For Jay Mendell's book on overcoming stigma in fund raising, please surf to http://black-sheep-library.com/order-now-black-sheep-fundraising.htm  That's Black Sheep Fundraising: Obtaining Dollars Despite Stigma and Prejudice toward Abortion, AIDS, Alcoholism, Birth Control, Child Abuse, Domestic Violence, Drug Abuse, Eating Disorders, Gambling, Homelessness, Homosexuality, Mental Disorders, Partner Violence,  Sex Education, Teenage Pregnancy, the Unemployed, the Ex-Offenders, the Illegal Immigrants, the Juvenile Offenders, the Elderly, and Other Outcast Causes .

Untitled Manuscript
Copyright 1996 by Jay S. Mendell

1. Introduction
"I wish I'd thought of that!"

 "Yeah. I would never think of something like that. Not in a million years!"

 "I don't know. I guess it just takes a special kind of person. An inventor, y'know. Maybe it was her idea. The engineer's. They are smarter than business people."

 Three business students were agitated by the rumor that one of their classmates had secured capital to launch a new venture. According to the grapevine, he had collaborated with his wife, an engineering student, to invent an anti-aerodynamic flower pot.

 "An anti-aerodynamic flowerpot? What's that?"

 "You know...for hurricanes. The harder the wind blows, the harder this pot sticks in place. The wind can't blow it away."

 "Yeah, that's really a great idea. My grandmother lives in one of those high-rise condominiums by the ocean. Remember Hurricane David? She ruptured a spinal disk bringing in her umbrella tree."

 "Yeah. Just think of all those high-rise condos. Every one has a balcony. And every balcony has ...what?...a dozen potted umbrella trees. And rubber trees. And dozens of geraniums," said the blonde.

 "Right. And all the old people are retiring and selling their homes and moving into high-risers with balconies. They don't want to haul in the potted plants every time they hear a hurricane warning," said the leggy brunette.

 "My golly. He is going to make a fortune," said the body builder. He was sweating with envy.

 I said: "Wait a second. Discovering opportunity is not magic. You can teach yourself to see opportunities that are invisible to others."

 The tall brunette looked at her toes. She ran her fingers through her hair. This guy is crazy, she was thinking. No wonder they call him the Professor from Pluto. "I would never think of a new idea. I wouldn't want to. I'm going to be a CPA."

 I said: "For ten years I've been teaching a course called 'Visionary Management'."

 The brunette continued to study her toes. The body-builder studied his reflection in the window. Neither reacted  to the challenge implied in my statement.

 But the blonde surprised me. She said, "My uncle Sol wrote poetry...He invented that funny kind of wrench...you know...the one they sell at Sears...Back in 1950 he told my Mom that men would walk on the moon by 1970."

 You can't tell who the smart ones are by looking at them. "That's right. Some people  ooze new ideas, and think five and ten years ahead, like futurists. You can't beat that combination: use your imagination, and think ahead....And you can learn these skills. I've been teaching them for years."

 "I've got a question here, Professor. We all loved Uncle Sol, and we respected his business head. But he was definitely what we called 'different.' He was always coming up with ideas that no one else thought of. Sometimes it was embarrassing, the way ideas jumped out of his mouth.

 "What I want to know is," she continued, "if I improve my creativity, will I be 'different' like Sol?"

 "Maybe," I said. "Certainly you will be in exclusive company. I would say that of every three people, two do not really care if they were born with an imagination." (The brunette was now examining her fingernails, and the body builder was studying his biceps.)

 "I can handle that," she said. "But how am I going to become more creative?...I mean, am I going to go into a trance?"

 I said:  "Maybe. That works for some people, and I have had good luck teaching trance learning. But there are easier ways, too. And I can teach those. Actually, for each person, the learning is individual and situational."

 The blonde explained to the body builder, "That's 'professor-ese' he's speaking. I think he means each person needs a different method, depending on their circumstances." He yawned. He had taken an interest in the brunette's legs.

 "Exactly," I said.

 "Next time, why don't you say it in plain English," she said.

 "Thanks. I shall."

 Then she posed a really tough question. "Look, I want to ask you about this business of thinking like a futurist. My marketing professor doesn't think much of futurists." I must have frowned, since she added, "Of course he is very fond of you personally, Professor." I must have smiled, because she continued, but she was treading on eggshells. "He says you have ...well...he says they have a pretty dismal record of prediction. In fact, he gave me the name of a book, Megamistakes, which he says lets the air out of the futurists' balloons."

 "Yes, " I said. "It's a book by a professor who does a brilliant job of revealing some of the predictions that have gripped the U. S. in what was almost mass hysteria..... Quadraphonic high fidelity...Practically everything in the notorious TRW 'Probe' forecast of 1966 ...It turned out to be a publicized flop...So much publicity, so much inaccurate forecasting."

 "But," I continued, "even that professor, Stephjen Schnaars, identified how such errors can be minimized...And, there are ways of minimizing error that he has not even mentioned....And I can show you ways to learn and profit from even the most turbulent environments. I can show you how to diminish your overexposure and effect multiple scenario planning."

 "'Multiple scenario planning?' 'Turbulent environments?' Really, Professor, try to do something about your bad habit... Sometimes you sound like a textbook."

 "Look," she said, "maybe you have something good here. Think about this: there must be hundreds of thousands of kids graduating from college each year," she said. "Okay," pointing to her classmates who, having tired of our conversation had wandered down the hall, "never mind the two-thirds who don't have the wits to worry about their future ....Think about the ones like me...I'm scared."

 "Scared?"

 "Yes, scared. I know there are titanic forces at work in the world ...Population...Computers...Robots...Economic cycles...the Greenhouse effect...Africa, Asia, the Middle East. But I don't know what to do about them, which ones to ignore, which ones to act on. Can you help me understand?"

 I said, "Of course. Why...."

 "Swell," she said. "And I'm worried that my teachers have kicked most of the creativity out of me, and I think the job system will kick the rest out.... And I hate that thought."

 "Maybe you are right," I said, "about the educational system kicking the creativity out of you. I wrote a poem once about that. It went ..."

 "Maybe later," she said. She whipped out a piece of paper. "Write this down."

 I wrote.

 "Put it all in a book. Don't make the book too long. Make it about half this thick," she said, holding up one of her textbooks.

 "That's a 200-page book," I said.

 "Okay. Make your book 100 pages."

 "Let's step into your office," she suggested. That we did.

 She began rummaging through my bookcases, and clearly she didn't like what she saw. "Ugh! Statistics! I hate statistics!...Yuk! Ugh! Look at all this mathematics, will you!...How can anyone stand all this stuff? And, golly, look at all this political science! This is really dull. There must not be enough coffee in this town for your students."

 She is bright, I thought, but she sure is nosey and bossy.

 She flipped open a copy of Handbook of Parapsychology. "Say, do you believe in this E. S. P. stuff?" she asked.

 "I'm not sure," I admitted.

 "Okay. Just asking....No offense. Okay? My friends say I am bright, but too nosey and bossy."

 I slid open the top drawer of my filing cabinet. "This is what you are looking for," I guessed. "This is the good stuff."

 And there it was. The Good Stuff. The stuff I didn't want my colleagues to see. Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards. Mind Games by Jean Houston. The Aquarian Conspiracy by Marilyn Ferguson. Lateral Thinking by Edward deBono. And, of course, Megatrends by John Naisbitt.

 "Oh!" she cooed. "Look at this. This is really interesting!" She was reading "Skill Rehearsal with a Master Teacher," an exercise from Jean Houston's book, The Possible Human. "According to this, I can create a little room in my mind and go there to learn new skills. Do you think that will work?"

 "Well, I think so. In my course I teach people to invent new ideas in a special Mind Room."

 "Put in it all in your book: the ideas about creativity and thinking like a futurist. Put in the stuff about trance learning..."

 "...and dream learning," I added.

 "And the stuff about thinking like a futurist. Yes. That's important."

