The Future: Six Drivers of Global Change

Former Vice President Al Gore is currently the Chairman of the Climate Reality Project, co-founder and chairman of Generation Investment Management and a senior partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufiled & Byers. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1977 to 1985 and the U.S. Senate from 1985 to 1990. Mr. Gore is the author of several books, including Earth in the Balance and An Inconvenient Truth. He was the co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. For more information, visit www.algore.com. From the 6th annual Savannah Book Festival in Savannah, Georgia, former vice president Al Gore discusses his book The Future: Six Drivers of Global Change. Click here to view video.

The End Game for Democracy

America's Gilded Capital

Mark Leibovich covers Washington, D.C., as chief national correspondent for The New York Times Magazine. In his new book, This Town, he writes about the city’s bipartisan lust for power, cash and notoriety. It’s the story of how Washington became an occupied city; its hold on reality distorted by greed and ambition. Leibovich pulls no punches, names names, and reveals the movers, the shakers and the lucrative deals they make — all in the name of crony capitalism.

http://billmoyers.com/episode/full-show-mark-leibovich-on-americas-gilded-capital/

Big Debt on Campus

This really upsets me. From Mother Jones, September 2013

Two American Families: Complexity At Work?

It’s a central premise of the American dream: If you’re willing to work hard, you’ll be able to make a living and build a better life for your children. But what if working hard isn’t enough to ensure success — or even the basic necessities of daily life?

FRONTLINE’s Two American Families follows two ordinary families who have spent the past 20 years in an extraordinary battle to keep from sliding into poverty.

The film, a collaboration with veteran PBS journalist Bill Moyers, who has followed the Stanleys and the Neumanns over the years, raises unsettling questions about the changing nature of the American economy and the fate of a declining middle class.

“He will not be able to see the retirement, you know, that he probably would hope for when he was working at A.O. Smith,” say Keith Stanley, the son of Claude Stanley who was laid off from a steady, good paying job in the early ’90s. “That’s just not a reality. My heart goes out to that generation that was promised something from America, by America, that they would have a better life and that’s not the case anymore.”

Here's my comments on the structural change and the implications if the system that changed is a complex system in a critical state. Click to listen.

The State of America's Middle Class

The following was taken from "The State of America's Middle Class in Eight Charts" by Jason Breslow and Evan Wexler, Frontline, PBS. Click here for charts and article.

Wages are down

Middle class incomes have shrunk 8.5 percent since 2000, after enjoying mostly steady growth during the previous decade. In 2011, the average income for the middle 60 percent of households stood at $53,042, down from $58,009 at the start of the millennium.

Less income for the middle class

Partly as a result of lower pay, the middle class’s share of the nation’s total income has been falling. In 1980, the middle 60 percent of households accounted for 51.7 of the country’s income. By 2011, they were less than half. Meanwhile, the top fifth of households saw their slice of the national income grow 16 percent, to 51.1 percent from 44.1 percent.

Union positions are shrinking

One factor behind the decline in income has been a drop-off in the number of workers earning union salaries. In 2012, the median salary for a unionized worker stood at roughly $49,000. The median pay for their non-union counterparts was just shy of $39,000. Since 1983, however, the share of the population belonging to a labor union has gone from one-in-five workers to just over one-in-ten.

More workers stuck in part-time jobs

A second factor weighing down pay is the rise in the number of Americans stuck in part-time jobs. In 2012, more than 2.5 million Americans worked part-time jobs because they could not find a full-time position, the most since 1993.

Fewer jobs from U.S.-based multinationals

Part of the challenge for job seekers is that U.S. multinational corporations having been hiring less at home. These large, brand-name firms employ roughly a fifth of American workers, but from 1999 to 2008 they shed 2.1 million jobs in the U.S. while adding more than 2.2 million positions abroad.

Rising debt

Predictably, the economic pressures facing the middle class have left families deeper in debt. . In 1992, the median level of debt for the middle third of families stood at $32,200. By 2010, that figure had swelled to $84,000, an increase of 161 percent.

Families are saving less

The rise in debt has meant fewer families have the ability to put away money for things like retirement or a child’s tuition bills. In 2001, more than two-thirds of middle class families said they were able to save money in the preceding year. By 2010, that figure was below 55 percent.

