Futurist.com: Futurist Speaker Glen Hiemstra

Recently I had the chance to sit down with Kate Vitasek, author of the new book, Vested Outsourcing, with Mike Ledyard and Karl Manrodt. Outsourcing is a controversial but fundamental business activity – as Kate notes Peter Drucker used to say “Do what you do best and outsource the rest,” and the idea of finding people who can do something better, faster and cheaper than you goes all the way back to Adam Smith and beyond.

In recent history outsourcing has become conflated with off-shoring. Having some other company do your IT work, your PR work, your janitorial work, and so on, does not mean, necessarily, sending that work out of the community or overseas. Though of course, in practice it often does just that. I support policies that would limit off-shoring and certainly would not reward it. And, in general I believe that the future well-being of the economy depends on building more local capacity within a global economy.

Leaving the issue of off-shoring aside, however, there is a great deal to learn from Kate and the concept of Vested Outsourcing. The goal is to make outsourcing a win-win-win proposition when practiced. That is, if done right outsourcing a particular function should lead to cost savings for the company outsourcing, higher margins for the company that gets the work, and better service for the customer. That is the goal of Vested Outsourcing, and this is accomplished by implementing five basic rules explained in the book.

1. Focus on outcomes, not transactions.
2. Focus on the WHAT, not the HOW.
3. Agree on clearly defined and measurable outcomes.
4. Optimize pricing model incentives for cost/service trade-offs.
5. Governance structure provides insight, not merely oversight.

These rules add up to a constructive, mutually beneficial relationship between the companies involved. The research done by Kate and her colleagues at the University of Tennessee demonstrates that outsourcing following these rules lead to such a relationship.

My take on all this is that some outsourcing is inevitable and optimal and, given that, it ought to be done well.

[Video production: David Ryder]

As we watched the last days of the Olympics the past few days, I zeroed in on television ads sponsored by the American Oil & Gas industry – lots of these ads – and by the American coal industry. Both emphasized, with patriotic overtones, how important they are to creating jobs, and to achieving national independence, along with how amazingly clean they are. Not a word, not a nod, to impact on future climate. Both ad campaigns are efforts to inoculate the public against any new climate change legislation and to keep subsidies alive.

I just came across a very good video summarizing the state of climate science. I doubt it will be convincing to committed skeptics or to the funders of the energy ads.

It is a mystery to me, really it is, why so many people are willing to gamble with the future, when we don’t have to.

One of the amusing, and sad, things about discussions of the future of transit in the U.S. is that it is so often discussed in one of two ways, both intended to make it seem rather outlandish. First, it is discussed as something vaguely foreign – sure, they have widespread transit in Europe, but we are not like them. Or, second the concept of widely accessible transit is presented is simply not a possible idea, like it has never been tried in whatever city is in question (except New York and Washington DC). So, when commentators like Duncan Black simply point to historical maps of transit systems in city after city, I can only wish we could go back to the future with transit. Here is the map of Seattle’s old transit (street car) system from 1933. It went everywhere.

The Bloom Box is the talk of the day, after the break out on 60-Minutes yesterday. This is a new fuel cell approach, already in use in some larger scale test operations, such as providing 15% of EBay’s electric needs. Very encouraging, if the mass-production costs are realistic. Not a lot of technical details are yet known, but the video introduction, below, provides an overview. The ultimate goal is a refrigerator-size box to power each home.

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Impressive time-lapse film of glacier retreat, promoting an upcoming NOVA program which aired a year ago.

Tomorrow I have the privilege of doing the keynote speech for the opening of the 2010 Northwest Transportation Conference, being held on the campus of OSU in Corvallis, Oregon. I’ve been asked to offer “Reflections on Transportation Futures – Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow.”

My belief is that for transportation we are at a time in history somewhat like a century ago – a time when new energy developments combined with inventiveness to radically change how, where, and when people could achieve mobility. The automobile age that began a century ago has now led to its own problems, even as it just now expands rapidly in parts of the world like China.

Looking ahead, over the next decade or two we will, nationally and internationally, need to be thinking systemically about travel demand and supply, advanced transportation technologies, and how to achieve sustainable transportation, if that is possible.

In my speech I’ll be highlighting 4 key trends – economic volatility, environmental issues remaining in the foreground, the end of cheaper and cheaper energy (which enabled the last century of transportation), and shifting demographics. From these four core trends arise four key challenges – making the energy transition, developing transportation around how we want to live rather than developing our living spaces to accommodate transportation, making Philly legal (borrowing from Duncan Black) which is to say re-inventing our towns and cities, and finally stepping up to actual breakthrough thinking.

Here are the slides I’ll be using.

One of the most interesting people trying to invent the future of transportation is Dan Sturges. An original developer of the GEM electric vehicle, more recently Dan has been a leader at Intrago Mobility, which is promoting a whole-systems approach to transportation. Recently he spoke to a SMART conference, in this 10-minute overview of the dream.

The U.S economy lost 20,000 jobs in January 2010, compared to a colossal loss of nearly 800,000 in January 2009. This is what progress looks like.

Source: http://www.speaker.gov/blog/?p=2144

Irises in Seattle 3 Feb 2010

Thursday February 4 I appear on a panel on for the New Partners for Growth conference here in Seattle. The panel is called Smart Housing Choices in a Changing Environment. I’ll be discussing the longer term trends that will, and must, shape smarter housing choices. And to begin I think I’ll ask about the whole concept of growth – when might we let go of the concept that populations, and regions should grow forever? The factors that I’ll mention include:

• Income gap economics and the debtor society
• End of a century of cheap energy
• Climate change and impact on life style
• Demographic mismatches

We still have further to go, despite declining home prices, to match housing in the U.S. to actual incomes. The good news is that we know, pretty much, what needs to be done to get to smarter housing choices:

• Revise zoning and development law to account for the factors above – Duncan Black calls this making Philly legal
• Modify values toward modesty and frugality
• Downsize housing attractively
• Build green
• Build age friendly

Today marked the successful launch of the new look for Futurist.com, my home as a futurist speaker and consultant. This new Wordpress-based theme provides a cleaner and up-to-date interface, and robust options in continuing to improve the user experience.

I am particularly pleased that we’ve been able to better organize the blog and the older content archive, for those of you interested in browsing the future. For those of you looking for a keynote or for high-level consulting in long-range planning, we’ve improved our access to information on what we offer, including examples of past consulting projects, and keynote speaking event highlights.

In the About tab we’ve more clearly explained our value proposition for futurist consulting and keynotes. You will also find better information about our history, Futurist.com Associates, and contributing writers.

There are better links to social media. And, as always, we also offer a great deal of video information.

By the way, Futurist.com had 34,000 visitors and 475,000 hits in January 2010, one of our largest months.

I also want to announce that, as of Febraury 2010, Amy Frazier, for the past two years our Director of Marketing and Programs, has shifted to being a Futurist.com Associate, offering programs in creativity, as she pursues a Masters degree in the subject. We have appreciated her work here and look forward to working together in this new relationship.

Please feel free to send in questions and comments. And we are booking 2010 at the moment, so do get on the schedule for a program this year.

Glen Hiemstra is a futurist speaker, author, consultant, blogger, internet video host and Founder of Futurist.com. To arrange for a speech contact Futurist.com.