In Turning the Future into Revenue, Glen Hiemstra, founder of Futurist.com and noted expert on emerging business opportunities, explores how our changing world will transform private enterprise and public policy. From shifting demographics to global warming to new energy policies, change is coming. Turning the Future into Revenue shows how these new realities can be turned into profitable new ventures.
Some of the topics Hiemstra discusses include:
Five long-term trends you should be prepared for
Global warming and the urgent need for green business
Profiting from technology and energy trends
Predicting the future of your business or career
Hedging your bets on future business
Ten key practices of the future-oriented enterprise
“It was clear, well-written, and the points followed logically from each other.” (Long Rang Planning, July 2007)
"...clear, well written...we can thoroughly recommend the book as it covers an important topic in an informed way." (Long Range Planning, 40/2007)
“We can thoroughly recommend the book as it covers an important topic in an informed way”. (Long Range Planning , March 2008)
From the Inside Flap
In business, it always helps to know what's coming. How can you take advantage of the business opportunities of tomorrow if you aren't planning for that tomorrow today?
In Turning the Future into Revenue, noted futurist and business consultant Glen Hiemstra explores the global changes that will revolutionize business and reveals the ways individuals and organizations can profit from those coming developments. Surprising demographic shifts, energy shortages, new technologies, environmental changes, and issues of race and religion will change the way we live. They will also lead to new and exciting business opportunities. Only those who foresee those opportunities will be in position to take advantage of them.
Hiemstra begins by offering a primer on the most important and surprising trends of the future and what effects they will have on people and businesses. Then he describes the kind of organizational planning required to be fully prepared. He outlines a structured three-stage future planning process that involves developing the ability of foresight, choosing a future direction, and deciding on a set of strategies that will get you there. This isn't the kind of planning you can manage over the course of a weekend retreat or during a round of golf. It takes time and effort.
What about the kind of short-term planning that affects the bottom line every day? Turning the Future into Revenue shows that short-term planning is generally much more effective when it's based on a long-term vision of the future, rather than on a quest for quick profits or market share. Hiemstra shows that the best way to develop short-term strategy is to work backwards from your long-term vision. It may seem contradictory, but the future isn't a one-way street; you can shape it with the right strategies today.
The most successful companies over the long-term will be those that not only anticipate near-term economic shifts, but those that take a much longer view than the current emphasis on organizational speed and agility encourages. Whatever comes, the future will certainly be a challenge. If you and your organization want to seize that future first, Turning the Future into Revenue offers invaluable insight on what will happen next—and how to predict, shape, and profit from it.
Glen Hiemstra, Futurist, was telling audiences about global warming and climate change...in 1987. He was writing about the age wave and the end of classic retirement...in 1995. Glen was previewing nanotechnology...in 1989. He was describing genomic science and biotechnology even earlier. Glen was studying how the Internet would change human and organizational communication in 1981, before the Internet was even a public network. In the mid-1980's he was telling people about the coming economic growth of the Pacific Rim countries. By 2001 Glen was describing peak oil and the coming energy transformation as the greatest economic opportunity of the next half-century. As early as 2006 Glen was telling people why the debt bubble would burst, as it did more than a year later. To deal with breakthrough trends like these Glen was helping large and small companies, educational institutions, government agencies and communities re-think their future vision. Oh yes, and Glen Hiemstra was the one professional futurist with the foresight to register Futurist.com and become Founder and CEO of the website visited by people from 120 nations each month.
This is why audience members for Glen's keynote speeches and clients for his long-range planning say things like, "Once you hear Glen Hiemstra speak, the future will never look the same."
Glen Hiemstra is dedicated to disseminating information about the future to assist individuals, organizations, and industries in effective strategic planning. An internationally respected expert on future trends, long-range planning and creating the preferred future, Glen has advised professional, business, and governmental organizations for two decades and has served as a technical advisor for futuristic television programs. A writer and blogger as well as a speaker and consultant, Glen is the author of Turning the Future into Revenue: What Businesses and Individuals Need to Know to Shape Their Future (Wiley & Sons 2006). Previously he co-authored Strategic Leadership: Achieving Your Preferred Future.
Glen has worked with many leading companies, government agencies and organizations across a wide variety of domains. These include Microsoft, The Home Depot, Boeing, Adobe, Ernst & Young, PaineWebber, ShareBuilder, Ambrosetti (Italy), Club of Amsterdam, Northern Telecom, REI, Weyerhaeuser, Hewlett Packard, Novo Nordisk, U.S./Mexico JWC, APAX Partners, Costa Rica Hotel Association, Atlanta 2060, Tulsa 2025, Idaho Transportation 2030, Michigan DOT 2030, Federal Highway Administration Advanced Research, Eddie Bauer, Procter & Gamble, ACE Hardware, IHOP, John Deere, Weitz Construction, Lexis Nexus, Land O Lakes, GHD Engineering (Australia), SONAE (Portugal), and others.