Net worth has plunged

The impact on family net worth — the amount by which assets exceed liabilities — has been painful. In 2007, median net worth peaked at $120, 600. Then came the financial crisis, which pushed millions of Americans into joblessness and home foreclosure. By 2010, net worth had plummeted 36 percent, to $77,300.

Critical Thinking

Last year at the beginning of the election season, one of the State’s political parties launched a platform with a plank in it that opposed the teaching of critical thinking skills in public education.  After a large public outcry, this platform was edited to remove the offending thought. This issue came up in one of the planning meetings of the Central Texas Chapter of the World Future Society and the group present resolved to make critical thinking part of our program of activities. This is in line with our longstanding vision, “Raising awareness of the future and its impact on Central Texas”. Awareness is the first step of critical thinking, followed by, among other things, discernment. The group present in the planning meeting thought that critical thinking was an essential part of future’s studies, both normative and projective.

Intuitively it appears that we are in an era when critical thinking is necessary, not just for success, but survival. There are many trends, global and local, temporal and eternal, that affect us, some that we can change and some that we must just prepare for. Our future is one of very large, complex systems, which at this point we neither understand nor control. Some of these systems are intrinsically uncontrollable. And, we are entering the world of big data driven by our technological capability to accomplish, and spurred by the profit motive.   Moreover, as copious amounts of money are available, “opinions” based on data can be bought. We are already swimming in a vast sea of data and opinions.

Given the vast amount of data, I am reminded of a statement sometimes attributed to Mark Twain, “Figures don’t lie, but liars figure.” Well, maybe not intentional lies, but biases based upon values, not open minded logic. We will need a lot of critical thinking to, as Omar Khayyam phrased it, “The two and seventy jarring sects confute.”

But what is critical thinking? How is it used in real life? Is it a skill? Can it be taught? Is it something that should be a guiding principle of this organization? What is our role in fostering critical thinking?

A panel has been gathered to discuss critical thinking on June 18, 2013 at the monthly meeting of the CenTexWFS beginning at 6pm at Marie Callender’s 9503 Research Blvd #400  Austin, TX 78759
(512) 349-7151. It will be moderated by Paul Schumann and is composed of:

• ·         Phyliss Blees: educator, peace through commerce, conscious capitalism, creativity, lawyer
• ·         Carol Flake Chapman: journalist, editor, author, founding editor of Vanity Fair Magazine
• ·         Joyce Goia: futurist, trend analyst, editor of Herman Trend Alerts
• ·         Terrill Fisher: improv artist, comedian, training consultant
• ·         Jon Lebkowsky: programming, social media, editor of Extreme Democracy
• ·         Diane Miller: civic collaboration, project planning, dialog and deliberation

If you wish to attend, please visit the group’s web site for more information. There is an attendance fee of $25 that includes dinner that is payable at the event.

Paul Schumann is a futurist and innovation consultant who is currently researching complexity science and its use in future’s studies. He is the author of four books – Innovate!, An Innovant’s Journey, Leadership in the Interactive Age and Superconductivity – and numerous articles, the latest of which is “1, 2, A Few and Many”. Follow his blog, Insights and Foresight, for more information.

Philomena Blees, J.D. is President of Peace Through Commerce, Inc. (“PTC”) and a Trustee of Conscious Capitalism, Inc.  She was founding Vice President, General Counsel, Treasurer and "Chief Problem Solver" of PTC and Conscious Capitalism’s parent corporation, Freedom Lights Our Word (FLOW), Inc.

Ms. Blees co-founded a school for gifted children in Austin, Texas, as well as two educational nonprofit organizations. She served in the office of General Counsel at the Texas State Treasury.  Prior to this, Ms. Blees was an active securities trader, and a partner in private practice in Honolulu, Hawaii concentrating in tax, real property, and business law.

Ms. Blees is active in the American Creativity Association (“ACA”) and co-founded ACA-Austin Global.

Ms. Blees received her law degree at the University of Hawaii Richardson School of Law and was 1st in her class. She is a member of the State Bar Associations of Texas and Hawaii, and is licensed to practice before the U.S. Tax Court, Federal District Court and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.  Ms. Blees loves running, hiking, dancing, music, movement, creativity, and reading and is active with her two beloved children and new daughter-in law.

