Wares : innovations (physical innovations) in what we
use in order to achieve an a objective. For example
new designs, products, services and technologies.
Most of the innovations – the ways and wares- that will
be selling in global markets the year 2030 and beyond
-and these will be Planetist markets-have yet to be
invented.
An example of Ways and Wares
We can define innovations – ways and wares- which do
not yet exist- but will need to exist in the future to realize
prosperous, sustainable, secure, harmonious and just
Destination 2050 by their purposes. Here is a current
example.
Water conservation way : shortening your shower from 6
to 3 minutes
Water conservation ware : a new low volume shower
head
Together they enable us to conserve water.
Imagine for example, some 21st century innovations such
as living within solar income ways and wares, free and fair
elections ways and wares, security ways and wares, interreligious harmony ways and wares, emotional intelligence
ways and wares.
Interdependence for UDIA
members
• Interdependence means that we must construct
win/win outcomes if we want continuing success.
Win/lose should be left for the sporting field today
and back in the 20th century
• Success will increasingly come more from
cooperation/ collaboration and less from
competition.
• Interdependence means that one of the winners
should be the communities in which you operate
as well as your immediate clients and customers.
Interdependence, Wealth and Prosperity
• Interdependence and collaboration will
increasingly be used to create wealth, and
independence and greed that does not recognize
the negative impact of self interest on others will
be increasingly disapproved and punished.
• And doing economically well will increasingly
require that you do social, ecological and cultural
good-the paradigm of global cosmonaut
capitalism, rather than while creating social,
ecological and cultural bad – the paradigm of
global cowboy capitalism.
The evolving global financial system 1
• The global investment and financial system is evolving.
Interdependence brings with it both more productivity
and more vulnerability particularly if we behave
irresponsibly in terms of the needs of others, like the
Greeks have recently done. And vulnerability can only
be overcome by even more interdependence- with its
concurrent mutual coercion/obligations . This has been
shown in the current Euro crisis and the opting out of
the UK from this increasing interdependence. The
majority of financial transactions are speculative- there
are many organisations such as hedge funds who are
only interested in treating the global financial system as
a casino. Will such organisations be advantaged or
disadvantaged by increased global integration?
The evolving global financial system 2
• The evolving system will increasingly operate under one
set of rules, and will force international responsibility on
all financial institutions, irrespective of where they are
and this will build further on the already existing Basel 2
and Basel 3. There has been a gradual demise of the
influence of many national currencies. This will lead to
the establishment of a world central bank and a single
global currency within 10-15 years, that is owned by both
everybody and nobody. So we won’t have to prop up
one currency that is also a national currency-such as the
US dollar-so that its role as a global exchange mechanism
can be retained. And there will certainly be taxes on
financial transactions (eg the Tobin tax) to discourage
speculative financial transactions
The evolving global financial system 3
• This increasingly vulnerable interdependent global
financial system has already been severely dislocated
by narrow self-interested financial corporations,
including by merchant banks and hedge funds. Those
financial corporations that resist broadening their
narrow self-interest into enlightened self-interest risk
becoming planetary pariahs. In particular global public
opinion and governments have already judged as
rogues many of those financial corporations that
operate selfishly for individual gain at the cost of
undermining and threatening the whole global
interdependent financial system. They are as being
judged as harshly and are being subjected to as much
collective global anger as is directed on autocratic
governments that continue to repress their own
people.
A 21st Century view of wealth, prosperity and sustainability
A recent manifestation of the already quoted poem of John Donne is
this story :
• A rich Chinese man recently told me why the rich should be much
more altruistic today and why, ultimately, narrow self-interest is
self-defeating. He said what is the point showering all my wealth
and love on my own children if one day my son, when walking down
the street is murdered by a poor man who wants to possess his
shoes. I am aware that I should contribute to the wellbeing of other
people’s children as well as my own.
• In an interdependent world we can best succeed by seeking to uplift
others as is already occurring through globalisation : with
interdependence we all prosper when more of us prosper.
• Therefore all organizations can position themselves for 21st century
success by being committed Planetists .
Wealth and Prosperity
Wealth Is a combination of the physical (resources)
which must be conserved and the metaphysical
(knowledge) which can only grow. (Ralph BuckminsterFuller)
In many cultures including in my own- Australia-there is
too much dependence on the physical component of
wealth generation and not enough conscious
development of the metaphysical component. Too many
people think that wealth comes from beneath the
ground, out of the soil, or off the hoof- rather than from
between the ears.
Prosperity and Poverty
• We know about economic prosperity and poverty.
• We can also have ecological, social and cultural
prosperity/poverty.
• If we cut down a rainforest we create economic prosperity,
albeit short term, while simultaneously creating ecological
poverty. Leaving the forest uncut we maintain ecological
prosperity and deliver economic poverty. Can we
simultaneously create ecological and economic prosperity?
• Similarly we can create economic prosperity while
simultaneously creating social and cultural poverty.
• If we are to create sustainable prosperity we need to be
able to create economic prosperity without simultaneously
impoverishing ecosystems, society and culture, and even
while creating more prosperity in these categories.
