Living in More Than One World

Two weeks have passed since the terrific World Future Society WorldFuture 2016, and my perspective about the 50th annual conference has deepened. It’s impressive that so many people traveled from around the world to learn (and share their knowledge) about the future.

I was gratified by the response to my Future of Leadership unconference sessions. I had some trepidation about how many participants there would be early on a Saturday morning, but I needn’t have worried.

Here are five key takeaways about the conference, which I previewed in three earlier posts:

1. The Future is Being Created Now.

For my third and final preview post about the fast-approaching WorldFuture 2016, marking the 50th anniversary of the World Future Society, I’m focusing on the segment in which I’ll participate, the Unconference. It will be held this Saturday morning, July 23rd, from 8:00-9:30 AM, when I’ll facilitate a discussion on the future of leadership.

Because of the format, I won’t get to listen to any of the other discussions, which all look interesting. I’m unfamiliar with the other discussion leaders, other than my fellow Berrett-Koehler author Laura Goodrich, whose topic is Creating a Mindset for Change.

But I hope to meet as many of my fellow discussion leaders as possible over the course of the weekend, and perhaps collect some handouts for future reference.

WorldFuture 2016, the conference marking the 50th anniversary of the World Future Society, is rapidly approaching. Last week, I wrote my first of three blog posts previewing the conference, where I’ll facilitate a discussion on the future of leadership during the Unconference segment on July 23rd, from 8:00-9:30 AM.

Along with the keynote speakers I noted last week, there are many other speakers, panelists and Unconference session facilitators who will contribute to making this a great conference. It’s going to be tough making choices about which of the many concurrent sessions to attend, but here are some that look particularly intriguing:

•  Accelerating Human Imagination: Sheldon Brown, Director of the Arthur C.

On Saturday, July 23rd, I’m going to lead a discussion in Washington, D.C., on the future of leadership, during the Unconference segment of WorldFuture 2016, which marks the 50th anniversary of the World Future Society.

This is the first of my three planned blog posts providing previews to the three-day event. The keynotes all sound promising: Kimbal Musk (Chef,co-founder of The Kitchen), Bob Richards (co-founder and CEO of Moon Express), Sekou Andrews (“the world’s leading Poetic Voice,”) and Wayne Pacelle (CEO and President of the Humane Society of the United States). In addition, there are a number of other speakers, panelists and other events, including the Unconference on Saturday morning.

One of my favorite activities of the year is reading summer book lists. As I did last year and earlier, this year I have compiled some of the best reading lists of the summer, from a wide variety of sources:

American Express Open Forum: Top 10 Business Books for Summer Reading

CBC Books Summer 2016 reading list

Chicago Tribune: 30 Books You Should Read This Summer

CNBC: Wall Street’s summer reading list—and what it says about the market

Forbes: The Ultimate Summer Reading List For Entrepreneurs

Inc.: 15 Business Books Worth Reading This Summer

Information Management: 18 Books IT Leaders Should Read This Summer

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: How executives can make the most of their summer vacation

Newsweek: Here’s What J.P.

At this time 30 years ago, during my first summer semester as an MLS student at the Catholic University of America, I received my first formal introduction to the work of Peter Drucker. I wrote about this in more detail in two guest posts for LexisNexis Government Info Pro, “25 Years of Drucker” in 2011, and “How a New Business/Self-Development Book Had Its Genesis in a Library School Class,” in 2009.

Drucker’s 1974 magnum opus, Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices, was the textbook assigned by my professor, Duane Webster, the longtime executive director of the Association of Research Libraries.

It’s doubtful you’ll hear a more eclectic set of songs within an hour than in the weekly radio program The Many Moods of Ben Vaughn, featuring the singer/songwriter/composer/producer/radio host-curator. Now, along with its original stations, WXPN in Philadelphia, and WEVL in Memphis, the show is in wider syndication and also available via podcast.

In 2013, I interviewed Ben, whom I have known for many years, for my blog, in which he discusses, among other things, how he constructs the Many Moods. I’ve had great enjoyment recently catching up on some of the shows, which he informs his listeners emanate from the “relay shack,” in “Parts Unknown, USA”.

The Drucker Institute recently gave a new name for, and a new twist to the nonprofit innovation award it gives annually. What’s now called the Drucker Prize will still award $100,000 to the winning nonprofit organization, and the 2016 prize applications are now open. The new twist is a special learning platform that will be available to applicants. According to the Institute’s website, it “blends the timeless wisdom of Peter Drucker with the thinking of some of today’s brightest management minds.” The 2015 prize winner was Kids v Cancer.

The Institute remains a rich source of knowledge about Peter Drucker, especially through the extensive holdings of the Drucker Archives.

On April 8th, I had the honor of receiving the Roger Summit Award, from the Association of Independent Information Professionals/AIIP, at its 30th Annual Conference, in Pittsburgh. Roger is a pioneer of the online information world, as founder of Dialog, the world’s first online search service. (It is now a platform within the global information company ProQuest, and called ProQuest Dialog.) As part of the award, I delivered the Roger Summit Lecture that morning, “Creating a Compelling Future: Business and Beyond.”

Roger, who has long been based in Silicon Valley, participated in this year’s conference, including introducing me for the lecture and then in a nice surprise, announcing after I finished that for the first time, the award winner would also receive a one year’s membership in AIIP.

Placing freelance articles in high-quality, selective publications is difficult. That makes Peter Drucker’s status as a freelance writer particularly impressive. Although he wrote a number of books that sold millions of copies worldwide, for many years he kept up a demanding regimen of writing a column for the Wall Street Journal, many articles for the Harvard Business Review, and major pieces for such publications as the Atlantic, Forbes, Harper’s and others. And as I wrote about in 2013, he did some fascinating foreign correspondent work for The Washington Post in 1938.

Courtesy of the Drucker Institute

Perhaps the best way to get a sense of the breadth of these contributions is to look at the sources for some of his book collections:

Classic Drucker: Essential Wisdom of Peter Drucker from the Pages of Harvard Business Review

The Ecological Vision: Reflections on the American Condition: articles from Public Interest, Perspectives, Harper’s, The Review of Politics, Esquire, Forbes, Virginia Quarterly Review, Sewanee Review, Harvard Business Review, Wall Street Journal and other publications

The Frontiers of Management: Where Tomorrow’s Decisions Are Being Shaped Today: articles from Harvard Business Review, Wall Street Journal, Esquire, Forbes, Foreign Affairs, The Public Interest, Chronicle of Higher Education and other publications

Managing for the Future: the 1990s and Beyond: articles from The Economist, Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Industry Week and other publications

Managing in a Time of Great Change: articles (or interviews) from Atlantic Monthly, Foreign Affairs, Industry Week, Wall Street Journal and other publications

Managing in the Next Society: articles from The Economist, Forbes ASAP, Foreign Affairs, Atlantic Monthly, Harvard Business Review, Wall Street Journal, Leader to Leader, New Perspectives and other publications

Men, Ideas & Politics: Essays by Peter F.