Listening to the Future

Praise for Listening to the Future "Turbulent times present businesses with the opportunity to rethink their value, their processes, and how they differentiate themselves in the market. Businesses need context to do this successfully. Rasmus and Salkowitz create a context for the challenges and opportunities ahead, and a lens for examination that can help businesses redefine themselves even in uncertain times. Listening to the Future provides practical advice on how to apply technology, not to solve specific problems, but to facilitate agility. Further, the authors don't just write about their thinking, they reveal the framework behind the findings, providing strong insight on the value of scenario planning in anticipating and navigating change." -Stephen Elop, President, Microsoft(r) Business Division "As Arie de Geus suggested in his award-winning The Living Company, 'the only sustainable competitive advantage in times like these is the ability to learn faster than your competition.' Listening to the Future is an indispensable guide to that learning, a manual for managers faced-as all of us are-with the uncertain challenges of the future." -Lawrence Wilkinson, Chairman, Heminge & Condell (H&C); cofounder, Global Business Network (GBN) "As we stand on the brink of a dramatic transformation in global culture and global business, we need good ways to think through the implications for ourselves and the world around us. Listening to the Future offers a panoramic view of the terrain, balancing vision with practical observations and useful strategies for organizational leaders. Rasmus and Salkowitz present a number of thought-provoking ideas that range from blended workforces to the rising complexity of business brought about by new relationships, new sources of data, and the failure of industrial age measurement." -Ray Kurzweil, founder, Kurzweil Technologies "Dan Rasmus and Rob Salkowitz lay out how Microsoft(r), the most powerful software company in the world, creates its internal crystal ball and takes advantage of accurately anticipating the future. Dan is one of those that constantly lives in the coming future and with Rob's help lays out a methodology that can help all of us do a better job of preparing for and taking advantage of the opportunities our future will bring." -Rob Enderle, Emerging Technology Analyst "We get into scenario work as a vehicle for thinking more effectively about uncertain futures (and our decisions today); but we lack enough good role models of organizations that have adapted scenarios into their perspectives. Here's an example that can be followed in depth; the scenario leader at Microsoft(r) shows in depth how the practice illuminated the shift of mind among their customers and employees going forward, and how they must rethink their product line accordingly." -Art Kleiner, Editor in Chief, strategy+business; author, The Age of Heretics