• In the the 21st century we can do economically well by doing
ecological, social and cultural good. Imagine achieving this.
Imagine Destination 2050 as a sustainable society
A sustainable society is a society which has
achieved sustainable prosperity.
Is a society which is capable of living indefinitely
on Spaceship Earth and which lives by planetist
values, as distinct from modernist values.
Gives first allegiance to planet over tribe or nation
It will be a society which is prosperous,
sustainable, secure, harmonious and just.
What ways and wares are needed to realise such
an outcome? – imagine sustainable prosperity
ways and wares.
What is sustainable prosperity?
It combines prosperity (wealth) of four different
kinds:
Economic prosperity
Ecological prosperity
Social prosperity
Cultural prosperity
It does not involve the increasing prosperity in
one form, whilst increasing poverty in another.
Economic Prosperity / Poverty
Involves generating wealth from 21st century
industries, enterprises, products and services.
70% of the industries, products and services of
the year 2030 have yet to be invented.
Many innovations (ways and wares) will be
needed to generate economic prosperity, while
simultaneously protecting, nurturing and
where necessary, restoring ecological, social
and cultural prosperity, and avoiding creating
ecological, social and cultural poverty.
Ecological Prosperity / Poverty
Here are six design rules for innovation/practices for
creating future ecological prosperity - imagine
developing ways and wares to:
 live within perpetual solar income.
 Turn waste into food .
 Create zero net collateral damage to the environment.
 utilise resources at Just-enough –in-place–an –time
(JEPT).
 Nurture and restore biodiversity and renewable
resources.
 learn from and/or mimic nature.
In the 21st century we will not increase economic prosperity
by : destroying the environment and creating ecological
poverty but by nurturing ecological prosperity (eg
biodiversity, landscapes, soil, water) while simultaneously
growing economic prosperity.
1. Sustainable design/practice = live
within perpetual solar income.
• That we should live within perpetual solar income was first suggested
by R. Buckminster Fuller in 1969. There is more than 10,000 times the
energy required to meet all our needs arriving daily from the sun as
solar energy. Those who invent and market the ways and wares to
enable us to utilize solar energy directly will become 21st century
billionaires.
• An example : One way we can do this is to utilize solar driven marine
hydro (ocean currents) which can complement lunar driven marine
hydro (tidal power/wave power). Solar energy can be converted into
electricity and then into hydrogen through water electrolysis.
Hydrogen can be piped into homes and industries , and converted JIT (
Just-in-time) into either thermal energy by burning, or electrical
energy via fuel cells.
• It would be possible for the whole of Perth to be powered from hot
rocks, direct solar, wind power and marine hydro. What could be the
role of UDIA in realizing this vision.
• Imagine solar energy ways and wares in all their forms?
2. Sustainable design/practice = turn
waste into food.
• That we should turn all waste into food was first
suggested by William McDonough in 1999. In nature
there is no such as waste. the waste of one species
provides the food of another.
• In the 21st century we should no longer practice the
problem centred-strategy of reducing waste, but
the mission directed strategy of abolishing waste
altogether the, by turning all waste into food
through reuse and recycling.
• Would could and should be UDIA’s role in creating a
zero net waste Perth and WA.
3. Sustainable design/practice = Operate with zero
net collateral damage.1
• I first suggest this in 1998. The concept of collateral damage
originated in the defence sector - meaning unintended damage
caused during a military operation caused a lack of precision.
• In medicine collateral damage occurs during surgical procedures
or other procedures such as administering chemotherapy -in
medical parlance these are unwanted side effects. This is
unsustainable medicine. Drugs are tested exhaustively to ensure
that collateral damage is minimized to acceptable levels before
they are introduced. Sustainable medicine would involve
performing a procedure with zero net collateral damage such as
using biotechnologies to trigger the immune system to overcome
cancer or introducing chemicals into the body such as drugs with
zero net collateral damage, Vaccines, for example, because they
act more precisely, represents a higher level of sustainable
medicine than treatment with drugs. However over time all
medicine is becoming more sustainable, because is is becoming
more precise.
3. Sustainable design/practice = Operate with zero
net collateral damage. 2
• In agriculture we use pesticides and their use harms many non
target organisms- in ecological parlance these are unintended
environmental impacts. This is unsustainable agriculture.
Sustainable agriculture or what is called evergreen agriculture
would occur when through biological control or gene
modification we kill the target organism with zero net collateral
damage to non-target organisms/the environment.
• Public health and safety can be regarded variations of the same
narrative of seeking to prevent/avoid/heal collateral damage to
people. Preventing health hazards and accidents can both also be
seen as forms of avoiding collateral damage. Creating a
sustainable and safe society are actually variations of the same
narrative.
• Zero net collateral damage recognizes that sometimes collateral
damage is unavoidable. In his case repair/restoration/healing of
damage to people/environments is required if the action is to be
regarded as sustainable.
