Lifestyle and Leisure
Anne and Katie's guide to the future
Futurist Anne Skare Nielsen and Wired.co.uk's tech editor Katie Scott answer our questions about the world to come
Anne Skare Nielsen is managing partner of the innovation and futurist company Future Navigator. She specialises in good energy and leadership, new value creation in products and services, ethics, applications for new technologies, and education and the future labour market.
As part of our 20/20 vision feature (see Emigrate magazine, June 2009 issue), Paul Beasley asked Anne a wide range of questions to find out whether Australia, New Zealand, Canada and America are leading the way to a brighter future. As you'll see from the answers below, Anne's responses were an extremely thought-provoking take on a changing world - required reading for anyone who is about to put their faith in the future by emigrating.
Have you noticed a shift towards sustainability as one of the key values underpinning new products?
A paradigmatic shift is on it's way - a fundamental change in the way we think, feel and behave. We call it the shift from mechanic to organic thinking. Or if you prefer: From instructive to constructive - or even from the most to the best.
Some people and organisations are still stuck in the old mechanic paradigm were success orbs around profit, time, money, process, administration, systems, analysis, knowledge and ownership. Were leadership is a struggle and employees a necessary evil. The big problem in the future for these companies is that 'they have it all but they lack the essentials'. They don't see the outside worlds as a friend, a support system or a partner. They think in terms of growth, expansion, capital and quantity. It's more, more, more. But we don't want more. We want better.
Organic/constructive organisations have people, meaningfulness, process, and environment at their hearts, and sustainability is for them a prerequisite for growth - or rather development.
So to answer your question, sustainability is becoming a key value. But mechanic companies see it as a liability, something being forced on them. Whereas organic organisations embrace it. As human beings we crave it - we are getting to fat, to unhealthy, to out of balance. The credit crunch will in the longer run move us not from more to less - but from more to better. And that includes sustainability. Sustainability should not be about giving the planet to the next generation in the same condition as we inherited it – but in a better condition. As the saying goes: we have not inherited the earth from our forefathers. We have borrowed it from our children.
If there has been a shift, are there any ways in which Canada, America, Australia or New Zealand are leading the way or have been instrumental in this respect?
America has of course - with reference to the financial crisis - propelled the shift. We feel the need for a new mindset and definition of what it means to succeed in life and business. The era of the American Dream and the age of productivity are coming to the end. The world is interconnected so it is no longer "the declaration of independence" that should be the corner stone of politics, but "a declaration of interdependence". What we in Denmark do has a smaller factual effect on the world than what happens in the US, China or Brazil. And coming generations will probably place a larger part of responsibility for the world they have inherited on the shoulders of larger nations. New Zealand is very much a role model - and we need role models. We need countries that can show the world that sustainability is natural, sound and key in the "good capitalism" of the future. Canada and Australia with are huge beautiful countries where living with nature has been a given for many years. My guess is that we all could learn and benefit from these experiences.
Between today and 2020, do you expect a further shift towards sustainability, and is there a genuine possibility that this shift will lead to a brighter future?
The future IS bright! :o) Never before has there been so many people who feel an obligation - not only to themselves, their families and back yard - but to the greater community. It might be difficult to participate - buy, embrace and develop - sustainable solutions but the wish is there. Also, we have the aging society, and hopefully this means that the elderly generations - who have experienced a lot of welfare through their lives - will seize the opportunity to revaluate what they find meaningful (red wine, travelling and eating) and become more responsible in the way they invest. They can certainly change a lot just by asking for something better.
Do technological advances - green technology, domestic robots, 'personally implanted products' - constitute a better, happier future? If not, what else (such as a state of mind) is required to achieve this goal?
Technology in itself does not move anything. Meaningfulness does. Health is becoming one of the key drivers of "the good life", and people will increasingly embrace solutions that deliver a more healthy, balanced, fit lifestyle. Technology can help to improve the success rate of these solutions: we can stay at home monitored when we are sick; we can live much better (and cheaper) with asthma, diabetes or cancer. Health and the dream of the good life could very well be the key driver of sustainability.
Do today's style of educational institutions best serve the needs of society and the individual in this rapidly changing world? If not, how do you think educational systems need to change?
Most schools are still very mechanic. We are instructed to sit still, listen, to remember and focus on results (e.g. exams) instead of the process. Business schools all over the world are asking themselves if they have contributed to the crisis by fostering a learning style too focused on short term thinking, profit and easy problem solution. Kids should be taught to think for themselves - and the older we get the more we need to reflect about our core beliefs and value architecture. That today still is a great taboo.
Luckily many schools are embracing the organic paradigm where they take their point of origin in a person instead of a plan. Different learning styles and intelligences give us a much better understanding of the multifaceted layers and potentials of each individual. We should all become more original instead of standardises. The Danish Chaos Pilots and the Swedish Hyper Island school work a lot with frustration and navigation: students have to learn to find their own way in an unending ocean of knowledge and perspectives. Just as it is in the real world. I would love to see more schools without class rooms - based instead on competition, role playing, excursions and action learning. Also, is should be natural to us to work and study at the same time (without becoming a stress bunny). A person here in Denmark suggested that we all should have "an interest day": The weekend for family and friends, the 4 day work week for society and progress and then one day "just for me", were we could get together to learn about opera or how a lawn mower functions. I think that is a fantastic idea.
How do you expect the labour market to change over the next ten years, and what will be required of workers as a result - a wider range of skills, home-working, several 'career' over the course of a lifetime, greater global mobility?
Broadly speaking, the labour market entails three profiles: I-people, T-people, and Star people. My grandfather was an I-person. He was an auto mechanic and the skills he learned at 18 supported him and his family comfortably the rest of his life. Today, an auto mechanic must still be able to repair a car. He still needs the I-formed competence, but he also must be able to do more: for example, talk to customers, or work with computers since most cars are now repaired digitally, not under the hood. And imagine how it will be in the future when the car books time at the mechanic's and drives itself to the shop. As in so many other professions, the mechanic has the chance to offer and provide a specific and proactive service that requires great insight into how the car is used and, with that, requires the skill to be able to use new technology and all kinds of data to meet the customers needs. Today, you have to be able to do more just to do the same as before. Even simple cleaning is more complex than before. It requires understanding of chemicals so you don't pass out in the elevator after mixing the wrong liquids. Therefore, the I become T. You get a new hat to wear, a superstructure. But it is still not an especially dynamic profile, because it is uncertain that you yourself understand why, or can see the point in that things should be done a different way. People who continue their educations often find their increased competence makes everything more complicated. Many people don't find that additional education makes their work better. Instead it distances them from colleagues, customers, passion and pride. Just look at doctors, the public sector, and customer service offices. The knowledge society produces just as many assembly-line jobs as the industrial society did. Most of us a not world class at anything. Hence we should exploit our mediocrity.
In terms of the above, do you see any positive developments in Canada, America, Australia or New Zealand?
You see this trend all over the world. The labour market finds I-workers in Asia where they work for much less that they do in developed countries. At the head office they crave the Star-people. T-people often get caught in the middle and can have a hard time finding their spot in society. T-people have a tendency to over-complicate thing and to feel unsecure because they lack meaningfulness in what they do. Hence, they become conservative and suspicious to new ways of thinking. Canadians are a lot like the Swedes – nature loving, good hearted people living with a lot of rules and regulations. Maybe we all should learn from the Australians and their ozzy rules: that it is actually possible to get something done even though the circumstances are messy and tough. And that there isn't a problem in the world that we can't solved if only we have beer and a barbecue.
Read Katie Scott's tech guide to the future
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