What's Next?: Exploring the New Terrain for Business - Hardcover

Kelly, Eamonn; Leyden, Peter

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0470849584 ISBN 13: 9780470849583

Publisher: Halsted Pr, 2002

Synopsis

This title contains the views on the future of some of the most influential thinkers in business.

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

This is not a typical business book. It doesnt provide a single point of view or a unified theory of everything. Instead it gathers insights from a network of 50 remarkable thinkers expressing a variety of perspectives. It doesnt dwell on the typical concerns and common preoccupations of companies today but looks outside the traditional business realm at the broader forces in the world that are increasingly influencing the business environment. And it doesnt focus on the next financial quarter, or even the next year or two, but on the next ten years. Whats Next? offers a range of powerful insights into increasingly important fields – such as science and technology, culture and civilization, geopolitics and the environment – that will shape the decade ahead.

Even before the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the global economy was showing signs of stress, the stock market was coming to the end of its long bull run, the dotcoms were fizzling out, and the corporate accountability crisis was beginning to unfold. Its becoming clear that were heading into a decade of great uncertainty, filled with both incredible challenges and huge opportunities. Who better to guide us through these tumultuous times than the thought leaders of Global Business Network, the renowned futures research group, learning network and strategic consulting firm? For more than 15 years, GBN has built up a global network of many of the leading thinkers – some famous, some still to be discovered — in fields where the future is being created. In Whats Next?, fifty of these network members point out the key developments to watch and the critical issues to track in their fields and the world at large.

Whats Next? takes fresh insights and ideas that emerged from a series of dynamic interviews and weaves them together in an innovative format that gives a multiplicity of views organized around major themes. Youll find an expansive conversation that includes Mary Catherine Bateson on the difficulties of cultural change, Paul Hawken on the anti-globalization movement, Francis Fukuyama on the politics of biotechnology, and Jaron Lanier on the social ramifications of telecommunications. Youll read Kevin Kelly on the rise of competing values, Huston Smith on the common ground of world religions, Peter Schwartz on the next scientific revolutions, Bill Calvin on rapid climate change, Amory Lovins on the next big energy shift, Freeman Dyson on the inevitable return of space exploration, and Stewart Brand on long-term civilizational issues.

The result is a thought-provoking, highly stimulating, often entertaining field trip to the future that culminates in some practical suggestions about ways organizations can adapt effectively to this new terrain for business. Above all, youll end up inspired and prepared for the turbulent years to come.

From the Back Cover:

Whats Next? brings together 50 of the worlds most remarkable scientists, educators, writers, economists, artists, historians, inventors and other thought leaders of Global Business Network to provide early insight into the new forces that will shape the business environment over the next decade. Provocative, fascinating and informative, Whats Next? offers fresh, incisive commentary on our tumultuous times as well as the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.

From Whats Next?

"The dotcom bubble trained a whole generation of young entrepreneurs. They rode it up, they rode it down they came out. Theyre still 32 or 33 years old, with their careers in front of them. I think we just forged what will go on to be the greatest entrepreneurial generation of the last 50 years." —Paul Saffo

"We are in a period of major scientific and technological revolution akin to what happened at the beginning of the last century. In physics, chemistry, and biology we are seeing really revolutionary change, both theoretically and in terms of our capabilities. And as a result, we are going to see enormous advances in technology." —Peter Schwartz

"I believe the next era began with the protests in Seattle two years ago. I think we will look back on that moment the way we look back at the fall of the Berlin Wall from the previous decade." —Katherine Fulton

"Just think through the demographics of life extension. Theres a certain amount of political correctness in celebrating the fact that everyone is living longer and that older people have these new opportunities open to them. But it really could be a very bizarre world that emerges." —Frank Fukuyama

"We have a global economy without a global body politic. Were developing a global body politic and a global society and a global civilization. The global economy is forcing that. At least a third of this century maybe half, maybe the whole thing will be spent sorting out the global society in terms of global governance and the global frame of reference." —Stewart Brand

About this edition

• Publisher: Halsted Pr
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0470849584
• ISBN 13: 9780470849583
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 368