 Then she looked at me and gently laid her hand on mind. Here comes the bad news! I thought. She said, "But try not to sound like a textbook, okay. Especially not these textbooks." She gestured broadly at my bookcases. "Try not to sound like a professor. (Are you writing this down?).... Make your writing snappy. Dramatize it. Write it as stories. Write it as conversations. Make some of the people a little bit eccentric like my Uncle Sol. Make some of them cranky...some of them nasty...some of them dumb....Make them real people planning real lives. Or make up fictional people who seem real.

 "Think about all the people like me....  We know we have been shortchanged by the school system. We know that there are ways to develop our minds that the professors were scared to show us, for fear we would be smarter than they. We know there are ways to think futuristically, and we are even willing to be wrong some of the time, if we are right more often than wrong.

 "Show us how to prepare for our first job.... Show us how to know when it is time to change careers... Tell us what to do.... Make it concrete....And make it interesting."

 And that is what I intend to do in this book-- tell you what I know about seizing opportunity, and to make it all as interesting as possible.

 Bernard Shaw wrote: "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable man persists in attempting to make the world adapt to him. Therefore all change depends on the unreasonable man." As hundreds of thousands of these "unreasonable men" (and women) enter our high-tech, high-innovation economy, they will insist on making the world adapt to them. This is a book about making the world adapt to you by discovering the trends and developments that others cannot see or refuse to see and by exploiting these "invisible" trends.

Chapter One

The Case of Janet Jones

 "I never intended to be a hero, she says. "I never intended to be written about in the newspapers or have a professor interview me for a book.

 She is small and nervous, about 30, with a sharp face, deep brown eyes, in-between brown hair tied straight back, and a shy smile. Her name plate says

JANET JONES, Director

Haitian Community Services

Caliban County

and next to it are a collection of plaques and certificates, carelessly stacked on one another.

 "They gave me those awards for 'foresight,' (reading from one citation after another) for 'scoping out a problem before it reached crisis,' and for 'leadership in the area of public services'. But all I did was report what anyone might have seen, and then I stuck to my guns and insisted that other people recognize what I had seen."

 Only two years ago she'd graduated in government administration from State University and taken a job in this Gulf Coast city, its population booming through migration, its economic base shifting to high tech industry. She "discovered" a sizable minority of Haitian immigrants in need of social services and made them her area of concern. Today she is two steps below county administrator and is consulted on the disposition of millions of tax dollars for housing, medical care and hospitals, and adult education and occupational training.

 My next statement is a question. "There must be dozens of public managers who, in hindsight, wonder why they did not discover the Haitians."

 "Sure. The Haitian issue was 'hidden in plain view.' Anyone might have seen it, might have seen that government had to respond to their needs. And," here she smiled, "anyone might be sitting here at this fine oak desk, with a bilingual secretary outside, and a nice view of the county courthouse across the street. Anyone might have the use of a county car, 24 hours a day.

 "What it comes down to is that, first, I wanted to find a fast track in government service, and this meant finding my own special problem, instead of having to put out fires for the county commissioners.

 "Then, second -- this is important -- I have always been the inquisitive one in my family. I was the one who asked the one-legged cripples where they'd left their legs."

 I understood: I'd asked a blind man if he dreamed at night and saw pictures in his dreams.

 "You can put this down," she directs, "the secrets of my success.

 "First, people around here don't know languages. They hear black people speaking Creole, and they think they are hearing Spanish or who-knows-what. In fact, I doubt they really 'hear' anything, because hearing implies listening. I happen to know enough French to know the difference from Spanish, so when I heard these Haitian people talking in the market, talking on the streets, talking in the employment agency, I knew it wasn't Spanish that I was hearing.

 "Second, Caliban is more Old South than New South. Around here, folks don't mix much -- racially, I mean. They treat their minorities with the respect that the law demands and just a little bit more, for their churches' sake. Yet, your average county employee doesn't know many blacks, doesn't have any associates in the black community, doesn't exchange any intelligence about housing and general welfare -- let alone migration from Haiti. And news of the black community does not sell many newspapers. As for myself, I am New South, pragmatic. I built my network into the Hispanic and black communities from Day One. I'm a career civil servant, not an ideologue." She nods toward photographs taped to her concrete block wall: smiling brown and black faces, solemn Haitian children perched on her lap, smiling Hispanic kids.

 "Third, supposing that some of the folks in the government or the newspapers had noticed that more and more Creole was being spoken, posted on bulletin boards, and so forth, they did not think much about demographics, community development, the provision of social services for slow-to-assimilate minorities. So they were not able to think through the consequences of this massive in-migration of Haitians. They were not able to extrapolate the consequences two to five years ahead."

 She gestures broadly toward a bookshelf bowed under the weight of hard-covered books. "Show me another employee of this county who has read The Third Wave, The Nine Nations of North America, someone who reads The Futurist. I know how futurists think ahead. I understand that problems grow and interact with other problems.

 "And fourth, I like to attack problems before they have reached the boiling point. I am pro-active. And I know how to solve problems in my line of work, how to persuade the key decision makers in the County Commission and in the bureaucracy. I understand my limits, though, so I do not allow myself to get ground down by failing at impossible tasks.

 "So there's my secret."

 She stands up and motions me to the window. "That's my car over there. The firechief, the police chief, the county manager, his two assistant managers and I -- we have the only county cars.

 "This may not be your idea of 'making it' in big time government -- I'm not a big shot Washington lawyer -- but I've already done better than anyone would have guessed.

 "And this is no flash in the pan. I've got my eye on a few issues heating up at the state level -- high tech issues -- and my plans call for me to be sitting in the capitol in five years."

 She grins. "Let's go to lunch. I'll drive."

 Comments on Janet Jones and Her Niche

 She has not only found an opportunity, but also a niche, a private career specialty on which she has a virtual monopoly. No one else has her mastery of languages, her contacts in the minority community, and her grasp of the ins and outs of county government.

 She knows that nothing lasts forever, so she is planning to move to her next opportunity.

 Teresa Young and Her Niche

 She is a small woman with Oriental eyes and American features, who sits in a room full of electronic equipment, rocking a cradle and now and then comforting her baby.

 "The doctors diagnosed the problem as congenital," she confides. "I choose to stay home with him until he is ready for school."

 In the next room a teletype chatters, and she excuses herself to rip loose three sheets of printout. The room is generally neat, except for a snarl of cables that interconnect several computers and printers, a facsimile machine, an office copier, a scanner, and a teletype. Her library is neatly furnished with shelves but seems to consist more of loose-leaf binders and recent scientific paperback journals than trade books.

 "I call myself 'a free-lance research assistant'. This computer is connected to the telephone and is used wholly for searching through on-line databases in California and Ohio. My telephone bill this month was exorbitant.

 "I use this computer for my bookkeeping and wordprocessing, and this other one to experiment with language translation programs and artificial computer intelligence. (God bless my tax accountant for thinking of that!) But where language is concerned I rely mostly on having a pretty good grasp of Oriental languages -- I rely on what's here." (She taps her head and giggles.)

 To her work she brings her knowledge of the languages and culture of Japan, China, and Korea; a librarian's knack for extracting information from on-line databases that charge $60-$180 an hour; and a physician's wife's knowledge of medicine. Her clients are professors of medicine.

 She explains: "My clients are ambitious young professors who are niche seekers themselves. They specialize in competing with the scientific establishment of Japan, China, and Korea. You know how it is: 'We mustn't let the Chinese get the jump on us in this or that area,' they tell the big governmental grants agencies. And they are paid off with big research grants.

 "My part in this is to keep them up to date on research developments here and around the world, and also to help them write their research proposals. For someone who cannot leave the house for long stretches to visit Washington, D. C., I have a fairly good grasp of the grants-making process. I have an enormous amount of boilerplate material that I can write a proposal around, and I don't mind working to deadlines.

 "I understand the labyrinths of the universities and grants agencies pretty well, so I am always able to find a way to be paid for my work. I have a good accountant, a nervy banker" -- in a grand sweep she points to thousands of dollars of electronic gear -- "and a good repair man.

 "And, she added, "since I'm stuck home with the baby, I have no choice! Excuse me. The baby's crying.

 The Case of Foster River

The board of directors of Iron-Ex Industries, meeting in New York, has announced their intention to blaze a new path by substantially replacing its workforce by robots. "Foreign competition" is offered as the justification. "We believe it is better to retain a few jobs in a highly automated workplace than to see our workforce displaced by Oriental competition."

