One thing is clear - the next five years is going to be very different to the last.  This difference will be universal and yet also individuel.  This difference will serve up many challenges to our community and to us personally and professionally.

How much education do you have?  How much knowledge do you possess?  How creative are you with ideas and change?  How do you intend to live and work over the next 5 to 10 years?  How much do you think you have to change  - your habits, mindsets, and ways of thinking about your world?

Ahead is a period of great opportunities. These opportunities are greater for the fact that they were almost completely unexpected just a five years ago.  The challenge for those who want to make the most of their opportunities, I think, are twofold.  

First you have to be willing to shift your thinking and actions from the analogue to the digital world.  Shift from serial processing, people-based systems, etc to parallel processing, machine-based systems, etc.  That is not such a big deal because in so many aspects of your current life you have already successfully made that shift.  You use a mobile phone to communicate with friends and family but you also use it to pay bills and to do minor banking chores.  You have a Facebook entry so that you can build and maintain a social network with friends you have never seen.   The basis of these activities is digital access and connection with machine-based systems that transfer you information as text, image, voice, etc around the globe or around the block.

Second you have to accept the challenge of living, working, and doing business on a green planet.  A planet that is dramatically and quickly lowering its carbon footprint.  Accepting this challenge is not so easy because it means taking on some real sacrifices.  It means changing habits, mindsets, and ways of thinking that have been with you all your life.  It means becoming a minimalist where carbon is concerned which, in turn, means having and using less of most of what you take for granted today.  Using a great deal less of everything that contributes to your carbon footprint is what this challenge is all about.

You face two not insignificant challenges if you are to prosper within the new digital economy that is beginning to blanket the earth.  

This blog first appeared here on 17th January 2007 - it seems even more timely right now....

Most organisations are headed towards yesterday's tomorrow.  They have a vision that was created yesterday.  They have a strategy based on yesterday's good ideas.  The brand was built yesterday.  The revenue models were proven yesterday.  The technology was approved yesterday. 

Is it any wonder that they spend more and more money on yesterday's ideas?

Is it any wonder when you complete a major change programme in a large organisation you get a sense of deja vous?

Is it any wonder that a good day in a large organisation is an extension of what you did yesterday?

Is it any wonder you spend so much time in meetings you agreed to yesterday?

Is it any wonder you spend so much time "thinking" the same as you did yesterday?

Is it any wonder that you hold the same opinions that you did yesterday?

Is it any wonder that today's tomorrow is being missed by almost everyone around you?

Is it any wonder that your new ways are always based on yesterday's ideas, habits, conventions, routines, technologies, etc?

What would it take for you to start constructing today's tomorrow?

What would it take for you to be "spider like" and spin today's web with "a clear and present purpose"?

What would it take for you to start using Clear Space Thinking?

I always wondered what it would have been like to live in the world of 1929 through to 1935.  I now get the idea - don't you?  We live in historic times.  In such times everyone has a valid opinion of what has, is, and will happen.  Why?  Because no one really knows.  After 2050, if you are still around, the historians will tell you what happened, why it happened, and what it was like for you and me to live in these remarkable times.

Because I can't wait for the historians to come up with a storyline I have worked out my own.  As you know I have been logging it here as I go.  The story so far is simple - it is not what everyone says it is about and indeed most commenators have got it wrong because they look back at history to explain our current crisis.  They refer back to every recession back to The Great Depression to make their  futile comparisions.  Few look forward.  Therein lies the tale.  

What it is like to live in historical times is that it is full of unbated "fear" because everyone is looking backwards not forwards.  Except for the people who are actually trying to sort out this mess, of course, they are looking neither backwards nor forwards because they have to deal with the present 24/7.

I am in good shape in these historic times because I refuse to look back and refuse to get caught in the blinding headlines of the present - I prefer to look forwards.  Ahead I see a digital global economy that works very differently to the one we use to know.  In this economy there will be new wealth being created by people who do jobs that have not yet been invented.  Many of these jobs will be in what we might loosely call "green businesses" or more accurately refer to as "low-carbon emission businesses and utilities".  The future I spy is green, clean, and full of machines.  Well not exactly machines but systems that link us all together around the globe.  Systems that thrive on information - so most future workers are working on the systems or on the information within them.

As I have said here before our future is digital not analogue.  It is based on global networked economies not Nation-State economies.  It is complex if considered as a whole and yet remarkably simple if considered from your point of interactions with it.  This new global digital economy is in a fledgling stage of development and this essentially is why we have our current crisis or series of crises.

Ahead is a time of great opportunity and gain.  The wealth creation elements within this evolving global digital economy are dynamic and capable of delivering you more purchasing power than you ever dreamt about.  All you need do now to participate in the next big thing is to look forwards not backwards.  Think future possibilities not past failures.