4. Sustainable design/practice = use just
enough-in-place-and-time (JEPT)
• I first suggested this in 1998. Just-in-time (JIT) developed in
the manufacturing and retail sectors where supply chains
operate to provide needed goods and services just-in-time
for their use. This avoids accumulated stockpiles and
unnecessary waiting, and it is more cost effective/efficient.
• In naturally operating ecosystems, energy and nutrients flow
through the ecosystem and are available for use just when
they are needed, that is just-enough-in-place-and-time.
• In man made processes large amounts are present are time
and are excessive to need. For example fertilizers are added
to soil during agricultural production in excessive amounts
and are washed away by heavy rainfall thereby polluting
waterways and offshore waters with excessive nutrients.
Biological agriculture in contrast ensures that nutrients are
available when needed , as they are in natural ecosystems.
sources.
• All renewable resources such as water, soil,
biodiversity, individual species, or whole ecosystems
(both naturally occurring or modified into productive
systems such as in agriculture) can be conserved,
protected, restored and managed, in order to maintain
or restore prosperity, or alleviate poverty. Sustainable
use means we should utilize them in ways so that they
are not impoverished, including through collateral
damage.
• Imagine for example ways and wares for soil
conservation , soil restoration , soil protection, or soil
management to maintain or restore soil prosperity or
alleviate poverty and the same with water.
Sustainable Water Management requires many
new ways and wares in these four main areas:
• Water conservation: minimize water loss including by evaporation and
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seepage, prevent water wastage in communities, industry and agriculture, and
create sufficient storage to ensure water availability in varying climatic
conditions.
Water protection: ensuring water is not polluted by toxins and nutrients, and is
of the quality required for its intended use.
Water restoration: enable water to be used many times.
Watershed management: meet the ecological needs of rivers, wetlands and
lakes, protect soil, minimize the collateral damage caused by floods/droughts,
and deliver water JEPT when/where it is needed. Manage to maintain watershed
prosperity , or to restore prosperity /alleviate poverty
What could be the role of UDIA in creating a world leading water management
culture in the South West and Perth where rainfall is likely to decrease by 30% by
2050, if climate change is not adequately responded to.
In the north the future will be wetter . Development must be able to deal with
more cyclone and intensive rainfall events.
6. Sustainable design/practice = learn from
and/or mimic nature.
• Those who are inspired by a model other than Nature, a mistress
above all masters, are laboring in vain. – Leonardo da Vinci
• The biomimicry (or bioinspiration) revolution is just beginning. It
involves learning from nature: using biological systems as design
templates/modules to construct new technologies and innovations,
develop new ways of processing and producing goods and services,
and create new approaches to organizational management and
behavior. It is based on the the thesis that living organisms have
been successful at thriving in the environments in which they live,
unlike the more than 90% of animals and plants that have ever
existed that are now extinct. Biological models are informing many
new innovations- such as burrs that inspired the invention of velcro,
or the surface structure of lotus flowers that lead to the creation of
self cleaning windows. Ecosystem structure and behavior is now
informing the next wave of the development of the Internet – the
emerging concept of digital ecosystems.
Social Prosperity/Poverty
 Social prosperity involves creating ways and wares
which :
Enhance social and community cohesion and conviviality-in
the three kinds of communities described below, including
through shared visions and strategies to create the future.
Provide economic security through work and opportunity.
Enable universal life long/learner driven learning
Supply adequate universal shelter.
Facilitate healing from illness and opportunity/capability to
realise wellness.
Ensure the pursuit of individual rights/benefit does not
encroach on/limit community rights/benefit.
 Social poverty occurs when many of these are absent
and communities have lost cohesiveness and have
even become dysfunctional.
Cultural Prosperity / Poverty
 Involves the nurturing and celebration of cultural
heritage and diversity and the realisation of inter-cultural
and inter-religious tolerance, respect and harmony.
 Utilising cultural prosperity as a generator of economic
prosperity. eg cultural tourism
 Involves global/ national arrangements which mitigate
against actions which increase cultural poverty
 As the world integrates into a single global society,
cultural differences are ever more treasured and
celebrated (eg. world music, world food courts, cultural
tourism).
 Conflict between cultures and religions impoverishes
culture. Intercultural and inter-religious harmony are
essential if the world is to realise sustainable prosperity
by 2050. Here is an example of how creating cultural
prosperity can also create economic prosperity.
Defence, Security and Peacemaking
• We use the word defence when it has become a much less
relevant concept in an increasingly interdependent 21st
century when win /loss outcomes need to be replaced by
win/win outcomes- outcomes that build interdependence,
for increasing interdependence is the major peacebuilding
strategy in the 21st century.
• The concept of defence is based on the view that our
threats are external and involve attempts of conquest
across national boundaries, and because previously nations
were mostly unicultural .
• Our threats are now mostly internal, and our world is now
both more interdependent and more multicultural.
• We now need much less defence but we do need more
security and peacemaking/peacebuilding
Innovations to improve Security and
Peacemaking/Peacebuilding
21st Century Security requires:
• Intelligence and vigilance ways and wares.
• Response to threat ways and wares that also create
zero net collateral damage.