 "Glum, sullen, resentful" -- these are the words to describe the citizens of Foster River on this black day," says the editorial writer for the Herald.

 "We are a one-industry city," declares the mayor, "consigned to the ash-heap of history by twelve gray men sitting on Wall Street." (Actually, this being 1990, nine gray men and three blonde women.)

 The workforce is by and large apathetic and hopeless. There is no doubt that the net effect of this technological coup will be a disaster for Foster River. But will everyone be a loser? Or will some people emerge "looking good"?

 A few of the locals have not given up hope for their careers.

 The head of the local machinists union: "Iron-Ex is financially strong today and is going to grow stronger. I'm going to sweat the best deal possible from these guys, in early retirement plans, retraining, relocation, and everything else our Washington headquarters can think of."

 The head of the local welfare agency: "I expect to double my staff in the next few months. I'm headed for Washington tomorrow to meet with our congressional delegation, and I intend to turn the federal government upside down for every penny of aid. This is where my degree in political science is going to pay off for the people of Foster River."

 The personnel director for the local Iron-Ex factory: "If our engineering staff cannot adapt to robotization, I shall try to out-place them with small local companies. This is a windfall for the small local industries --  except those who happen to be our suppliers."

 A far-thinking real estate agent: "As of last week, I am the exclusive agent in Foster River for Ocala Village, Florida's leading retirement community. Mortgage assistance will be arranged by Florida East Coast Bank, specializing in the financial needs of the early retiring."

 Head of the state economic development board: "We are talking to a leading Japanese manufacturing company about coming into Foster River to snap up the displaced workforce. With a little good old Oriental ingenuity, we believe they can be made into productive workers."

 President of the Foster River Bank: "I'm heading to M. I. T. for a two-day bankers' workshop on robotics and computers. We intend to remain Iron-Ex's local bankers."

Three Requirements for Opportunity Seekers: The Strategic Vision, The Special Idea, and the Environmental Scan

 Strategic Vision. Here is how Professor Bob Murdick explained the difference between a strategic plan and a strategic vision. He took me to his office, and piled on his desk were three loose-leaf binders labeled with the name of a large regional banking company. "That,"  he said  "is a strategic plan -- three volumes of economic and demographic data, of socio-political scenarios, of carefully reasoned 'what-if' thinking. Very expensive, very time-consuming."

 I reached for one binder, and he scooped all three into a drawer. "Sorry," he murmured. "Confidential. Top management eyes only, you know."

 He dug through that same drawer and produced a business card, which he set squarely in the middle of his desk. "Now this," he exclaimed, "is a strategic vision.

 "Read it. Go ahead."

 He pointed to scribbled notations on the back of the card. They said: "We can expect a convergence in competition among banks, mortgage associations, insurance companies, and finance companies. Each will become more like the others, and mergers will produce mega-institutions."

 The strategic vision is the boiling down of everything you reasonably can believe about where the world is going, or, more correctly, it is the very essence of the changes that you care to act on yourself.

 The firechief of a Northeastern community told me: "The robots are coming: I'm sure of it. Communities have entered an indefinite period of stinginess: we don't want to pay salaries of firefighters, and we don't want to insure their lives. I intend to be a pioneer in the use of mobile robot firefighters."

 A nurseryman told me: "We are losing a species very day. Soon we will see that our domestic species have been replaced by exotics, and our wild lands have been paved over and strip-mined. My nursery specializes in promoting native  species for landscaping."

 The Special Idea.

 Computer author Andrew Fluegelmann noticed that popular computer programs were widely "pirated" -- passed from computer user to user without payment to the author. And, based on the proliferation of computer clubs (where members swapped their favorite programs) and the expanding use of the telephone to transmit not only data but even programs themselves, Fluegelmann foresaw an ever widening, accelerating flow of programs through the underground economy. His response: he wrote high-quality programs and encouraged their free distribution from friend to friend, by hand or by telephone. But Fluegelmann gave an interesting twist to the piracy phenomenon by attaching his address to every program and requesting a voluntary donation.

 Fluegelmann was so successful in exacting payment on the "try before you buy" system that several very profitable software authoring businesses have sprung up that distribute solely on the honor system.

 Fluegelmann matched his strategic vision -- a fulminating underground trade in programs -- to his special idea of "shareware" marketing.

 The Environmental Scan.

 You are part of a dynamically changing environment, and it is up to you to keep track of changes happening around you. Most people and organizations do only a fair job of scanning their environment. For instance, take a look at the following news clips on the Caliban County Symphony Orchestra Association, which appeared in the local newspaper. How well is CCSOA doing in scanning its environment? Would you give CCSOA an "A? a "B? a "C? 1

LOCAL SYMPHONY WILL OFFER COLLEGE CREDITS TO VOLUNTEERS

Grenadier-- Volunteer workers for the Caliban County Civic Symphony Association will be able to earn up to 4 semester-hour credits for their work, officials of Caliban Community College and the Caliban County Civic Symphony Association announced today in a joint news conference.

  "So far as we know, this is a first," said Dr. Oswald Dumpty, president of the college.  "Many of the symphony's volunteers are young women who have sent their kids off to schools and want now to prepare themselves to enter the workforce.   This arrangement will allow them to earn credits for 'Introduction to Business Administration,' without having to come to the class."

  The offices of the symphony association will be open evenings and weekends, according to Dumpty, and volunteers will complete a wide variety of activities corresponding to the sections of a textbook on business management skills.

  "This will give women their first taste of leadership skills and will qualify them to enter paying jobs at a higher level," said Ralph Dentlmeier, president of the symphony.  "We think it is an incentive for people to give us their valuable time."

NOTED TENOR WILL CONDUCT THE CALIBAN SYMPHONY NEXT SEASON

Noted operatic tenor Placido Domingo will make one of his increasingly frequent appearances as a conductor this fall, when he appears with the Caliban County Civic Symphony.2  Mr. Domingo, who will not sing during this performance, will conduct the orchestra in pieces by noted Hispanic composers.  The civic symphony association has promised details later.

  Mr. Domingo's appearance, which will be an addition to the already scheduled season, has been made possible by a grant from the Inter-American Bank of Beaufort.

SYMPHONY PRESIDENT TO HONOR GREAT-GRANDDAUGHTER OF SIBELIUS, NOTED COMPOSER

Kokkonen-- At the coming performance of the Finnish National Opera Ballet at Caliban Community College's auditorium, the Caliban County Symphony Association will honor Mrs. Kirsi Kokkonen, the daughter of the founder of this coastal city and the great-granddaughter of Jan Sibelius, the noted Finnish composer.3

  "We had no idea that there was such a large community of Finnish music lovers within busing distance of Grenadier," said the president of the Association, Ralph Dentlmeier.  "My face is red."

  "The ballet will be performed to recorded selections.  This is not a part of the symphony's program," explained a spokesman for the college auditorium.  "We are busing in 200 paying customers from Kokkonen, and this is really a big deal.  When the symphony association heard about it, they kind of muscled in."  The spokesman declined to be identified.

  Selections will include "Swan of Tuonela" by Sibelius.

TALK OF THE TOWN ... by Luci

T-of-the-T has learned that the board of directors are doing a slow burn over the impetuous action of their chairman, Bobby Cranmer, who offhandedly offered the performers union an opportunity to discuss a retirement fund as part of the package in coming salary talks. 4  "I guess Bobby never noticed that everyone in the orchestra is about the same age, about 55," huffed one director.  "In ten years there is no way we will be able to meet obligations under Bobby's magnanimous gesture."

LOCAL SYMPHONY WILL EXTEND INTERMISSIONS TO ALLOW FOR 'BEVERAGE BREAKS'

Grenadier-- The Caliban Symphony will allow for longer intermissions so that its patrons may visit nearby lounges, and it will close its iced refreshments stand.

  According to a spokesman, "People have been driving us crazy at the refreshment stand.  They want coolers, spritzers, bubblies.  They want light beers, dark beers, and no-booze beers.  We have people asking for some kind of beverage we never heard of.  We think it is Brazilian, but we don't know, because Jerry who runs the stand is perceptually handicapped."