Author of The Herman Trend Alert for the last seven years, Joyce Gioia [joy-yah] has been a professional futurist for decades. In fact, she joined the World Future Society back in the late 60s, when she graduated from college and is now a member of the national Board of Trustees. Once she became a consultant, she discovered that helping clients know what was coming could be her competitive advantage. Joyce is the author of five business books (three bestsellers) on the future of the workforce and workplace. A frequent speaker at association and corporate meetings, she informs and entertains her audiences with a combination of wit and wisdom. Besides holding three masters degrees, she is a Certified Management Consultant and Certified Speaking Professional. Joyce was recently honored by USA TODAY as their FIRST ROAD WARRIOR OF THE YEAR. She says that not only did critical thinking help her to win this award, she also uses it every day to make informed decisions for herself and others.

Jon Lebkowsky is an author, activist, sometimes journalist, and blogger who writes about the future of the Internet, digital culture, media, and society. He’s been actively associated with various forward-looking projects and organizations, including FringeWare (CEO), Whole Earth, WorldChanging, Viridian Design Movement, Mondo 2000, bOING bOING, Factsheet Five, the WELL, the Austin Chronicle, EFF-Austin (President), Society of Participatory Medicine (cofounder and former board member), Extreme Democracy (co-editor), Wireless Future (project manager), Digital Convergence Initiative (former board member), Plutopia Productions (cofounder), Polycot Consulting (cofounder and CEO), Social Web Strategies (cofounder), Project VRM, and Reality Augmented Blog. He’s currently a web strategist and developer via Polycot Associates. There’s more info at Wikipedia

Diane Miller specializes in the design, facilitation and implementation of community engagement projects that help diverse groups of people work together to find common ground for action. For the last ten years, she has worked with Central Texas governments, businesses and community groups to address complex civic challenges. Before launching her firm, Civic Collaboration, in 2011, she was assistant director for a regional planning non-profit where she designed and executed numerous collaborative, multi-stakeholder initiatives on complicated and often divisive issues. She has designed and led community forums on an array of topics, from gentrification and regional planning, to education and health care.

Before working in community engagement, Diane worked in the field of organizational development, designing workshops and trainings focused on leadership, teamwork, and change management. She has a B.A. in liberal arts and has studied extensively in the areas of group dynamics, organizational and human development, and civic participatory processes. Diane currently serves on the board of The National Coalition on Dialogue and Deliberation. She has completed certification programs in public engagement from both the International Association for Public Participation and Fielding University.

Mary Meeker’s State of the Internet: Good, Bad or Somewhere In-Between?

 by Marissa Wong, Slide Share

"500 million photos are uploaded every day. Sharing of digital information has grown 9 times in five years. And China is leading the digital charge. If you haven’t seen it already, “Queen of the ‘Net” Mary Meeker has uploaded her latest report on Internet trends.

Among the highlights: Emerging markets continue to lead in the 8% year-over-year growth in global Internet users, with China adding the most (264 million users from 2008-2012). And while 81% of users are outside of the U.S., 80% of the top 10 global internet properties were made in the U.S. (Google, Microsoft and Facebook are at the top of that list.) Another interesting international comparison: Americans are under sharers. Just 15% of Americans report that they share “everything” or “most things” online, compared to a world average of 24%. Saudi Arabians are the world’s biggest sharers and the Japanese share the least."

Read More

It’s the Best Possible Time to Be Alive

Anne Boysen Doga and Paul Schumann

Arcadia is a 1993 play by Tom Stoppard concerning the relationship between past and present and between order and disorder and the certainty of knowledge. It has been cited by many critics as the finest play from one of the most significant contemporary playwrights in the English language

Arcadia is set in Sidley Park, an English country house, in both the years 1809–1812 and the present day (1993 in the original production). The activities of two modern scholars and the house's current residents are juxtaposed with the lives of those who lived there 180 years earlier.

In 1809, Thomasina Coverly, the daughter of the house, is a precocious teenager with ideas about mathematics well ahead of her time. She studies with her tutor Septimus Hodge, a friend of Lord Byron who is an unseen guest in the house. In the present, a writer and an academic converge on the house: Hannah Jarvis, the writer, is investigating a hermit who once lived on the grounds; Bernard Nightingale, a professor of literature, is investigating a mysterious chapter in the life of Byron. As their investigations unfold, helped by Valentine Coverly, a post-graduate student in mathematical biology, the truth about what happened in Thomasina's lifetime is gradually revealed.