21st Century Peacemaking/Peacebuilding requires :
• Peacemaking Intervention ways and ware that
create zero net collateral damage.
• Trade ban, account freeze, consumer boycott ,ways
and wares to punish rogue states and leadership.
• Trust building, Negotiation, Intercultural and
interreligious tolerance/harmony ways and wares.
• Win/win outcomes ways and wares to replace
win/loss ways and wares.
Part 2: Mindsets for shaping the
future and prospering in an
emerging Planetist 21st Century
Future-taking and future-making
• Developers are by nature purposeful future-makers. Many
of their struggles are with future-takers who feel
threatened in their vision, or with future-makers who
have an alternative vision.
• In an interdependent 21st century success will go to those
who dialogue and collaborate with theirs critics and seek
is win/win outcomes. Developers in a interdependent 21st
century will not succeed if they embody the 20th century
win/ lose values of the white shoe brigade.
• To be successful 21st century future-makers we should
understand the six different ways we think about the
future, and the difference between the manager in us and
the leader in us.
The 6 Ps of the Future 1
1. Plausible-future : What could be our future? What alternative
initiated externally scenarios are foreseeable? Plausible prediction.
Plausible pathways
 What could be our future prospects: what plausible-future shaping
events can we imagine? What externally driven alternative
scenarios for the future can we imagine?
Alternative scenario( plausible-future) planning conducted by itself
ignores the fact that we are not helpless, and can actually shape
the future and that have aspirations within us about our future .
2. Particular-future: What alternative pathways could realise a
particular future? – Particular prediction. Particular pathways
•
We might be concerned about a particular future event occurring
in the future, such as a particular threat or opportunity. We might
then seek to examine the different means or scenarios- particular
pathways - that might realise this particular-future.
The 6 Ps of the Future 2
3. Probable-future : What will be our future?. The vision of the
manager within us. Probable prediction , Probable pathways
 Where are the collective forces shaping our future (current trends)
taking us? What will our future be if we continue with business-asusual. What will be the consequences if we continue on our
current pathway, and don’t consider alternative destinations?
4. Prospective-future : What will our future be now? : the probablefuture after circumstances change . Prospective prediction ,
Prospective pathways
 What will be the the future if on our journey to a probable-future
we are confronted by altered environmental conditions -and new
circumstances are moving us from the probable-future towards
new prospective destinations ? prospective-future = probablefuture +plausible-future
The 6 Ps of the Future 3
5. Preferred-future : What should/could be our future? The vision
of the leader within us. Preferred prospect, Preferred pathways
 What do I aspire for myself/ourselves or what could I/we
realize? What is my/our dream?
 If you don’t have a dream , how you gonna have a dream come
true ? (Oscar Hammerstein 3rd)
6. Possible-future : How much of the preferred-future is realizable?
The preferred -future when circumstances change an /or
capacity/knowledge is limited. Possible prospect , Possible
pathways
 What destination is possible, given we have limitations to
resources/knowledge/capacity, and/or because circumstances
and conditions have changed . These circumstances can be
predicted and anticipated as plausible-futures. Possible future
= preferred future + plausible-future
The Manager in each of us is
A change-taker
A future-taker
A path-taker
Imagine a resilient future-taker
The Leader in each of us is
A change-maker
A future-maker
A path-maker
Imagine a purposeful future-maker
Managers ‘V’ Leaders
Manager
Leader
Responds to change: reactive
Creates & shapes change: proactive
Future-taker: path-taker: change-taker
Future-maker: path-maker: changemaker
Cautious about risk
Careful about risk
Does the thing right
Does the right thing
Guided by fate
Guided by destiny
Controls actions and events
Facilitates actions and events
Works in the organisation
Works on the organisation
Prophet: informed & motivated by
Visionary: informed & motivated by
understanding & predicting trends, and imagining the future & the future self,
asking why?
and asking why not?
Probable-futurist: asks what will the
future be like?
Preferred-futurist: asks what
should/could the future be like?
Problem-centred strategist
Mission-directed strategist
The 6 Cs of the leaders heart :
What the leader in us is:
1. Confident : having self belief but without hubris
(Masculine, Animus, Yang)
2. Courageous: going where others dare not,
overcoming self interested opposition (Masculine,
Animus, Yang)
3. Committed: doing what must be done, being
assertive not aggressive (Masculine, Animus, Yang)
4. Considerate: listening and responding to the
opinions and views of others (Feminine, Anima, Yin)
5. Courteous: showing respect in conversation (Feminine,
Anima, Yin)
6. Compassionate: responding with empathy to
victims/disadvantaged (Feminine, Anima, Yin)
The 6 Vs of the Leader in action .
The leader should be capable of :
Vision. Motivating/inspiring /mentoring inspiring visions.
 What will be/should be our destination, our
probable-future/preferred-future?.
Values. Elucidating core organisational values.
 What values/ethics - both good and bad, currently
guide our behaviour?
Virtues. Promoting virtuous organisational behaviour.
 What values/ethics should we consciously promote in
our future behaviour and how do we best do this?