You live in historic times - you can make your own version of history if you are willing and able to stride confidently into the future....

Business is all about people.  Right.  Of course it is right - everyone knows it to be true.  You hire talented, loyal, and determined people who help you to succeed.  Right.  Of course it is right just listen to any high paid management guru or  successful Fortune 500 CEO and he or she will assuredly declare you must hire the best talented people you can if you want to succeed.

Well I am here to tell you they are all talking about the world before the 2008 financial services meltdown.  They are talking about business models that scaled to national and international levels on the back of people-based processes. They are telling stories about how it use to be in business.  They are recounting but not recanting ancient history. 

Enron was full to its girth with the best talented people money could buy in the US and from around the globe.  Wall Street firms like Bear Sterns, Lehmann Bros, AIG Insurance, etc prided themselves on the pool of talent they had assembled.  All these people were part of the biggest corporate failures ever seen in the world of business.  All these failures occurred in the early C21st.  Why?

Last century business models were analogue.  Their processes were sequential.  Their communications patterns were vertical.  They were people-based not systems-based and as they scaled they developed silos.

This century business models are digital.  Their processes are run in parallel.  Their communication patterns are lateral.  They are system-based not people-based and as they scale they develop networks. 

This is why the 2008 financial services meltdown was so devastating to the globe. The derivatives were designed by talented people but dissipated around the globe by a new digital financial network that involved banks and their adjuncts in ways that most CEOs on Wall Street never fully understood.  Wall Street management understood the people-based processes of their business but not the systems-based processes of their business.  Thus they totally under-stated the risk they carried.  They also totally misunderstood the degree of leveraging of assets and/or borrowings this new system-based process afforded them.

How could this happen?  Well it happened easily, quickly, and systemically because many global business model shifted from people-based processes to systems-based processes around 2001.  Managements around the globe, including in government, were caught out by this paradigm shift.  As you know most managements were accustomed to holding a person or persons acountable for risk and they did - when these sub-prime and credit debt swap derivatives (which are bits and bytes of information in the system nothing more nor less) started to go "belly up" then managers discovered they were unable to hold systems accountable in the same ways they had their people.

What does this change mean for you today and in the future?  It means you throw out your old business books.  It is also means you make sure that your new business systems are transparent to you and your customers.  It means you value customers in new ways - customers or consumers are your new talent because they are the keepers of the digital networks that facilitate your current and future success.  It means you build robust customer feedback loops for every aspect of your business system.  It means you have to be able to promote "storylines" about successful systems as you previously would have about successful staff.

The world has gone mad!

 On the 6 o'clock news last night, I saw an elegant man in a "monkey suit" addressing a room full of diners with an articulate rendition of "doom and gloom"...  The man was Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England, and he was telling his audience that the country is in a recession and it has a lot of hard work ahead to pull its way out of it... Duh?

King was telling England (and the world) that recession is here to stay for a while and it will be very hurtful to most of us.  He sees fit to make this pronouncement at a diner as everyone tucks into their beef and wine?  Is it any wonder that the world is now "officially" a basket case...

Are there any questions?

Panic, fear, foreboding, anger, and regret.  These are some of the negative emotions being experienced by people around the world today.  Everything is uncertain because everything is impacted directly, or indirectly, by this ongoing financial crisis.  So people dispair - they project negative outcomes that have to be updated almost daily because the bad news just keeps coming.

So what to do?  Well you have to do something audacious.  First you have to accept that all your assets have been discounted by about 30-40%.  Second you have to be prepared to take risks, be bold, be confident, be opportunistic, and look at global events as you saviour not your destroyer.  Third you have to start again.  Fourth you have to stop talking to negative people.

Today we are at the bottom of this global financial crisis - well that is what I have decided.  Of course the world could decide otherwise.  The point here is it will matter little to me because I am sure this is the bottom and accordingly I have changed my mindset.  I am looking at what has happened through the eyes of someone who sees recovery not recession.  I have decided that the drift into Depression that I wrote about weeks ago has been arrested.  No more drift so no more Depression.

The world has come together to take systemic action rather than treat this crisis on an event by event basis. The fact that governments have acted cooperatively spells the end to this crisis.  Sure there will be consequences - these will be played out over the next 2 years.  The biggest danger to you and me is unemployment as the consequences of frozen lines of credit works its way through the "real economy".  Consumers will restrict their spending, increase their propensity to save, and cause a down turn in employment opportunities.  All that has yet to be determined - the fact for me today is I have a new mindset about my future.  Fear of the unknown has been replaced by enthusiasm for a new global regime that will emerge from this crisis.

I wrote this comment on Tom Peters blog today ....  Tom seemed to appreciate it so I thought I would share it with you.....

 "Tom I respectfully disagree with you...

These are not weird times - these are defining times...

