JEAN PHILIP DE TENDER

Ik was danig onder de indruk van het boek Megatrends van John Naisbitt dat ik eind de jaren ’80 moest lezen van professor Vandenbroeck. Achteraf beschouwd is het één van de boeken die mijn journalistieke nieuwsgierigheid triggerde.

Sindsdien heb ik van hem niks meer gelezen, tenzij z’n jongste worp Mind Set ! Naisbitt is intussen 78 jaar.

Het boek is opgedeeld in twee delen. In het eerste deel reikt hij elf ‘mindsets’ aan die ons moeten helpen met andere ogen naar de wereld te kijken. In het tweede deel geeft hij vijf ‘pictures of the future’.

1. eleven mindsets : help to adjust and correct our thinking. They our cognitive tools that remove our constraints and help us to get the most of the information we collect.

# 1 While many things change, most things remain constant.

# 2 The future is embedded in the present.

# 3 Focus on the score of the game.

# 4 Understand how powerful it is not have to be right.

# 5 See the future as a picture puzzle.

# 6 Don’t get so far ahead of the parade that people don’t know you’re in it.

# 7 Resistance to change fall if benefits are real.

# 8 Things that we expect to happen always happen more slowly.

# 9 You don’t get results by solving problems but by exploiting opportunities.

# 10 Don’t add unless you subtract.

# 11 Don’t forget the ecology of technology.

2. pictures of the future, framed by John Naisbitt. They are the result of putting single pieces together until the picture is completed.

# 1 A visual world is taking over the world :

– the slow death of the newspaper culture

– advertising, back to ‘a picture is worth thousands of words’

– upscale design for common goods

– architecture as visual art

– the symbiosis of fashion, architecture and art

– music, video and film

– the changing role of photography

– the democratization of the American Art Museum

# 2 From nation-states to economic domains.

The economic borderlines of our world will not be drawn between countries, but around economic domains. Along the twin paths of globalization and decentralization, the economic pieces of the future are being assembled in a new way.

# 3 China : the periphery is in the center.

China is walking the twin path of globalization and decentralization more than any other country in the world. This process is essential to China’s sustainability, giving more effeciency and power to its parts – cities, provinces, and regions. The periphery is the centre.

# 4 Europe : mutually assured decline.

Europe can not choose between economic supremacy and social welfare. Europe is likely to become a history theme park.

It’s social welfare is going to make Europe bankrupt.

It considers immigration as a fright, not as a chance.

Multilateral Europe versus unilateral America.

# 5 Our revolutionary era : reservoir of innovation.

We are the beneficiaries of the revolutionary breakthroughs of the last years of the twentieth century. The next half of this century will be an era of absorbing, extending and perfecting those great breakthroughs.

Een meer uitgebreide samenvatting vind je hier : naisbitt.pdf