Venturers. Recruiting/inspiring/empowering supporters
 Who will be, and how do we empower and create
effective Champions (internal supporters of the
leader) and Allies (external supporters of the leader)?
The 6 Vs of the Leader in action .
The leader should be capable of : 2
Voyages. Identifying/stimulating/facilitating strategic
actions.
 What strategic actions should we facilitate; impediments
overcome, improvements made, initiatives taken (collectively
the 3is), heritage nurtured and baggage eliminated.
Vehicles. Developing capacity and capability, fostering
innovation.
 What additional resources/skills are needed?: capacities
(resources), capabilities (skills and capabilities).
 What social innovations ,including new actions/
behaviours/ethics should we develop/introduce?: Ways
 What physical innovations, including new products/
services/technologies, should we develop/introduce?: Wares
The five Dialogues
Destiny, Destination & Derivation dialogues
The first three dialogues are:
1.Destiny dialogue (Insight)
Destiny = aptitude + passion. The secret to a successful life is
to understand what is one’s destiny to do and do it (Henry
Ford)
2.Destination dialogue (Foresight)
Vision : Envisioning preferred future/possible future
destinations.
3.Derivation dialogue (Hindsight)
Heritage: What priceless elements in my past- my journey
until now should I treasure, nurture and include in our plans
moving forward?
Baggage: What now unwanted elements from the past are
still with us that we must change, modify or eliminate so that
our past experiences do not undermine our future journeys?
Communities
• In the future your relationship with the
‘community sector’ will become more and more
complex.
• You will succeed best if you seek to construct
interdependent relationships with the
community sector and this means constructing
win/win outcomes in everything you do.
• There are now three different kinds of
communities: locational , experiential and
aspirational communities .The strategies you need
to deal with each of these differ.
Three Communities: Locational Communities: A Shared
location. 1
• This is what most of us know as the original concept of community.
Locational communities are bonded because its members live
together. These can be like a set of Babuska Russian Dolls with each
one being located within a larger locational community. Some of
our communities can be: our home, our neighborhood, our suburb,
our workplace, our city/town, our nation, our planet.
• For success you must be seen to be a community member
constructing win /win outcomes that affirms your loyalty to
community
• When you face NIMBY type responses to your proposals you will
need to dialogue with them them as an aspirational communityfor they are fearing the future implications.
Three communities: Locational
Communities: A Shared location 2
• Some times our loyalty to these various
communities might cause conflict and we must
then choose to which community we should give
our primary allegiance. We might live in a town
with an industry that is contributing to climate
change. But as of a member of the planetary
community we also recognize that if the planet is
to thrive we might have to close /transform such
an industry that until now has sustained us
economically.
Three communities 3. Experiential communities: A
shared past/present.
• Experiential communities are bonded by shared
experiences, including shared past traumas or successes,
or by shared heritage. We might belong to a community
of ex-students of a school or be supporters of a particular
football club. Experiential communities can be co-located
or its membership could be spread widely. Cultural and
religious diasporas are good examples of experiential
communities, as are old school networks. In a rapidly
globalizing world these communities are growing
massively.
• You can deal with these by helping them celebrate their
past and present, and to keep their community thriving in
what you design , plan and build.
Three communities. Aspirational communities.
A shared future.
• Aspirational communities have shared aspirations/goals.
They are bonded because they have a common cause or
have a shared vision of the future. All movements for
social change, all environmental groups, all businesses
who want to improve- are aspirational communities.
Members aspire and collaborate to realize a
preferred/possible-future and are not happy to settle for
a probable-future, of more of the same.
• Dealing with them you can dialogue with them about how
you can construct a shared future together that continues
to celebrate difference while building a shared future for
as experiential communities.
Three communities. 4
• Experiential communities and locational communities are
predominately future-taking communities. They are often
apprehensive about, and reactive to, future change and need to be
reassured by words and deeds-and consulted and respected.
Aspirational communities are future-making communities. They are
often passionate and purposeful about the future. They seek
win/win outcomes and want to be proactively involved in design,
planning and innovation activities . If they cannot see a win/win
outcomes they will seek win/loss with them as winner.
• If a locational or experiential community is in decline with a
discouraging probable-future, it can transform itself into an
aspirational community that seeks to envision/realize a
preferred/possible-future. Future success can be assured by adding
aspiration to experiential and locational communities, or by
creating communities that embody all three forms of community.
Learning in the 21st Century
Learning is one of the most critical things
we do to prepare for future success
What should be done to ensure that
education and learning plays the most
effective possible role in shaping the future?
Here also are some thoughts on the future
of teaching.
Imagine Education systems that :
• Utilizes Destiny dialogues (insight), destination dialogues
(foresight) and derivation dialogues (hindsight) to assist in
the development of life and career paths . These could be
used by counselors and students at points of entry and
reentry into education, and for career path and professional
development planning.
• Keeps educational records of all people –an educational
equivalent to a medical record, so that the learning/ case
history record travels with students throughout their
lives/careers and ensures that learning is customized for the
learner.
