Читать книгу 21st Century Megatrends: Perspectives from a Fox - Clem Sunter - Страница 3

Think about how much life changes in a century, let alone a millennium. Our Victorian antecedents would have had no idea about how the car would change the way we live. Air travel would have been way beyond them. Phones they might have had an inkling about as the device was invented towards the end of the 19th century. Nevertheless, I doubt that they would have any grasp of so many aspects of our existence which we now take for granted. Of course, trains and ships, trade and wars, love and hate and many other things they would be familiar with.

So here we are at the beginning of the 21st century without much of a clue of what the world will be like at the beginning of the 22nd one. In the same manner as the original telephone did, the internet, the mobile and other late 20th century devices do provide some indications of the way the next two generations will evolve. However, we might be as surprised as the Victorians about some of the things we would encounter if we were around in the 2090s.

The title of this book, therefore, is not meant to imply that as a scenario planner I can look that far forward. It is more about identifying the forces shaping our lives for the next ten years which have become apparent since 2000. It is the subject of the first article of a set of weekly columns I have written for News24 between March 2012 and July 2013. The remainder cover a wide range of issues, but the theme of some of the most important ones is about how South Africa must establish an economic platform which will launch a new generation of entrepreneurs. Only by doing this will we make the rest of this century a prosperous one for all our citizens. Several also identify the red flags that we have to keep down to avoid a crash landing before a new economic model has kicked in.

I would like to thank Aneeqah Emeran at News24 who assists me every week in publishing my articles and Annie de Beer for the production of this book. I would also like to thank my colleague Chantell Ilbury for all the work she has done in making the ‘mind of a fox’ brand such a global success. The reason that a South African idea can break new ground in the field of strategic thinking is that we know – living on the African continent – that much of the future is uncertain and beyond our control. Like true foxes, South Africans invariably rise to the challenge of adapting to whatever the future throws at them. They have the resilience and spirit of innovation to thrive in the 21st century. All that is needed is leadership of the right kind.

Clem Sunter