Events
Vale Richard Pratt
Wednesday 29 April 2009
Richard Pratt has succumbed to a battle with prostate cancer and there's no doubt that many words will be written on paper destined to end up as recycle materials at his VISY Industries plants. There's a harmony in that thought - all those words of type and paper discussing Richard Pratt will be recycling through the world, 'living on' as it were in perpetuity due to Pratt's recycling empire. Much of the type will discuss his business empire, his foibles and interests, his wonderful family and his philanthropy - perhaps as the most well known benefactor (if not the largest) of a whole range of issues throughout Australia. What will be less known and what I recognise implicitly, is that I owe my career in no small part due to Richard Pratt
The Australian Foresight Institute emerged from a direct funding injection from the Pratt Foundation who were very keen to support the idea of social foresight as a way forward for Australia. The tenured position enabled Professor Richard Slaughter to design and pursue the teaching of Strategic Foresight as an independent Master of Science program at Swinburne University, a course subject that at the time it would be reasonable to say, was not without its detractors inside the University.
I was lucky enough to be one of less than about 30 people to have acquired a Master's of Science, Strategic Foresight post graduate qualification. There's many more that have a Graduate Certificate and Graduate Diploma in Strategic Foresight. And none of us would be in a position to hold that qualification if not for the Pratt Foundation's funding of the program which paid for the 'chair' (Richard Slaughter's expertise) and allowed the students to pay for the course.
Following the departure of the previous Vice Chancellor the Master's program has since been folded into the standard Business streams (could that be due to a lack of foresight?) thought the essence of the course is holding on to existence. Despite an apparent preference by some that the course would just 'go away', people keep turning up to 'major' in Strategic Foresight. The reasons for this desire are even clearer now that it is so obvious that the business skills taught in standard business courses just aren't up to dealing with the increasing complexity of the world - something more effective is needed in addition to the useful (though standard) business skills found inside most tertiary business programs
Richard Pratt and his wife Jeanne had foresight. Their use of their considerable wealth to support a raft of charitable, not for profit and forward looking entities suggest that this foresight was also highly strategic. The Pratt Foundation exists to help make Australia and therein the world, a better place. As past students influence their workplaces and clients, encouraging, cajoling and teaching them about how to go about enhancing their approaches to their roles, by applying the wide variety of Strategic Foresight methods, Richard Pratt's legacy in the area of a better thinking Australia will continue to evolve and improve. You might not read as much about that in the mainstream media but the impact will be no less significant.
As a benefactor of the Pratt Foundation's foresight I am eternally grateful. My thoughts are with his family. Vale Richard Pratt
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Events
Friday 16 July 2010
A series of recent activities has me writing on the idea of 'future strategy' and how different organisations are approaching their future development. What is interesting is the strong sense that preparing for your potential future requires multiple paths forward, not a single 'home run'. To that end I've recently considered sporting bodies and local community driven programs which has triggered these 'thought bubbles'
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Monday 5 July 2010
Stephen Downes is one the handful of bloggers I follow consistently. I do so because Downes (unlike many others unfortunately) like to write about his thinking AS WELL AS promoting the thinking of others, whether or not he agrees with them. In that way you get a solid collection of alternative views within his field of endeavour (learning & teaching et al). The link below will take you to a presentation by David Harvey that walks you through an interesting interpretation of the Capitalist model and where we are at in the world affairs. Whether or not you agree with the content, it is highly recommended
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Monday 28 June 2010
Coming off what has been undoubtedly my busiest period (3 months) in the past decade, I'm in the throws of catching up on some light reading. I usually have at least two books on the go and my preference is for the books to be about diverse topics because it allows the mind to seek out random connections. I once 'solved' the nuclear fusion problem whilst reading books by Umberto Eco and John D Barrow. A physicist friend of mine suggested my idea was radical and yet theoretically possible. But I digress. Right now I have a wide combination - 'From Poverty to Peace' by Duncan Green looks at ways in which we can empower people to help themselves more effectively, whilst looking at the myriad of mistakes so commonly made in the area of 'aid'. 'New knowledge in Human Values' is an older book edited by Ambraham Maslow with a wide contribution of thoughts from the likes of Pitirim Sorokin, Dorothy Lee and Paul Tillich (among others) and is a walk through some of the thinking about Human Values emerging in the late 1950's. The chapters are appropriately dense undertakings and I'm finding it hard to stick with, especially as I'm more inclined to lean towards the model of Clare W Graves and his Value Systems Thoery; 'Coercion as Cure' by Thomas Szasz is a ripper of a book thus far, though I'm only a few chapters in, I can tell the quality of a book by how much 'tagging' I do within a text
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