• Eliminates of the last vestiges of the traditional one-size-fitsall educational model derived from Fordist/Taylorist mass
production/ manufacturing.
• Imagine also the ways and wares we need to invent and
market to bring this about.
Education and Learning
• The emerging Planetist 21st century has only been
possible because of the widespread of public education
and the growth and spread of prosperity through
globalization.
• This has enabled enough people to look beyond tribal
and religious difference to recognize the oneness of
humanity, and that we share a common planetary
home and shared interdependent future.
• The adoption of Planetist values is strongest among
educated people and societies with universal
education.
• However education and learning is also critical if we are
to prepare people to become 21st Century successful
people in both life and work.
Learning for the jobs of the future.
Continuous learning is at the centre of professional
development and career path planning. In this we should :
• learn to become better shapers of the future, that is
better learners, leaders, managers, designers, planners
and innovators.
• Become resilient future-takers and purposeful futuremakers, develop the 6Cs and 6Vs in ourselves, utilize the
5Dialogues/3Sights to chart and make pathways into the
future, and the 5Ps of the future in our work and life.
• But besides what we learn also need to understand how
each of us learns best. We can create an appropriate 21st
century learning culture, and recognize that all our
learning can be done this way.
Introducing a 21st century Learning Culture
We need to create a learning culture appropriate for the
21st century, which ensures that all assume responsibility
for their own vocational learning and personal
development throughout their whole lives.
 This proposed learning culture has 8 elements and each
makes use of 21st century teaching, learning and
technological advances.
 Each of these should be realised in detail through the
innovation and marketing of ways and wares for each
component.
Can you imagine some of these ways and wares?
The 21st Century Learning Culture. 1
Lifelong learning. Continuously utilising up to 10% of one’s
time to prepare for success on one’s future life and work,
and for future organisational success.
Learner driven learning. Learning initiated and managed
by the learner, not the teacher/mentor, through the
utilisation of learner driven learning technologies.
Just in time learning. Providing the opportunity to learn
through curiosity and when the need for knowledge is
greatest, including from remote sources, at home & in
formal learning /work environments.
Customised learning. Being able to learn more effectively
because all learning opportunities and processes are
customised to suit different learning and thinking styles.
The 21st Century Learning Culture. 2
Transformative learning. Designing learning for, and
assessing the success of learning by, the transformation of
students, because the transformation of people rather
than the acquisition of knowledge is the major purpose of
education.
Collaborative learning. Designing learning
environments/processes to ensure learning is as effective
in groups as it is for individuals.
Contextual learning. Providing a context to maximise
learning by locating learning in real life and virtual real life
environments which make learning more effective.
Learning to learn, think and feel . Improving the capability
to learn ,think and feel- via multiple intelligence learning
Imagine:
• Creating and marketing new Ways and
Wares to facilitate each of these
aspects of the 21st century learning
culture.
• What changes to learning and teaching
are needed to implement it?
21st Century relevant teaching.
• 21st Century relevant teaching will involve the
teacher/provider playing three different roles:
• The knowledge navigator: Navigating students to sources of
data and information so that they acquire it through learnerdriven, just-in-time, customized means.
• The mentor :Mentoring and inspiring the learner to
transform data and information gathered from a wide range
of sources into knowledge and wisdom. Provide them with
simulated working and experiential environments to
contextualize learning for more effective personal
development and to prepare for emerging opportunities.
• The case manager/life and career path counsellor: Providing
guidance to ensure that learning effectively fosters the
realization of personal development and career path
aspirations.
•
An Enterprising Individual:
• Has a positive, flexible and adaptable disposition towards
change, seeing it as normal and as an opportunity, rather
than a problem.
• Has a security born of self-confidence and is at ease when
dealing with insecurity, risks, difficulty and the unknown.
• Has the capacity to initiate creative ideas, develop them
and see them through into action, in a determined
manner.
• Is able, even eager, to take responsibility and is an
effective communicator, negotiator, influencer, planner
and organiser active, confident and purposeful, not
passive, uncertain and dependent. (Colin Ball)
Enterprise Skills
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Here are some of the capabilities that enterprising people excel in:
Assessing strengths and weaknesses.
Making decisions.
Working co-operatively in teams and groups.
Planning time and energy.
Carrying out agreed responsibilities.
Negotiating.
Dealing with power and authority.
Solving problems.
Resolving conflict.
Planning and managing projects.
Coping with stress and tension.
Creating one’s own health/wellness.
Evaluating performance.
Communicating both verbally and non-verbally.
Developing strategic visions/action plans for self and others.
Intervening strategically and systematically to shape the future.
Modified from and based on the work of David Turner
Imagine enterprise skills ways and wares
Envisioning and realizing successful ageing.
• There is no vision of what an optimal ageing society could or
should be, and future-taking rather than future-making
dominates discourse and actions relating to ageing.
• The way we deal with aging is the way we deal with most
things in cultures that are dominated by problem-centred
thinking. We look at the emerging problems caused by aging
and then seek to eliminate or abate them. This will merely
create ageing that is less unsuccessful, not successful. Just as
wellness is more than an absence of illness, and sustainability is
more than an absence of unsustainability, successful ageing is
more than an absence of unsuccessful ageing.
