History and Trend Forecasting = Imagineering!

Jori, your humble servant here holds two degrees in history: B.A. in British (focus on Industrial Revolution) and M.A. in Canada (focus on Industrial Revolution). Therefore, he is always pleased when students mine the technique of historical analysis in trend forecasting for their own purposes. Futuring and History are the same process. Both imagine. We use evidence to image the past - which is no longer here. We use evidence to imagine the future - which is not yet here! My study of history was a superb tranining in imagination application - or "imagineering." At the time, I was not aware of trend forecasting as a discipline, for it was just starting to emerge. I am delighted to see the overlaps!

Canada Has Not Dismanted Its Progressive Heritage

Charles, the "robber barons" have an equivalent today. We call them the Wall Street "banksters" or "vampires" who have sucked the blood out of our economy. We are still going to pay dearly for this economic terrorism. The gangster politicians in Washington have used taxpayer funds to bail out the corrupt banks, and not a single "robber baron" on Wall Street has gone to prison, except for Madoff, a token gesture. This is why we have a new definition of "justice" in America. It is "just us." The last time this happened was during the start of the 1900's. One response to the corporate gangsters was the Progressive movement, which called for regulation of business to protect society and unions to protect workers. The Progressives laid the foundation for Roosevelt's New Deal. This writer is proud to say he lives in the hometown of Robert M LaFollette, one of the greatest Progressive leaders at that time - or ever. He saw that the two-party system in his day, as in ours, was / is corrupt. So he and others in this country formed a Progressive party to advance reforms. We are on the verge of a Second Progressive Movement as local people realize they must now protect themselves from the gangsters on Wall Street and in Washington. We are on the verge of history "repeating."

Last night your humble servant here in fact attended an organizational meeting here in LaFolleete's hometown on "grassroot networks" to organize the foundation for a new Progressive Movement. He plans to engage with this Movement, for it requires public policy research and education. The research and education interest me, and this writer has no desire to organize a political party. Yes, we are moving into a time of "reset," and we can look to the first Progressives who pushed back against the "robber barons" of their day to establish, for example, regulation of utility costs to prevent power companies and phone companies from gouging the average person who needs such services to literally stay alive today. I am proud to say I served on an advisory board to the Wisconsin State Public Utility Commission for eight years. The Commission regulates phone rates, power rates, railroad rates, etc. to protect the average person, the middle class, from economic terrorism. LaFollette and the Progrssive created this Commission. I am also proud to say that I now share the hometown of Robert M. LaFollette as my new hometown. At our meeting last night I reminded the others of the "spirit" of LaFollette and how our Progressive heritage calls us to duty once again. Dr. Rux

Canada and American Institutional Failure

How will the very real risk of institutional failure in the USA impact Canada?  Look for a surge of refugees heading north for safety, stability, protection, and a productive life.  How will Canada respond?

Matt, Alex Jones and others “sell tickets” through extreme statements to grab your attention. On the other hand, this writer believes we are risking “institutional failure,” a situation in which people lose confidence in the (not their) government. Then a vacuum opens; nobody knows for sure what steps into it? Germany had such a vacuum in the 1929-1933, because of the Wall Street vampires. Now fast forward to our time. The Wall Street vampires – and their political gangster allies in Washington – have created a $17 trillion debt, which they will fund with fake money. Enter financial collapse. Yes, we face unrest, civil war in the streets, and a police state response. The challenge now is to have reserves to get out of the way as best we can. We are like dogs that face an approaching attacker. We can fight or flight. This writer is in the flight mode, the safety mode, the keep your head down approach. We cannot save a system from destroying itself. The best we can do is avoid having the rubble fall on us. Meanwhile, we save our strength, our optimism, our talents for – yes – the future. Joseph Schumpeter called it “creative destruction.” We cannot fix this. As my hero Peter F. Drucker taught, “Starve problems and feed opportunities.” Your love of the rural is one asset for staying safe that you have. Do not overlook it. Trust your instincts. In the end, it is better to put our Faith in God, not men. Paul

News from the Future from Toronto

News from the Future

World Future Society Conference 2012 Toronto

By Paul Rux, Ph.D.

Once a year, the World Future Society, the leading practice group for experts on discovering likely future trends, holds a three-day conference.  To it come 500-600 experts from all parts of the globe to share their foresights about what probably is coming down the “pipeline” to shape our futures.

As a Professional Member of the World Future Society, who has designed and teaches online courses about trend forecasting for doctoral students at Jones International University, this writer was eager to attend and “mine” the conference for “nuggets” about emerging trends likely to shape our future. I would like to “share the wealth” with you through quick summaries of some “nuggets of foresight” that “bubbled” to the forefront of discussion in various conference workshops in which I participated.

The first “nugget” comes from the one-day workshop on the future of education that “kicked off” the conference for me.   First, education is reaching a “fork in the road” between “learning,” what we do for ourselves, and “teaching,” what others (teachers) do to us.  Emerging learning technologies favor self-paced “learning” and promote a growing trend toward “teacher-less” education.  In effect, learning technologies can “automate” more and more learning processes.  What does this mean for school and college budgets in the future?  Online learning is just the “tip of the iceberg” of this trend.

A second “nugget” comes from the day-two workshop on the likely future of higher education.  Here is the “news from the future” about post-secondary education.  It faces a likely 10% loss of students yearly now because of the growing student loan and lack of jobs crises.  The question for us is:  “At a 10% loss of students yearly, in what kind of shape will post-secondary education be in five years?”  Likely the response from educators will be their standard “more” taxpayer funding.  The U.S. already has $1 trillion in unpaid student loans, 40% of which persons over age 60 owe!  At what point does this “bubble pop” and we start to embrace options like pay-as-you go apprenticeships for most.