  Jerry Swartz, a familiar figure at the Grenadier auditorium for fifteen years, has retired to join his family in a vending machine business.

'MIGRANT' MUSICIAN SUES CALIBAN SYMPHONY

Grenadier-- Myron Karl, cellist and self-described migrant, claims he is suing the local symphony orchestra, because he claims they cannot prove he is unfit to join them as a member.

  After auditioning for the orchestra, Mr. Karl, who moved here from Miami and claims to have played with professional orchestras in Atlanta and Miami, was not offered a position.

  "I show up prepared," said Mr. Karl, "and I play a little bit of this and a little bit of that for the concert master.  Then he nods and says 'Enough.  Thanks.'  So that's my audition?"

  Mr. Karl has told this newspaper that his two sons and his grandson are lawyers and "where I come from, we have a saying.  We say, 'Sue the b------'."

  According to a spokesman for the orchestra, quite a few professional musicians have been moving into the county from Atlanta and Miami and other large cities, and it is the practice of the orchestra to grant them each a courtesy audition on request.  The audition is held by R.H. Memnon, the conductor, or in his absence, by Harry Reilly, the concert master.

 "Until now, the judgment of the auditor has never been challenged, so we keep no written records or scorecard" declared the spokesman, office manager Shirley James, who add, "But all that may have to change."

ARTS TALK ... with Mitzi

Violinist Bob Stirrup says that the reason audiences in this part of the country have become increasingly rude is that they come here from cities where rudeness is an established tradition.

  Stirrup, who tours for 40 weeks a year, says that the people who arrive late and talk through the performances are the people who moved here from Miami to escape from rude drivers, rude shopkeepers, and urban noise.

  He sees the irony in this but cannot decide what to do about it.  "I'm no social worker," he declares.5

  Yours-truly predicts that by the year 2020, concert halls will have to be built with glass-enclosed private boxes: a big box to contain the orchestra and hundreds of little ones in which the serious guests will listen to the piped-in sounds of the orchestra.  In the general admission seats, the audience will no doubt be listening to boom-boxes and enjoying their favorite rock'n'roll idols.

Caliban county in the state of Beaufort, lies on the Gulf of Mexico, 200 miles (and 6 hours, driving) from the state's other large metropolitan area.  The county's largest city, Grenadier, is neither the state capital nor the state's largest metro area; but it is growing rapidly in population and economic base.

 Caliban county and the city of Grenadier have a long history of maritime-commercial prosperity, followed in the 1960s by the development of financial institutions (life insurance home offices, regional banking, international trade), and in the 1980s by computers and robotics.  There is little heavy manufacturing.  Tourism and agriculture have been small but stable.

 The sources of the Caliban County Civic Symphony's income may be broken down as follows:

  Corporate donations      10%

  Individual philanthropy     10%

  County/city support            5%

  Board of directors          5%

  Subscriptions       20%

  Box office sales       30%

  Out-of-county engagements        10%

  Extended season/festivals              10%

STAKEHOLDER ANALYSIS--STAGE ONE, CASTING A WIDE NET

The object here is to compile a rather long list of people and institutions who depend upon the orchestra or whom the orchestra depends on.  The list will be truncated in Stage Two.  6

 Into this list will be put most especially (1) stakeholders on whom the dependency is very great--so that a small change in the stakeholder's situation (its condition or its environment) would be felt by the symphony association and (2) stakeholders who are changing rapidly or whose environment is changing rapidly.

Stakeholder  Justification

Performers  Without the performers (orchestral players), you have no symphony.

Union   Unions set a floor under the performers' salaries and demand longer seasons and control the setting up of the hall for visiting dance troupes, etc.

 Bus service to the auditorium   Many of the patrons arrive and leave by bus.

Parking   Most patrons arrive by auto.

Airplane fares and hotel rooms  These may chill the aspirations of the orchestra to go on tour.

 Recording  companies   The directors would like to see the orchestra receive a recording contract.

 Touring ballet, opera, and symphony     They compete for the use of the hall and for the audience.  But ballet and opera tours also help to support the orchestral performers.

Guest artists  They attract the crowds.

Conductor  The director is highly visible and can have great effect, for better or worse.

Season ticket holders  They reduce dependence on box office sales.

Large individual donors  See the financial figures.

Small individual donors   See the financial figures.

Box office                See the financial figures.

Youth  Matinee concerts for local schools provide additional income for the performers and win goodwill for the symphony association.  Ultimately, young musicians are part of the talent pool from which new which future performers will be auditioned.

Auditorium  Are the acoustics okay?  Is the auditorium in good repair?  Will it be available on the desired dates?

 Satellite locations    Will new bandshells and auditoriums be available for out-of-season festivals?

Corporate donors  See the financial figures.

 Professional management   A professional manager can negotiate with unions, watch the budget, promote and market the symphony, arrange travel, and do many other things.

Volunteers    Volunteerism is the mother's milk of a symphony orchestra, especially during its early years when professional management cannot be afforded, and later, in fund-raising.

Instrument dealers and repairers  Are the instruments in good repair?  Is there a need to obtain newly-developed or antique instruments to support the new repertory?

Advertising and public relations agencies

Refreshment vendors

Rock/pop radio, video, and concerts   Painful to acknowledge, but a competitor for the hearts and minds of the audience and the availability of the performers.

Electric company  Electric light and air-conditioning bills have torpedoed more than one not-for-profit organization.

Internal Revenue Service  Will the new IRS rules demotivate your donors?

Minority  groups   An untapped group of potential audience members, and, in the case of Hispanics and other groups not present at the founding of the symphony association, board members and donors.

 County, city, federal, and state government   See financial statement above.

   STAKEHOLDER ANALYSIS--STAGE TWO, REDUCING THE SCOPE

Minority groups   The community is developing a substantial Hispanic community.  Can they be recruited as directors, donors, and audience?  If they cannot, what stands in the way?  Do we understand the Hispanic culture?  Is there a substantial Hispanic middle class?  Upper class?  What has drawn the Hispanic population here?  International conditions?  Domestic U.S. conditions?  Will these conditions persist?  Do we understand the distinctions among Hispanic groups?  Is there a substantialnon-Hispanic population that we cannot see because we are distracted by the Hispanics?

Performers and their union   Our performers have asked us to extend the season or, one way or another,  guarantee them a higher income.                 Our contract with the unions is up for renewal.       Our players are aging.  Some will wish to leave the orchestra.  What new opportunities will be opening up for extra-seasonal performances?  Will an influx of tourists help us?  Will new recreational facilities be opening up in the distant suburbs to provide an opportunity for festival performances?  Can we provide external employment for our performers by encouraging expansion of college-level music departments?    What is the strength of unions nationwide, especially in the performing arts?  Are we making use of up-to-date negotiating techniques?  Are we being fair by current standards?  What do we know about migration patterns to our area?  Are young musicians likely to come in, during the next few years?  Have we prepared an inventory of our musicians?  Can we predict when we will have to replace particular instrumentalists?  What are the projected outputs of local music programs, by instrument category?

Youth   We depend on youth for our future audiences.  We may or may not depend on youth as our future performers.    We are a rapidly growing county.  Is our population of teens and young adults growing as rapidly by birth as by in-migration?  If it is growing principally by in-migration, must we continue our K-12 youth programs?

 Corporate and large individual donors     Are the current donors happy with us?  Is the in-migration of population occurring so rapidly that we are unable to keep track of new individual and corporate donors?      Will our current donors be able to maintain their historical level of philanthropy?   Ask them, or mail out a survey, or take a phone survey.  Beware of tunnel vision and snobbishness by current board members and large fund-raisers.  Read the business pages and attend meetings of the Chamber of Commerce.  Check the new high-tech migrants.   What do you know about current and projected economic conditions?  Can you estimate how they will affect the large donor companies?  How will the next tax laws affect donations?

   Professional management     Our large donor corporations make good use of M.B.A.s.  Let's have them assigned to us evaluate our management.      Are there better ways of auditioning musicians than turning the job over to the conductor or concert master?  How do we know our methods are not too subjective?  Can we establish a personnel development and replacement plan?  Can we use better budget planning and eco  nomic projections?