• If we are not aging successfully- what then would a vision for
successful ageing look like and what would be the core
elements of a vision and a strategic action plan to create
successful ageing?
• A program for successful ageing should include visions and
strategic actions at both the individual and community levels.
Successful ageing for individuals will occur if the
aged :
• Are purposeful future-makers as well as resilient
future-takers. This is a good time to undertake
destiny, destination and derivation dialogues to
decide how one might spend one’s life as productively
and happily as possible.
• Review and reposition their work - doing what gives
meaning to ones life- and, if they wish, turning this
into their employment, including part time.
• Have a clear vision of their preferred legacy - what
meaningful gift to future generations, including their
own children and grandchildren, they would like to
bequeath to future generations. This assists the aged
to define an expanded role for themselves as elder or
mentor.
Successful ageing can involve:
• Indian Summer Adulthood (ISA) is the name I have given to the
period after the end of full time work where one is still able to
live a fully independent life. This can now last for several
decades and remarkably little thinking has gone into
envisioning how this part of life can become both more
enriched for aged people and more enriching for the society in
which they live .
• Until recent times our thinking about this ISA period has been
totally dominated by medical models. There is virtually no
discussion anywhere about what
• In the next decade public policy must be directed towards
ensuring ISA people are able to live fulfilled lives, through a
personally customized mix of part-time work and recreation,
while still contributing to national wellbeing when they wish to
through part-time paid and volunteer work, and while
maintaining their own economic self-reliance through
superannuation.
Indian Summer Adulthood
• Among the roles that ISA people could play are expanded
social/community roles such as elderhood and mentoring of the
young in initiation- transformation into adulthood-programs in
secondary schools. This could include formal certification of
elderhood by the education system for the widespread introduction
of elder mentoring into schools and workplaces.
• However as one ages continuous adaptation to change and the reenvisioning of one’s preferred-future/possible -future pathways is
also needed.
• During ISA times, the ability to live the lifestyle of earlier years is
increasingly tested. Some doors might close because of disability
and/or disadvantage, but other doors can be identified and new
directions of personal development and fulfilment can be charted
and travelled. The 3Ds can assist one to develop these new life
purposes. If such new purposes are not clearly found and realized
ageing is not likely to be successful.
Indian Summer Adulthood
• is also a time for people to pursue long postponed
aspirations, create pathways to new interests,
build new relationships, and identify and access
new meliors to improve their wellness. What could
call the successful ageing industry is emerging to
provide for these needs.
• However there still an absence of conceptual
frameworks and coherent visions to first imagine
and then develop a successfully ageing society.
• This should be a priority in all cultures
experiencing ageing. Once a conceptual
framework and vision has been created there will
be possible to imagine and create successful aging
ways and wares.
Imagine Indian Summer Adulthood Ways and
Wares that provide:
• Aged and disabled worker support enabling them to stay in work post
the formal retirement age should they choose to .
• Effective working from home and from wherever an aged person is- a
lightweight mobile office for grey nomadism.
• Mobility for the aged that facilitates mobility equivalent to that
experienced in middle age.
• Healing and wellness for the aged delivered at home.
• Shopping from home with home delivery .
• A wide variety of home services for fulfilled living for aged people.
• Learning, both professional/vocational and general, customized for aged
people .
• We can collectively all these successful aging ways and wares. Clearly
many of these are already in the market, demanded as they are by the
rapidly growing market for goods and services that are customized for
ageing people who want to live more fulfilled lives. However, again it is
important that there be a coherent vision and strategy for realizing
successful ageing. Without this we will continue on our ad hoc way
towards inventing 21st century successful ageing. Society can do much
better than this.
During Indian Summer Adulthood (ISA)
• More and more people travel and become tourists
and pursue other activities that they have yearned to
do for years, and that were long postponed during
the years of full time work.
• Grey tourism and Grey nomadism generally are now
major components of tourism business. A
considerable amount of it would be categorized as
aged customized ecotourism and cultural tourism.
• What does travel/ tourism customized for ISA people
look like? What new grey tourism ways and wares can
you imagine?
The Reinvention of Elderhood and mentoring
• There is a growing movement to deal with adult immaturity
through the reinvention of Initiation during the middle years of
secondary school to ensure that all our young achieve successful
adulthood.
• This in turn requires the reinvention of Elderhood and a new major
role for Elders in society as mentors.
• Imagine two new qualifications- one a certificate to record the
successful transformation from childhood into adulthood, and
another to record the certification of Elderhood.
• In the coming decades there will certainly be a massive emphasis
placed on workplace elderhood/mentoring. When people ‘retire’ a
great deal of knowledge and wisdom walks out through the
workplace door. We are on the threshold of creating a group of
elders as wisdom workers who will assist stretched workplace
management and leadership to be resilient future-takers and
purposeful future-makers. Organizations of all kinds will work to
ensure that this knowledge and wisdom remains available through
workplace elderhood/mentoring.
