Vision for 2012: Planning for Extraordinary Change

Yesterday, I tuned in to a ZOOM'D Leadership Radio Show which is hosted every Monday by my friend John D. Schmidt, founder and CEO of Avastone Consulting. Schmidt interviewed an author and futurist named John Petersen. Petersen is President and Founder of The Arlington Institute and recently wrote a book called A Vision for 2012: Planning for Extraordinary Change. In it, he takes stock of significant trends in the current world order and riffs on what the future has in store for us.

Petersen works with a variety of planners representing many national and global interests, and he began his talk by noting how so many attempts to “fix” the current global financial meltdown aim to restore the old economic order. He further noted how impossible this is, given that the world is changing so profoundly in response to current economic, social, environmental, and energy-related pressures.

Times like these present themselves as opportunities to seize radical change for the better: don't re-boot the (old) economy, re-boot ourselves. He thinks that by the Summer, President Obama will have to shift gears and focus more on rebuilding our system instead of continuing to prop up the old one.

Fair enough, but I found little of substance to follow and humbly think that some friends of mine and I already have gone one better.

I had to roll my eyes through some of the remaining dialog, not because I entirely disagreed with what Petersen was saying. He talked about the end of cheap oil, about us developing a keener sense of “coopetition” and interconnectedness. He said that we need to “co-create a new reality” rooted in both the conscious and the spiritual worlds, using both electronic tools as well as ancient wisdom.

Probably because he has heard this too many times before, Schmidt asked Petersen about how we then move ahead, especially in finding ways to overcome inertia. Petersen did not offer specifics, instead saying that we need to enlighten ourselves and to recognize the need for us to evolve into beings better-suited for life in a collaborative world.

To Petersen's credit, he did state that we should enact this enlightenment, even if it might be impossible to anticipate where it will lead us (and our heirs.) This is when I recalled my work with The New Renaissance.

Eight years ago, some friends and I saw Daniel Quinn give a lecture at the UGA which he titled, The New Renaissance. Like John Petersen, Quinn followed a line about how our current economic, social and environmental systems are not working and are not sustainable. He also made a case for us to re-invent how we live, to incorporate both modern technology and ancient wisdom, to incorporate more mutual support into our social and economic systems. All this change undoubtedly requires a lot of convincing, a lot of persuasion, a lot of 'splainin'.

Unlike most visionaries, Quinn did not simply leave us with the instruction to “change our consciousness.” What most impressed my friends and me is, Quinn told us exactly what we do need to change. He nailed the inertia that Schmidt asked about.

Quinn explained how each member of civilization carries certain subconscious assumptions which both profoundly influence our behavior and are contrary to the enlightened thinking that so many visionaries expect us to embrace. While these ideas are difficult to identify, no less replace, they are by no means to be confused with human nature.

And that means that these assumptions are...changeable.

This so inspired my friends and I that we co-opted Quinn's presentation slides and notes, and we completely re-wrote it to our liking. Then over the course of 3 years, we presented it to many audiences: environmental groups, churches, high schools and civic associations.

Perhaps it is time to dust off the New Renaissance. I'll reintroduce it in this blog over the next few weeks. For now, here is a teaser cartoon. Stay tuned!

Schmidt also prodded Petersen to make some predictions about the near-future, and eventually Petersen came around to offering specifics. It's not very pretty.

Get ready to survive the big storm and learn how to evolve.

John Petersen