Volunteers  Traditionally, our office and fund-raising volunteers have been women.  Many women are now involved in earning incomes or doing more "executive" volunteers work.   Should we rely on retired persons more heavily?  Can we accommodate the aspiration and schedules of women by keeping the office open evenings and weekends and giving them more executive responsibility?

Rock/pop radio, TV, and musicians  Here may be our biggest long-term threat.  We have to closely follow trends.   At the very least, we have to avoid scheduling conflicts with pop and rock concerts.

Government subsidy sources    These wax and wane according to political fashions.     So far as local subsidies are concerned, let's make sure we have friends in the county commission and keep in touch.  So far as national grants, let's closely follow the fortunes of budget cutting and develop a "gut feeling" for imminent cuts.

CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS

  * Items marked with an asterisk were judged less important than the others   Repertory             We need an audience-pleasing repertory, as our performers and our conductor are not first-rate.          We may need to survey our audience.  Possibly in-migration is causing a shift in audience preferences.  We should give special attention to ethnic preferences.

 Renegotiate the union contract

* Acquire own auditorium      No.  The acoustics are too god where we are today.

 Increase contributions by large contributors (corporations and individuals) to 25% of the budget

Retain performers who are leaving for larger cities and recruit experienced performers

Institute a system of evaluation of the performers.

*  Increase the proportion of critically favorable reviews

*  Prevent the organization of competing music organizations in the area

Acquire a small surplus at the end of each season

Extend the season by means of festivals in neighboring regions

Schedule the concerts to avoid conflicts with other events

STRENGTHS

Acoustics

Relationships with local conservatories, universities and colleges, and schools

Relationships with elderly European immigrants in the area.

WEAKNESSES

Orchestral imbalance

Noisy, rude audiences

 ............ and so forth.

AGENDA

Things that require immediate action

 The association can also identify its need to conduct research, to obtain information that may counsel the need to make important decisions or undertake near-term programs. Without this information about trends and developments, the directors will not know if they are missing an opportunity or standing in harm's way. Notice that this is information that the directors will have no difficulty understanding. In fact, the need for this information may seem "obvious." I am not talking about abstruse theoretical ideas that require unusual knowledge and mental capacity. But this is information that they are likely to acquire without a determined effort.

1.  We have got to set up an equitable system of hiring/firing and advancement based on artistic merit.  We had better check with the largest symphony orchestras and other civic symphonies to see what they are doing.  Call our trade association on Monday.

  Also, find out if any of the local companies have loaned-executive programs. We need the advice of a good human resources professional.

2.  Conduct a survey of concert-goer satisfaction with the repertory. Informally inquire if large corporate and personal contributors are happy with the symphony's performance. Meet with former large donors and solicit their frank statements about why they stopped contributing.

3.

4.

Things we should do research on

1.  Check the area within 50 miles for large ethic concentrations of music-lovers.  Better check the local yellow pages for Finnish-American clubs, etc.

2.

3.

4.

Things to monitor

The next category, "Things to monitor", describes the vigilant search for information which may or may not one day appear but which will be important if it does appear.

1.   Watch the Arbitron ratings for local classical music stations and compare the ratings with those rock-pop-country stations. If we notice a dramatic shift, discover the reason.

2.  Carefully study the business press and track the rise and fall of the fortunes of large individual and corporate donors.

3.  Ask our allies in elected governmental bodies (county commissions, city commission) to alert us to any new tracts of land about to be opened for middle- and upper-class residential development. We will want to make sure that cultural amenities include facilities for classical music.

4.

Things to study

The last category consists of information that is so radically different from your ordinary concerns that you have to make a special effort to "bone up on it":

1.  We need a better grasp of demographics, generally, especially in-migration and out-migration from the Sunbelt.

2.

 Who Are Your Stakeholders?

Your stakeholders include (1) the people you work with, your colleagues and other people who depend upon you and your organization, partially at least, for their own success, plus (2) everyone else who has a stake in the continuation of your business or career more or less along current lines. Also (3) your potential stockholders, major customers or clients, boosters, and allies, and (4) the faceless members of the public, your customers, voters who will be for or against your ideas, the writers who will influence their perceptions of your idea and their attitudes for you or against you, and so forth. You cannot identify these people as individuals, but you can learn who they are as groups, and you can begin to prepare their opinions.

 Imagination and Critical Thinking in Stakeholder Analysis

 In preparing a list of stakeholders, you have to use your imagination. In Stage One, turn off your critical thinking and brainstorm a list. Use critical thinking later in Stage Two, when you will belimiting your list to about 10 key stakeholders: limiting the final list to 10 to 15 forces you to decide that someone or something is less important than someone or something else.

 This process of swinging back and forth between the creative but uncritical and the critical but uncreative is a basic principle of imagination stretching, which forces your mind to use pure creativity first and pure criticism second, rather than polluting the two forms of thinking with one another. You can't get hot water and cold water out of the same tap, they say.

 Into your list put most specially (1) stakeholders on whom the dependency is very great -- so that a small change in the stakeholder's situation (its condition or its environment) would be felt by the symphony association and (2) stakeholders who are changing rapidly or whose environment is changing rapidly.

 A Stakeholder List for Caliban County Symphony Orchestra Association -- Stage One -- Creative Thinking

 Here is a first-phase list of stakeholders for the symphony association of Caliban County. Imagination -- brainstorming -- was used here in Stage One rather than critical thinking, so a few stakeholders have crept in who will disappear in Stage Two.

 Performers- "Without the performers (orchestral players), you have no orchestra. Our performers are getting older. There is a chronic shortage of string players. We are being pressed hard to extend the season or find other ways to guarantee a longer period of employment. And our contract is due for renewal soon."

 Union- "One union sets a floor under the performers' salaries and demands longer seasons, and another controls the setting up of the hall for visiting dance troupes, etc. We have to negotiate a contract every 3 years."

 Bus service to the auditorium- "Many of the patrons arrive and leave by bus. Are they satisfied with the service? Can we count upon the bus line to maintain service on the evenings of concerts? Are we in touch with the bus company on a regular basis? Would we receive warning of a coming fare change or route or schedule change?"

 Parking- "Most patrons arrive by auto. Are they satisfied with parking? Are they safe as they walk from the parking lot to the symphony hall, and will the condition of the downtown remain safe in the future? Will major downtown redevelopment affect our parking lot or the crime statistics?"

 Airplane fares and hotel rooms- "Rising costs may chill the aspirations of the orchestra to go on tour (though for our small orchestra, such a tour is possibly a pipedream). "

 Recording companies- "The directors would like to see the orchestra receive a recording contract."

 Touring ballet, opera, and symphony- "They compete for the use of the hall and for the audience. But ballet and opera tours also help to maintain the incomes of the orchestral performers."

 Guest artists- "They attract the crowds. Who's 'hot'?, and how do we keep track of who's hot?"

 Conductor- "The director is highly visible and can have great effect, for better or worse."

 Season ticket holders- "They reduce dependence on box office sales. Are we in touch with their needs? Have we measured their satisfaction?"

 Large individual and corporate donors- "Do we know if they are happy with us? Are they well represented on our board? Are we keeping track of the 'new money' moving into the county and the newly rich? If not, shouldn't we be systematically keeping track of who's who among the wealthy? Are our ethnic and racial biases blinding us to new sources of philanthropy? Do we carefully monitor new businesses migrating into the county? Are we alert to the consequences of a large corporate donor emigrating? "

 Small individual donors and box office purchasers- "See the financial figures. We depend on them for a large chunk of our budget, but we know very little about them?"

 Youth- "Matinee concerts for local schools provide additional income for the performers and win goodwill for the symphony association. We hope that most of the young people will graduate from school and remain to become paying customers and donors. But since we know practically nothing about migration into and out of the area, this may be a dream."

 "Ultimately, young musicians are part of the talent pool from which future performers will be auditioned, though, again, we do not know if our youth are staying in the county.

 Auditorium- "Are the acoustics okay? Is the auditorium in good repair? Will it be available on the desired dates?"