As a recognized expert in preferred future planning, Glen is a popular keynote speaker who can zero in on emerging trends in economics, demographics, energy, the environment, Internet and communications, science, technology, housing, and transportation. Glen goes beyond simple trend analysis to discuss the opportunities that we all have to shape the preferred future. In his consulting, Glen utilizes tools such as environmental scanning, scenario development, whole systems perspectives, paradigm shifts, and analysis of organizational culture for managing change to assist enterprises to achieve high performance.
A skilled communicator, Glen also offers a variety of informational resources for those interested in exploring the future. Each day visitors come to Futurist.com and Glen's blog for provocative snapshots of emerging ideas, trends, and technologies. Futurist.com produces short videos for the web on a variety of future topics. Glen can be followed at twitter.com/futuristspeaker and youtube.com/futuristspeaker.
As a media technical advisor Glen worked with Steven Bochco Productions (creator of "Hill Street Blues" and "NYPD Blue"), among others. He is often cited in publications such as The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, US News & World Report, The Futurist, USA Today, Business Week, the Economist, and the Los Angeles Times.
In a first career, Glen was an award-winning educator; more recently he served as a Visiting Scholar at the Human Interface Technology Lab at the University of Washington, which worked on virtual and augmented reality technology.
Glen was educated at Whitworth College, the University of Oregon, and the University of Washington. He lives in Kirkland, Washington with his wife Tracie. They have three adult children.
This review is from: Turning the Future Into Revenue: What Business and Individuals Need to Know to Shape Their Futures (Hardcover)
There are actually three different but interrelated stories woven together in Glen Hiemstra's very topical "Turning the Future into Revenue: what Businesses and Individuals Need to Know to Shape Their Futures". The first story explains how an organization - be it a company, government agency or non-profit - can do a better job of positioning itself to manage successfully whatever future world may occur by applying several carefully crafted tools and methods. The second story offers similar advice to individuals to apply these same tools and methods to preparing themselves personally for the future. In reality, the key to both of these approaches is the realization that through our own actions and choices we are constantly all creating the future, so we might as well do so in a positive and insightful manner rather than randomly.
The third story offers Glen's own personal perspective on the primary events, developments and trends (or EDTs) that will shape all of our futures, and how to start adapting today to take advantage of them. In particular, two concepts stand out. The first concept is the very real threat that global warming and pollution pose to the environmental balance of the planet and why reversing this threat now will both help us survive as a species and provide remarkable business opportunities as well. The second concept is the importance of equity; of sharing the abundance of income, goods and services, education and information that our modern high-tech global economy can generate more widely across the world's populations. Doing so successfully will defuse many potential friction points before they have a chance to emerge and create even greater problems for the world, particularly if this resentment feeds into fundamentalist movements of any ideology. Glen ends his volume with a stirring cry that we "start the twenty-first century all over again" (p. 210) and return to a spirit of optimism that can make a better future for the entire planet. After all, "[t]he future is something we do." (p. 211)
I highly recommend this volume to anyone who is curious about the future and how to prepare for it both personally and for the organizations to which they belong. I recommend it even more emphatically to those who do not now think about the future; after reading this book they will quickly realize how vital it is to do so. It is definitely worth the time.
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This review is from: Turning the Future Into Revenue: What Business and Individuals Need to Know to Shape Their Futures (Hardcover)
I can't stop thinking about this book! It's readable, entertaining, and brimming with incredibly astute insights and ideas. Overall, I had an amazing paradigm shift because of it.
As a future expert, Hiemstra describes both obvious and unobvious features of the future - like the population, oil, aging, nanotechnology, etc. That part of the book is fascinating and a great read in itself. But instead of just describing possibilities and probabilities, he explains how we create the future, and how the future in turn creates the present. That's where it really gets interesting. He even explains how to "be your own futurist," and how to create your career based on where the future is. It's truly inspiring. I was one of those people who never bothered to think about 15 or 20 years down the road, but now I realize that I MUST think about it. Honestly, this book changed my life. Very exciting!
Definitely check out this book. Even though the title is about profiting from the future, this book isn't just about profit, it's really about creating the world we want for ourselves (and creating some wealth while we're at it) - as individuals, and as a society. Highly recommended.
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This review is from: Turning the Future Into Revenue: What Business and Individuals Need to Know to Shape Their Futures (Hardcover)
I was personally diappointed by this book. I saw it advertised in The Futurist and went out and got it immediately. The first part of the book on trends was decent, summarizing five key trends to expect in the future. However, the book failed to deliver on its promise of "turning the future into revenue". If your looking for practical suggestions on how to capitalize on these trends look elsewhere.
The second part of the book was disappointing. It basically summarized what dozens of other books have already covered about defining a strategic vision, strategy, and short term wins to help move towards the future.
The third part of the book was just downright atrocious, with the author injecting his personal views about religion. For a classic book that does much more to cover the details of setting strategic direction, read "Competing for the Future" by Gary Hamal.
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