What's Next: Exploring The New Terrain For Business

by Eamonn Kelly, Peter Leyden, GBN Network

Overview

Who better to help us foresee how emerging trends will help shape the agenda for business in the first decade of the twenty-first century than Global Business Network, the renowned futurist think tank and strategic consulting firm, where some of the greatest minds from these fields converge and converse? In What's Next?, GBN's President, Eamonn Kelly, and its "knowledge developer," Peter Leyden, weave together fresh, new insights from expansive interviews with many of the Network's key thinkers, including: Stewart Brand on civilization, Mary Catherine Bateson on cultural change, Paul Hawken on the anti-globalization movement, Esther Dyson on Russia, Kevin Kelly on thinking globally, and Francis Fukuyama on biotechnology. The result is a thought-provoking, and inspiring guide to the ideas, concepts, and forces that will influence business in an era of increasing uncertainty-and opportunity. Visit the GBN website at www.gbn.org.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780738208558
Publisher:	Basic Books
Publication date:	09/04/2003
Pages:	368
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Eamonn Kelly is CEO and President of Global Business Network, a member of the Monitor Group. Kelly also heads GBN's consulting practice and has worked at senior levels with dozens of the world's leading corporations, as well as with global and national public agencies. He lives in San Rafael, California.

Peter Leyden is Global Business Network's Knowledge Developer. Co-author of The Long Boom and former managing editor of Wired magazine, he also served as special correspondent in Asia for Newsweek. He lives in Berkeley, California. Visit the authors' website at www.gbn.com.

Table of Contents

	Exploring the New Terrain: Introduction	1
	Power
1	The Evolution of Wealth Creation: Economics and Finance	18
2	Toward a New World Order: Geopolitics and Governance	46
	People
3	The Challenge of Change: Cultures and Societies	92
4	The Search for Deeper Meaning: Values and Belief Systems	123
	Potential
5	Tomorrow's Tools: Technology	160
6	The Frontiers of Knowledge: Science	189
	Planet
7	The Earth as a Whole: Environment and Sustainability	228
8	Preparing for the Long Term: Civilization and Infrastructure	260
	Continuing the Journey: Implications	300
	Acknowledgments	320
	About the Authors	323
	About the Network Members	325
	The GBN Book Club	343
	Index	349

Editorial Reviews

An inspiring and thought-provoking guide to ideas, concepts, and forces influencing business in the next decade.

Futurist

Genuinely different...like giving individual readers the impression that they are attending a rather grand seminar at a prestigious resort.

Independent-London

[A] splendid book, intelligently organized.

Future Survey

An avowedly atypical book...The insights offered by What's Next should be a boon to business leaders interested in new perspectives.

The Futurist

Not your usual management how-to, this collection is all big, thought-provoking ideas.

Wired

The value of "What's Next?" is its ability to stimulate and provoke.

Kelly and Leyden, of Silicon Valley- based consultancy Global Business Network, chat with 50 "remarkable people," including entertainers like Laurie Anderson and geographic demographers like Joel Garreau, about everything from China's role in world politics to biotechnology, while trying to figure out how these trends mesh. After everyone's chimed in, the authors propose that the 21st century's successful business leaders will be those who develop an "adaptive advantage" over their competitors, learning to gauge the culture as effectively as the marketplace. They further suggest such corporate-minded entrepreneurs will be the most likely candidates to develop creative solutions for the world's toughest problems. The enthusiasm for corporations isn't unexpected, given Leyden's pro-globalization stance in 1999's The Long Boom, which he co-authored; and much effort is spent explaining why today's recession hasn't nullified those earlier predictions for a prosperous future. One analyst compares the wave of failed dot-coms to "regular brushfires to... make space for fresh growth," while another believes increased antidepressant usage created fearless investors, who pumped the market up to unsustainable levels. With so many people discussing subjects outside their specialized fields, the reflections swerve from insightful to inane, and despite the authors' attempt to structure the book thematically, there's still a disjointed feel to what is, essentially, a hodgepodge of excerpted transcripts. "Things are going to be wild and crazy much sooner than we expect," one contributor warns (as if they weren't already!), but for all the speculation, the book's only practical advice is to learn how to think fast. (Oct.) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

What's Next? brings together the advice and thoughts of fifty preeminent scientists, educators, writers, economists, artists, historians, inventors and thinkers from around the world. These thought leaders from the Global Business Network provide their insights into the forces that will shape the business environment over the next decade. Their incisive commentary and fresh ideas offer an educated glimpse of the challenges and opportunities that are waiting just around the corner. Copyright (c) 2003 Soundview Executive Book Summaries

Soundview Executive Book Summaries