 Satellite locations and out-of-town, out-of-season festivals- "Will new bandshells and auditoriums be available for out-of-season festivals? Extending the season would please our performers. Are shells and auditoriums being built in the new developments? Are we paying close enough attention to residential developments beyond the edge of town? Are we attempting to influence the construction of recreational facilities?"

 Professional management- "A professional manager can watch the budget, promote and market the symphony, arrange travel, and do many other things. Most of all we need a professional personnel policy, to protect us from law suits, negotiate with the unions, and plan for the replacement of our performers as they age and retire."

 Volunteers- "Volunteerism is the mother's milk of a symphony orchestra, and practically all our volunteers have been drawn from a vanishing group -- homemakers. How can we induce them to continue to work with us? Will we draw our volunteers from a higher or lower socio-economic level? Will we have to ask them to work evenings?"

 Rock/pop radio, video, and concerts- "Painful to acknowledge, but a competitor for the hearts and minds of the audience and the availability of the performers. Are we keeping track of the proliferation of rock music in the schools and on the air? Or are we too averse to this music to admit it exists? "

 Electric company- "Electric light and air-conditioning bills have torpedoed more than one not-for-profit organization."

 Internal Revenue Service- "Will the new IRS rules demotivate our donors?"

 Minority groups- "An untapped group of potential audience members, and, in the case of Hispanics and other groups not present at the founding of the symphony association, a possible source of board members and donors."

 County, city, federal, and state government- "Will the current wave of tax cutting eliminate our governmental subsidies?"

 A Stakeholder List for Caliban County Symphony Orchestra Association -- Stage Two.

 Here are the second round choices, with attached commentary. Notice how much more sharp these comments are than in the preceding set. More importantly, notice that we have added a new category of comments called "consequences."

 Minority groups- "The county is developing a substantial Hispanic community. Can they be recruited as directors, donors, and audience? If they cannot, what stands in the way? "

 Consequences: "Do we understand the Hispanic culture? Is there a substantial Hispanic middle class? Upper class?"

 "What has drawn the Hispanic population here? International conditions? Domestic U.S. conditions? Will these conditions persist?"

 "Do we understand the distinctions among Hispanic groups? Is there a substantial non-Hispanic population, e.g., Haitians, that we cannot see because we are distracted by the Hispanics?"

 "Do we understand all we need to about geo-economic-political conditions in the Caribbean, Central America, and South America?

 Performers and their union- "Our performers have asked us to extend the season or, one way or another, guarantee them a higher income."

 Consequences: "What new opportunities will be opening up for extraseasonal performances? Will an influx of tourists help us? Is the county developing as a tourist attraction? Will new recreational facilities be opening up in the distant suburbs, to provide an opportunity for festival performances? Shouldn't we therefore take an interest in suburban and exurban patterns of real estate development?"

 "Can we stimulate external employment for our performers by encouraging expansion of college-level music programs with our performers as instructors?"

 "Our contract with the unions is due for renewal. What is the strength of unions nationwide, especially in the performing arts? Are we making use of up-to-date negotiating techniques? Are we being fair by current standards?"

 "Our players are aging. Some will wish to leave the orchestra. What do we know about migration patterns to our area? Are young musicians likely to move here, during the next few years?"

 "Have we prepared an inventory of our musicians? Can we predict when we will have to replace particular instrumentalists? What are the projected outputs of local music programs, by instrument category?"

 Youth- "We depend on youth for our future audiences. We may or may not depend on youth as our future performers."

 Consequences: "We are a rapidly growing county. Is our population of teens and young adults growing as rapidly by birth as by in-migration? If it is growing principally by in-migration, must we continue our K-12 youth programs? What do we need to learn about the demographic changes of this state and county?"

 Corporate and large individual donors- "Are the current donors happy with us? Are they likely to prosper in the coming years, sufficiently to maintain or increase their levels of philanthropy? Are they likely to develop an interest in new recipients? -- a college? a museum? a fashionable disease?"

 Consequences: "Maybe we should survey the large donors to determine their satisfaction with our symphony."

 "Have we learned all we need to know about the economic forecasts for our large donors? Do they have plans to remain in Caliban county?"

 "Is the in-migration of population occurring so rapidly that we are unable to keep track of prospective donors?"

 "Beware of tunnel vision and snobbishness by current board members and fund-raisers. Read the business pages and attend meetings of the Chamber of Commerce. Check the new high-tech companies moving in."

 "Will our current donors be able to maintain their historical level of philanthropy?"

 "What do we know about current and projected economic conditions? Can we estimate how they will affect the large donor companies? How will the next tax laws affect donations?"

 Professional management- "Our large donor corporations make good use of M.B.A.s. Let's have them loaned to us to evaluate our management."

 Consequences- "Are there better ways of auditioning musicians than turning the job over to the conductor or concert master? How do we know our methods are not too subjective?"

 "Can we establish a personnel development and replacement plan?"

 "Can we use better budget planning and economic projections?"

 Volunteers- "Traditionally, our office volunteers and fund-raising volunteers have been women. Many women are now involved in earning incomes or doing more 'executive' voluntees work."

 Consequences: "Should we rely more heavily on retired persons?"

 "Can we accommodate the aspirations and schedules of women by keeping the office open evenings and weekends and by  giving them more executive responsibility?"

 Rock/pop radio, TV, and musicians- "Here may be our biggest long-term threat."

 Consequences: "We have to closely follow trends."

 "At the very least, we have to avoid scheduling conflicts with pop and rock concerts."

 "We cannot ignore them just because they do not support our values and tastes!"

 Government subsidy sources- "These wax and wane according to political fashions."

 Consequences: "So far as local subsidies are concerned, let's make sure we have friends in the county commission and keep in touch."

 "So far as national grants, let's closely follow the fortunes of budget cutting and develop a 'gut feeling' for imminent cuts."

 Outcome of the Stakeholder Analysis for Caliban County Symphony Orchestra Association

 The symphony association can now assess how well it is doing in responding to its environment.

 The CCSOA can now compile four lists, as set down below. I invite you to fill in the blanks that I have left.

Comments on the newspaper clippings

1. A developing Hispanic community.

Aha! CCSOA has discovered a substantial Hispanic community has developed in the county, and it is now accommodating its roster of guest artists and its repertory to this new group in the community. Fine.

 But the CCSOA will have to go further by opening its board of directors to Hispanics.

 Further, if they are smart, the directors of CCSOA will try to understand the Hispanics deeply. Is there more than one nationality in this new community? Did they come to Caliban county from another location in the U. S.? Or did they migrate directly from their homelands? What are the occupational and professional backgrounds of this community? What political and economic forces caused the migration, will the forces continue bring other Hispanics to the county?

 2. A promise that can't be kept.

 What a boner! The chair of the board is evidently unable to make a conceptual connection between the current ages of the players and the proffered retirement plan.

 3. Poor personnel practice

 Here we see the lack of a professional personnel policy. No doubt many savvy business people sit on CCSOA's board. So why hasn't anyone noticed the symphony's lack of professional management?

 4. Recruiting Volunteers -- A Breakthrough

 This is a first-rate step that takes account of the symphony's dependence on women as volunteers, by taking specific steps to make volunteer work more professional.

 Volunteerism at CCSOA becomes a steppingstone for women who have been out of the workforce while raising a family.

 I am willing to give Caliban County Symphony Orchestra Association only a C+ for staying in touch with its environment. In the following chapters I shall show you how to make scanning a regular part of your life. I shall show you the tricks you will need in order to think like a futurist and use more of your imagination. And I shall, of course, show you how to use your imaginative forward thinking to gain an edge over your competition.

The "Unreasonable Man or Woman As an Opportunity Finder

Bernard Shaw wrote: "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable man persists in attempting to make the world adapt to him. Therefore all change depends on the unreasonable man." As hundreds of thousands of these "unreasonable men" enter our organizations, they will insist on making the world adapt to them. This is a book about making the world adapt to you by discovering the trends and developments that others cannot see  or will not sse, and by exploiting these "invisible trends."