The play's set features a large table, which is used by the characters in both past and present. Props are not removed when the play switches time period, so that the books, tortoise, coffee mugs, quill pens, portfolios, and laptop computers appear alongside each other in a blurring of past and present

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Anne and Paul will read an excerpt from Scene Four at the CenTexWFS meeting on May 21, 2013. It focuses on a discussion between Valentine Coverly and Hannah Jarvis.(http://ctxwfs.org/Default.aspx?pageId=544823&eventId=688232&EventViewMode=EventDetails)

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You can read an essay on this play at http://www.scribd.com/doc/38336576/Arcadia-A-Play-on-Complexity and an excellent summary on Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcadia_%28play%29

Anne and Paul are both bloggers. Their blogs are respectively “After the Millennials” (http://www.afterthemillennials.com/) and “Insights and Foresights” (http://insights-foresight.blogspot.com/).

The Nexus of Forces

This is a very interesting report by Gartner recently issued.

"A Nexus of converging forces — social, mobile, cloud and information — is building upon and transforming user behavior while creating new business opportunities.

 Research over the past several years has identified the independent evolution of four powerful forces: social, mobile, cloud and information. As a result of consumerization and the ubiquity of connected smart devices, people's behavior has caused a convergence of these forces. This user-centric convergence was highlighted at Symposium/ITxpo 2011, where the keynote touched on the story emerging around the Nexus and raised a warning to senior IT leaders: Their existing architectures are becoming obsolete"

While this is well worth reading, keep in mind that the basic assumption behind this analysis is that the consumerization of the economy is sustainable. This is an assumption that I'm not all sure is true. But, we've demonstrated no strong candidate to replace it, and we seem to have limited desire to change. As we concentrate more and more wealth at the top, we are destroying the consumer market.

And, there are smaller assumptions like, "Through the window in their palm, they are never alone, never lost, and never bored." I seriously doubt that this statement is true.

And, they confuse complicatedness with complexity. "Most technology goes through cycles of development and change in both internal and external complexity. Often, the very first device is simple, but crude. As the device undergoes the early stages of development, its power and efficiency improve, but so does its complexity. As the technology matures, however, simpler, more effective ways of doing things are developed, and the device becomes easier to use, although usually by becoming more complex inside."

So, read it, but with your critical thinking hat on.

The Nexus of Forces: Foundational Research for the Technical Professional, Chris Howard, David Smith, Daryl Plummer, Yvonne Genovese, David Willis and Jeffrey Mann, Gartner, Inc., June 22, 2012

Black Swans and the U.S. Future: Creating Sustainable & Resilient Societies

by Dr. David W. Orr
Professor of Environmental Studies and Politics, Oberlin College
Friday, September 14, 2012 - 7 PM CT

Lecture title: Black Swans and the U.S. Future: Creating Sustainable & Resilient Societies

‘Black Swans’ are infrequent and unpredictable events that can drive change in both human and natural systems.  What qualities make societies resilient and sustainable in the face of environmental Black Swans? How can we prepare for, absorb, and recover from the unpredictable disruptions from climate-related ecological change?

In this public lecture, Dr. Orr discusses several promising strategies, including building upon what we already know about sustainable design, construction, and technology to create resilient societies and support systems. Co-sponsored by UT's President’s Office of Sustainability, ESI, School of Architecture and Center for Teaching and Learning.

More Information

Copy of Presentation

Capitalism and Democracy

Very good (but short) interview on capitalism and democracy:


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The Making of the Atomic Bomb

Really great book - a mix of the history of science and technology with personalities and social-political forces. It reads like a detective story with questions of morality raised but unanswered. The book is long – 886 pages, but it is definitely worth the effort. I’ve collected a few examples from the book that I really liked. I have not put them in quotes but they all come straight from the book. In some cases I’ve added my footnotes to help understand the selection.

I hope that someone writes a screen play around the struggles that the emigrant scientists had with politicians and the military when they tried to convey the potential of the atomic and later the thermonuclear bombs, and their impacts on political systems.

This is a personal selection of excerpts that appealed to me as I read the book. It’s by no means complete. For an excellent review, read the New York Times book review, “The Men Who Made the Sun Rise” by William J. Broad (http://www.nytimes.com/books/99/09/19/specials/rhodes-making.html)

The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Paul Schumann