Take the noun ‘Elder
• How many adjectives can you imagine in front
of the world elder? eg. mediation elder,
meditation elder, wellness elder, workplace
learning elder, urban design elder, democracy
elder?
• In doing so you will help invent the elder and
mentoring profession in the 21st century and
assist older people to play a significant role in
society should they seek to do so.
Technological revolutions
• Five transforming generic technologies have shaped
development and created economic prosperity over the
last two centuries : water-powered mechanization, steampowered mechanization, electrification, motorization and
computerization.
• Technology is one of the key sources of new innovations
both in terms of ways and wares . Technology is influencing
both problem-centred innovation-doing old things better,
and mission-directed innovation-doing new things first.
• A high proportion of the new wares and some of the new
ways which will be developed to supply emerging Planetist
markets between now and 2050 will be based on five
additional generic technologies, namely the digital
technologies , biotechnology, biomimicry and
bioinspiration, nanotechnology and new materials
technologies.
1. Digital Technologies
1.
•
The digital technological revolution of cybertechnologies and communications
technologies. Cybertechnology consists of IT, (information technology ) and
its emerging 21st century descendents KT (knowledge technology) and WT
(wisdom technology).
Cybertechnogy also involves the conversion into a common digital language all
of the product of human creativity: writing and language, the visual arts, music
and sound, the performing arts, film and video, all aspects of culture, and this
digital content embodied in the work of professions including designers,
planners, architects, engineers, medical researchers, economists and other
social scientists, and natural scientists. This permits the synthesis of all forms
of current creative expression and the creation of new forms. It enables the
transmission of this synthesized digitized product around the world through a
coalescence of the cybertechnology and communications technologies, and
the access to, and trade in, just-in-time digitized products and services from
virtually anywhere on the planet through cloud computing.
Planning with data, information,
knowledge and wisdom
 Data + purpose = Information
 Information + culture = Knowledge.
The same Information embedded in different cultures
becomes different knowledge. Describe your own working
culture.
 Knowledge + experience + reflection = Wisdom
What proportion each of information ,knowledge and
wisdom respectively do you use in your work?
The future of IT





We are drowning in data and information
We are starving for knowledge and wisdom
Therefore we need not only DT and IT
We also need KT and WT
The future of IT involves the creation of KT
and WT for Planetist markets.
 Imagine KT and WT.
What ways and wares would you need to create
this ?
When one of your best people resigns
 The data and information stays behind in the
technology.
 The knowledge and wisdom walks out the door.
 Name :
 a quality, facility or opportunity which could be
added that would enable knowledge and wisdom to
be retained; and
 Identify the baggage which should be eliminated.
 Identify some ways and wares to achieve both of
these?
When
 When you ask a question of
knowledge, you get an answer back.
 When you ask a question of wisdom,
you get another question back.
 Imagine knowledge and wisdom online.
 Imagine KT and WT ways and wares
2. Biotechnology
• The biotechnology revolution is a result our increased
understanding of the human genome and of proteomicswhich involves manipulating the translation of genetic
information into proteins.
• Among the critical proteins are the enzymes-organizers
and controllers of all biochemical pathways and the
structural proteins, such as skin and muscle, present in
all living things .
• Biotechnology enables us to strategically intervene in
biochemical and physiological processes to change
outcomes such as preventing and curing disease of
humans ,animals and plants, and transforming biological
systems such as photosynthesis, respiration and protein
synthesis in order to produce new products and energy.
3. Nanotechnology and new materials technologies
• Nanotechnology - based on the minaturization of
processes/products down to a billionth of a metre. At this
scale the nanotechnologies can operate on molecules
directly for they are of the same scale as the molecules
that they are manipulating. At this scale systems behave
in a different way to what they do when their scale is
larger, often for example obeying quantum rather than
Newtonian behavior.
• Nanotechnology can be used to create many new
materials and devices with a vast range applications of
such as in medicine, and veterinary medicine, agriculture,
electronics, and energy production.
• Biotechnology is in fact an organic nanotechnogy, so
nanotechnogy can be either organic or non organic
(physical) or a combination of the two, and combined with
other technologies such as ceramic materials.
4. Materials science and technologies
The materials developed by a culture have often been seen as
so significant that it is used to describe the culture itselffor example stone age, bronze age, iron age. In the 21st
century the rapid explosion in technological development
has meant that this is no longer as true. However the
influence of new emerging material is also shaping our
world is still every bit as significant. In the early 21st
century we have industrial ceramic materials , and carbon
based materials such as polymers, strong carbon fibres ,
biomaterials, semiconductor materials and metallic alloys.
Now in the 21st century we have many materials including
industrial ceramic materials , silicon materials (as in chip
technology) semiconductor materials , magnetic materials,
polymers, and medical implant materials . New materials
science and technology now seeks to create specific
materials designed and customized to fulfill specific
objectives.
Connections
peter@preferredfutures.org
www.designing2050.com
www.peterellyard.com
www.preferredfutures.org
www.saxton.com.au
www.debii.curtin.edu.au