 The times have never been more favorable for you, if you want to do something clever and original. You must sharpen your conceptual thinking. But there is a special kind of conceptual thinking, thinking about the future with an imaginative flair, that you will need to strengthen. And I shall see to it that you do strengthen it.

 Let's take an example. Let's say that you read a prediction about the future: You read that, within five years, robots will be used widely in nursing homes to feed and clothe the elderly. Now, you should ask, "How much credence shall I place in this forecast?", and we will give you guidance here in evaluating such a forecast. And, you may further ask, "What am I to do with this information? Shall I invest my money in nursing homes because they will be more profitable to operate? Or shall I invest in a robot-making company? Or shall I pull my daughter out of nursing college, because a shortage of jobs is shaping up? Or shall I tell her to study computers and robotics?" And I shall furnish guidance here, too, on how to think these questions through to answers.

 Let's talk about your career decisions, your choice of industry, occupation, and employer.

 Do you believe you have joined a rising industry? How do you know you are right? By consensus, computers are rising and automobiles are falling, but what about real estate? Food service? Forest products? Here we have examples of grey area industries whose futures are controversial or have not been subjected to much examination. I will show you how to examine the prospect for these areas and assess the promises and risks.

 Have you have made a wise choice of occupation? Again, computer systems design is an occupation of fine prospects, while the prospects for the wheat farmers seem grim, at least in certain parts of the U.S.

 Then there is the question of whether a particular employer has healthy prospects.

 Several interesting books have been written to identify rising and falling industries and occupations, and even companies are the object of prediction in investment manuals. Most books understate the difficulty of making firm predictions and make extravagant claims for the certainty of their answers and effectiveness of their methods of foresight.

 An objective examination of forecasting shows that it is more effective in identifying future risks, problems, and issues than in predicting their outcomes. In other words, forecasters are more to be trusted when they say "Look at this!" or "Think about this!", and when they warn us to "Get ready for this, just in case it happens," than when they say "This is what you can expect. Period."

 This puts career planning in a new light, and raises such questions as:

 Suppose you enter an industry, occupation, or organization because you believe it has excellent prospects. How far in advance will you be able to recognize the imperative to admit a decline in its prospects? Will you know when to "jump ship," to seek a new niche?

 Suppose by general consensus an industry, occupation, or company is entering decline. Is anything to be gained by flaunting the conventional wisdom and rushing in while others are rushing out? There will be, presumably, a need for good accountants and lawyers to liquidate failing companies. Then, too, maybe the consensus is wrong.

 If you have picked a career in government or business, what can you do to further your advancement? Will you be able to see new markets emerging for goods and services before others see them? Will you be able to invent new products and services? Can you make yourself a better manager by adopting new management techniques and new psycho-behavioral tools? Can you gain an advantage over your competition by using the latest developments in computers and other technologies?

 Will you, as a rising manager, be able to develop a vision of where the world is heading and how your organization can accommodate? And will you be able to inspire your peers and subordinates through this vision?

 If you intend to be "independent" -- to be a writer, scholar, or doctor, lawyer, or consultant, for example -- will you be able to spot emerging opportunity areas? These will be the future counterparts of today's communications law, transplant surgery, and computer journalism.

 What about your personal growth? Will you be able to identify the new skills needed to function in the new economy? Maybe they will be human relations skills, and maybe computer skills, and maybe something altogether different, something you do not suspect today.

 And will you need credentials -- degrees, certifications?

 Should you pick your friends and associates more carefully? Should you join "networks" -- men and women helping one another outside the formal organizations and formal channels. Some of these networks are breakfast clubs, while others "meet by telecommunications." Should you, in fact, depend more on your networking partners than the people you work with day by day?

 How should you present yourself to strangers? Should you create a special "image"? Should you let your imagination shine through, or should you hide it? How can you recognize people who will be receptive to your ideas? And how can you present your ideas, especially your very abstract ideas -- to the people you deal with?

 What is your attitude toward economic security? Do you want a good, secure job? Or do you want to ride the current entrepreneurial boom to become rich and powerful? Or do you just want the opportunity to be creative?

 And how do you know that, five or ten years from now, you will be happy with your choices?

 This book will show you how to handle yourself in the high-innovation economy already emerging. It will show you when to adapt to changes and when to cause change to occur to your own advantage.

 Time and again I shall emphasize the environmental scan, the strategic vision, and the special idea. And I'll explain how to discover them.

The Case of Donald Stakk and Just-in-Time Landscaping., Inc.

 "I never suspected my landscaper was a demographer!"

 My surprise amused him. "Well", he replied, "I never suspected that one of my customers would snoop into my briefcase. No sir." And he laughed.

 He was about 30, tanned by the Florida sun, neatly bearded, dressed in work shoes, baggy pants, and a tee shirt that declares his occupation: "Donald Stakk's Just-in-Time Landscaping."

 He'd roared up in a freshly painted half-ton truck, and two young men had hopped out of the rear and begun tossing spades and post-holes diggers onto my lawn and joking with each other. Then they'd dragged a small olive tree out of the truck and gone off looking for my garden hose.

 He'd sat in the truck's cab flipping through a glossy magazine, which I'd guessed would be, at the best, Better Homes & Gardens or, at the worst, Playboy or Soldier of Fortune. But it had turned out to be American Demographer.

 My curiosity overcame my courtesy (as usual!), and I pounded on the window of the truck's cab. He popped open the door, and I heard a woman moaning "...Ain't no way to treat a lady..." through four speakers. I jumped into the cab. It was neater than my office. On the passenger seat was an attache case, propped open to show the obligatory pocket calculator, a pad of business forms, a red-covered Webster's Ninth, and half a dozen magazines.

 "Mind if I take a look?" He nodded okay, and I began exploring. Here was Technology Review, Landscape Design, Florida Agriculture Reports, and a manual, "Understanding U. S. Census Data, with a note saying COMPLIMENTS OF REP. CLAY SHAW.

 "I love working outdoors. I love working with living things," he said. Like a fisherman who had hooked a fish, he knew he had hooked a listener to his life's story.  "'Round about, that's how I learned about serious reading for ideas.

 "But before I learned serious reading, I had to rise fairly high, make a few bucks pretty fast -- and fall hard on my rear end.

 "I lost my business and my family, for a while -- nearly everything important -- because I was dumb and thought I was smart.

 "I've been a landscaper for over ten years. I love living, growing, things, and, my life imitates the plants I work with." He jumped out of his side of the truck, and I jumped out of mine. I saw he was almost six feet tall, and that he was dressed much more like an executive than a worker, like an executive who carried his office in his truck and his pockets. (His pants were the baggiest I have ever seen, because his pockets were bulging.) Then he fumbled through his pockets a produced a stiff cardboard tag and a felt-tip marker, and on the tag he wrote "Help!. I am starving for manganese. Feed me!" and he attached this at eye level to a yellowing allemanda vine.

 He pointed to a tree and said, "If you take a tree and cut its roots, it starves for water. If you cut off its leaves, it starves for sun. Every plant has the instinct to set its roots in the soil and spread its branches toward the sun. To live, it has to be part of its environment."

 He continued: "And trees do compete. Their branches steal sunlight from other trees. Their flowers attract bees. They fight back against sucking insects with repellent juices and natural insecticides.

 "As I said, I figured all of this out by observation. You have to compete, and you have to be part of your environment." (All the while he is watching his two assistants and sending them instructions by gesture -- Dig the hole to the right. and Use that space, not this one. In an aside he confided: "These kids love being outdoors. And they are giving me a fair day's work. But sooner or later I am going to lose them. Strong young workers are hard to find. I wonder if I can find a healthy retiree to do this work?"

 He continued: "I've never had the patience to sit in a classroom, but I have always been a reader. I like Michener, for instance. He writes about people who travel and keep their eyes open and are open to experience and adventure.

 "That's what I'll do someday -- travel, have an adventure. Right now I am too busy recovering from the wreck I almost made of my life."

 Stakk stretched his arm deep into the foliage of a citrus tree and plucked a leaf which he handed to me for inspection. "Ugh ... aphids," he said, "They'll ruin your lemons." He dug into his pocket and produced a jar with holes punched in the lid. I could see something live boiling inside the jar, and then he uncapped the lid and shook several dozen ladybugs from the jar onto the lemon tree. Most of them buzzed away, but the others got right to work searching for and eating aphids. Good ecology! I thought, but get to the part about almost losing your wife.