All the things you list are the things you should have been doing "yesterday"... Most people were doing them and unfortunately they continue to do them with the result that they are not coping well with this crisis of confidence....

Today you need to be a leader who defines the future for yourself, your family, your workplace, and your community... How can you best do that? First and foremost you must be transparent in everything you do. You must model the behaviours you seek from others. You must keep your communications short and precise. You must free-up your diary and give yourself "hang time" where you alone, or with selected colleagues, think about the future and imagine radical and practical ways to shape your collective futures.... Do not waste your time talking to people who are not focussed on the future...

Your future agenda has to include a better and a clearer understanding of digital global networks - global credit markets have seized up because those who are trying to control them do not understand them. The Fed Reserve spent time and money saving iconic banks (relics of the past) instead of pouring their time and taxpayers' funds into the bond market to ensure liquidity - they are now trying to do that but it is too little too late.

This crisis is the direct result of a lack of leadership in the US - especially from the Fed Res, Treasury, the Executive and Capitol Hill arms of government ... They are convinced we are in "weird times" and so they have been doing all the things that Tom urges us to do and guess what we are digging this hole deeper not defining and working on new beginnings!

You should ignore their example and instead find your own ways to better understand the C21st challenges facing us all. We have a combination of issues that are "complex" when taken singularly and simply "unbelievable" when taken as a whole. We have the flat world of the internet(read Thomas Friedman), we have new social networks forming on Web 2.0 and soon 3.0, we have a huge shift in economic power away from the US to Asia, Russia, Middle East, etc., we have a failure of organisational theory to keep up with the development of early C21st social, business, financial, etc networking over the web, and so on...

What can you hope to do about all this... You can strive to reduce your dependence on oil, carbon, and government assistance. You can ensure, as they do at Tesco, Wal Mart, News Corp, etc that you have a clear and present mapping of your carbon footprint and then go to work each and everyday with the purpose of reducing your footprint through the way you live, personally, and do business.

Specifically I urge you to take your lead from Google not Microsoft. Look at the ways Google does business and copy them as they are defining the future not repackaging the past. Look at Microsoft and learn about just how much they are struggling to keep their C20th business models relevant to a totally different world. Then compare and contrast Google to Microsoft to learn more about how you should think, behave, and lead in your life today and tomorrow.... I am not saying Google is perfect nor am I suggesting in anyway that Microsoft is bad - they are just symbols of a hundred year change in the ways we did thing yesterday and the way we need to do them tomorrow....

In summary. These are complex and challenging times so there is no simplistic list of things for you to do - you have to make up your own lists to suit your own circumstances. But here is a broad framework for action... Go to work today or tomorrow with a plan to "free up" time for thinking not talking or communicating per se but thinking and definitely "stretching out" your world view. Establish a key set of strategic issues to tackle alone and with colleagues. Please DO NOT attend anymore of those "talk fest" meetings that usually fill your day. Get out of the office and take your key staff with you for your 30 minute strategy meeting about the future. Some times just go to the local gallery and be together in a world of imagination and difference - soak it all up without the need to talk. Walk through the park and absorb natures' beauty. When you get back to work start thinking differently - for example think about automated processes, how to make more and better connections into global digital networks and economies, plan to do without carbon, imagine operating with fewer and fewer people (get beyond the antiquated C20th notion of people-based organisations and move onto your own notions of information-based delivery systems or services), talk to different people today than you did yesterday, do not spend a moment of your time talking about the financial crisis unless it directly affects you...

Finally, be bold be confident and be focussed on the future not the past..."

The meltdown in the US financial system is the story... 

Banks are closing and sharemarkets are falling...  Inter-bank lending is drying up... Overnight rates for inter-bank lending are sky high....

This is 1929 all over again only this time it is completely different...

This time the banks are being bailed out by the government and the sharemarket is holding up....  This time the bond market is dead....  This time the sharemarket is holding up remarkably well....  This time the bears in the market are being kept in check with tighter control of "short selling"...  This time the "real economy" is holding up pretty well given that new lines of credit are almost non-existent and rolling over debt is almost impossible...  This time there is a "highly-charged political flavour" to what gets saved with taxpayers funds and what gets left to market forces...  This time a recession is heading for Main Street and we are still not sure if that will eventually mean there is a Depression on the way.... 

Certainly higher levels of unemployment are on the way - some areas of the US and then the global economy are going to head into Depression while others will suffer a severe recession and still others a mild recession... The key to where the economic impact is worse is the employment factor... 

Those employed within the global economy will be more likely to have better outcomes...  Those employed within the national economy will likely have somewhat worse outcomes....  Those employed in their local economy will have likely feel the full impact of these crisis and they might be headed for the worst economic depression ever seen....

One thing is sure and certain - there is only one story in the world today and this story will have a bad ending...