A third “nugget” comes from the day-two workshop on policing.  It featured a panel of frontline policing trend forecasters from New York City (20 years service), Denver (14 years service), and Houston (12 years service).  Here in a “nutshell” is their “news from the future.”  We are facing a reset in policing.  The panelists called it “nurturing neighborhoods.”  It is code for do-it-yourself policing.  As budgets collapse at local, county, state, and national levels of government, police will not have the resources to protect us.  In effect, we are going to be on our own.  Justice is becoming “just us.”  Imagine.  The big shots in Washington have money for Wall Street “bankster” bailouts and bonuses, bombs and bullets in the Middle East, but they care and have nothing for the American people.  This is a sobering forecast.  The panelists are veterans; they know where cuts in police budgets are leading.  They forecast a growing trend toward “walled” and “surveillance” neighborhoods as one result.

A fourth “nugget” comes from the day-three workshop on economic development trends.  It dovetails with the day-two workshop on trend forecasts for policing.  As we move into the future, the greatest asset a community will have in the competition for jobs will be public safety – not tax rates, real estate, and taxpayer “give-away” loans and grants.  Nobody in his or her right minds, especially the “knowledge workers” who must drive the emerging economy of the future, wants to live where people get shot on the main streets, gangs beat people on the main streets and state fair grounds – without meaningful consequences.  Computer scientists can easily move from here to Waterloo, Ontario, the “Silicon Valley” of Canada where laws prohibit “concealed carry” of weapons.  If job growth depends on public safety, and common sense knows this, what does this say about our future?

Paul Rux, Ph.D. (Wisconsin-Madison) lives in Mt. Horeb, Wisconsin.  He has presented workshops at the Washington, D.C. conferences of the World Future Society and published in its journal, The Futurist.    Last year he was part of an online, global research group on the future of teaching trend forecasting for the European School of Business, Wiesbaden, Germany.   www.paulrux.net

Copyright 2012 by Paul Rux Associates, Inc.

    

What the Canadian 13% federal sales tax buys.

Evony, my wife just spent two weeks in Canada. On every sale there is an automatic 13% sales tax. federal. What does this buy? One, it buys health insurance for everybody; small businesses, large businesses too, do not have this as a cost. This probably is one of the reason why Toyota opened 400 jobs in the area where we were last week! It is also why GM invesed $1.5 billion in expanded production in Oshawa, Ontario, to the north of Toronto while we were there. It also pays all of the bills for the government of Canada, which is not in debt. Ours has over $17 trillion in debt, and this is rising. I will gladly pay the 13% tax in exchange for healthcare for all and no inflation of the currency because the government prints fake money to pay its debts, which is the case here. This inflation by fake money causes prices to rise on food, gas, clothing, etc. The middle and lower classes pay for this fake money through higher prices. The small business in Canada is farther ahead than here. The USA should learn from its neighbor to the North; Wall Street is making too much money the way it is here now to ever do something fair, sensible. Travel comparison is learning.

Pow Wows on the Future in Toronto

Geoff, thank you for the excellent expansion of Module 8 with Assignment 8.3. It really raises the final work product of the course to a hefty doctoral level. As I reviewed it, I kept thinking that, yes, it is challenging; on the other hand, I cannot imagine a student who completes this not taking personal (intrinsic) satisfaction with hitting such a high level of synthesis and professionalism. I really must thank you for providing this grand finale!

While we were in Toronto, my wife and I always, if they are home, visit with our dearest friends. He was in grad school at U of Toronto for his Ph.D. when I earned my M.A. there. We have remained loyal, lifelong friends. Here is the point. He is head of science at York University, students body of 66,000, in suburban Toronto. He has 10,000 students in his science department.

  Right now, they are revising the curricula to make it competitive as we move into the future. He was sharing with me how he is dealing with resistance to his concept of change. Wow, I was able to share the core nuggets of EDU782 with him to bolster him for the faculty meetings that he faced the next morning! Talk about field testing EDU782! I carefully underscored the core of EDU782 – be sure of your core values, your philosophy, before you go into the arena. Then stick to your philosophy, and you will rally others. He sees the emerging theme of Apps, although he does not call it this. He wants students to have a skill-based curriculum that will enable them to constantly learn, unlearn, relearn, etc. as the future emerges! He was in effect doing a future trend analysis big time right there, but he did not have the concept to sum it up. I provided it.

  I must share this because of how our private – the women were in the other room catching up – pow wow underscored the value of our work too.One, he validated the important of future studies, trend forecasting as crucial today.  Two, he validated the philosophical foundation for leadership in the emerging – going into the future – age. He is a scientist, so he did not have the management science language, conceptual framework to provide the succinct summaries that future studies can.

  The great part of it – besides having face-to-face time with a dear, old friend – was all of this happened as I was getting ready to attend the World Future Society conference that week in downtown Toronto. I am so very very pleased that JIU is embracing these best of the best practices that I have put forward for course development – futuring and philosophical foundations for leadership.

  Our students are ahead of the “game” because of the JIU capacity to innovate; your polishing of these courses with me speaks to your “strategic foresight,” to use a futuring term. Yes, I am so very pleased with our directions this year with course development.

 The World Future Society conference was stunning! I even received an invitation to the annual conference of the Future Studies Society in Azerbeijan! Yes, it was a global conference, literally. I look forward to the next steps. Paul