 He continued: "For a while I thought I was hot stuff. Didn't need book learning. All I had to do was compete and pay attention. What I didn't realize was this: paying attention and competing require abstract thinking."

 He motioned me to follow him as he worked. His work consisted of strolling around my yard, plucking leaves from trees, inspecting their undersurfaces, crushing and smelling the leaves, and even tasting them. He scraped a bit of bark from one citrus tree and put his eye close to the bare green spot he had uncovered. Then he dug out a small jar of clear nail polish and closed the tiny wound he's made in the bark. Now and then he attached a tag to a vine or bush: "Feed me! or "Please don't drown my roots!" Okay, I thought, you talk to plants. Now come to the part about almost losing your business.

 "Ten years ago," he reminisced, aware that I was going to hear his story to the end, "I spent my odd hours hanging around nurseries, learning everything the old-timers would teach me. I learned powers of observation... I can walk around this yard in ten minutes and give you a list, and on that list is every tree and shrub that needs to be sprayed or fed or watered.

 "I made my mind's eye sharp, too. I can draw you a picture of what this yard will look like in five years or ten years. Maybe twenty-five years." He made drawing gestures in the air with green, brown, and pink felt-tip markers.

 "Okay," he continued, "for a few years business was great. I was that young guy with the gimmicks -- the felt-tip pens, the funny tags, the pocketful of ladybugs. The housing business was booming, and I had plenty of work.

 "I should never have trusted him, but my banker let me expand -- a bigger truck, a partnership in a nursery -- and I married my sweetheart, a college girl in business administration. She tried to warn me, I guess: it was the upswing in the economic cycle that accounted for my success. But do you listen to college kids when you are making big bucks without an education?

 "Then -- boom! -- interest rates jumped sky high, and the bottom fell out of homebuilding."

 By now we had moved to a bench in the shade of two large trees, to a spot I ordinarily considered to be cool and cheerful, but whose darkness that day seemed to mirror the gloom in his voice. With real emotion he declared, "There was no business left for me. First I lost my truck and then my share of the partnership ... but did I accept any blame? Hell, no. I've done everything possible to be a success, I thought."

 For the first time, he cut off eye contact. He stared at the ground. "You see, I thought that a sharp eye for plants and hanging out with old-timers, soaking up their advice, had made me a sharp businessman.... What I didn't see was the business cycle .. and the nervousness of the bankers and developers."

 His eyes followed a green lizard up a tree. Still, no eye contact with me. "My wife tried to explain that the people I was hanging out with -- my partner, my competition -- were not good thinkers. She said they were not good 'abstract thinkers.' She explained that you have to see with your mind, too.

 "My reaction was that she was giving me a lot of 'ivory-tower manure.' Those are the words I used, 'ivory tower manure.'"

 I said to myself, a defensive reaction. Typical of a weak abstract thinker confronted with a complicated situation, but I murmured, "Uh-huh."

 "Please understand," he said, "that it was not easy for me to take advice from a college girl,

especially from my own wife. As a kid, in my family, I saw my dad ripped off by lawyers. And I was brought up to believe that honest work is what you do with your own hands, not what you do sitting behind a desk. "Which accounts for the fact that he maintains his office in your truck, I realized.

 "She 'couldn't stand my defensiveness.' She 'couldn't abide my 'ego-defenses'. She wanted me to 'learn from adversity,' to 'grow.' But all I wanted to do was blame someone else.

 "And that is when she took our kid and went home to mamma."

 Then he looked me in the eye and smiled wanly. The ugly part of his story was now out in the open. He consoled himself by jumping up and attaching a tag to an avocado tree: "Use no chemical sprays here. Home of a little green lizard."

 Back to his story. We walked back to his truck, and he motioned me into the cab. On the dashboard was a picture of an striking brunette holding a baby on her lap. "I knew that to get her back, I'd have to change my thinking. She didn't care if I was partner in a nursery, she didn't care about the money angle, but she did care about whether I listened to her and other people. Whether I grew and changed. So I had to show growth and change.

 "After a while, I began to 'lick my wounds' and rethink my philosophy. This is when I realized that I was missing something pretty important in my philosophy. Namely: people are different from plants and animals because people can think ahead about the future. And they -- people -- can use their brains to see farther than their eyes allow....Not that there's anything wrong with direct observation ...But it's not enough.

 "So, I began to try to think my situation through. I knew, in a dim kind of way, that we are all of us tangled in events. I mean, I knew there were big things happening in the world -- shortages of energy, computers, political corruption, and you-name-it. And I wanted to protect myself against these 'forces.' But I didn't know how to begin.

 "I'm not a college guy, you know, so I couldn't go back and ask my professors. Then, too, I started to realize that quite a few of the college guys I had dealt with -- bankers, developers, customers -- had been pretty badly burned by the same business cycle that hurt me. ... And remember: I had been brought up suspicious of brain work.

 "I decided to work it all out, for myself and by myself, a method of keeping in touch with the forces that  would affect me. I did not want to be caught by surprise -- I said, Never again."

 "Hand me that, will you?" He pointed to a manilla folder. From the folder he produced half a dozen accountant's ledgers.

 "These," he said, "are my personal journals. They show me developing from a know-nothing to a ... a what? Not an intellectual, no. But they show me drawing away from being proud-ignorant and defensive about my mistakes.

 "In these ledgers I write everything that is important. What I see goes here. What I think goes here. What I figure out for myself goes here." He riffled the pages. But he kept his journal six inches beyond my reach.

 "So I began by making a list of everyone and every organization I could think of ... that is, everyone who I depended on and everyone who depended on me. My idea was to make the list, and then figure out who they depended on. In this way I figured I would work my way out from my self-centered view of the world, and begin to see a bigger picture. ... Why don't you try and guess who I wrote down?"

 I said. "Let's see. You seem pretty interested in your competition -- the other nurseries... You have a love-hate relationship with your competitors...."

 "Yes," he interrupted. "Other nurseries are important. But keeping in touch with them comes natural. They are not much different from me. So I decided right away ... keeping track of other nurseries would be easy...through the grape vine, so to speak."

 He paused and flipped through the ledger. Reading upside down I could see a page marked COMPETITION. "But corporate maintenance programs are another form of competition. Internal programs cost me business. So I have to make a special effort to see if my corporate clients are happy with my prices and service.

 "But," he continued "you are missing the big Number One." Then, after a dramatic pause, "You have to think first about your customers!"

 "That was going to be my next guess."

 "Uh-huh. Sure." Another pregnant pause. "So, tell me. Who are my customers? "

 "I am."

 "Yes, you are, and a hundred like you. And I have to wonder if the do-it-yourself craze is going to going to catch you. And I have to wonder if your personal finances will remain okay.

 "But the real estate developers are going to be my main opportunity for expansion, and I have to watch them, too, and try to understand them and their environment. I have to understand the forces on them."

 I said, "You are worried about hiring and keeping workers."

 He smiled. I thought: He's happy because I'm thinking on his wavelength.

 "I wrote several groups in my journal. First, young workers: increasingly hard to hire, not very well-educated, not very ambitious. Second, immigrants: a possible replacement for American young workers, if I can learn some Spanish and French. Third ..."

 Here I interrupted: "Let me guess. Third you have retired workers as replacements for young workers."

 "Well, you are right, of course. But, that didn't occur to me until this morning when I noticed how fit you looked. "

 I scowled: I'm 57 and at least 13 years, maybe 20, from retirement. Must I wear a wig?

 "As a matter of fact, third I have labor-intensive companies. They hire unskilled kids in return for a federal tax break.

 "And fifth I have vocational schools that educate ambitious kids beyond the level I can afford to hire.

 "And that's my list under WORKERS."

 By now I thought I understood his approach. "I see. In these ledgers you make a list of everyone you do business with."

 "No," he said. "Because I had to get beyond people I do business with. I have another page for REGULATORS, the people who make my life so complicated.

 "There's county-city government ... with its trash restrictions, its land use planning, its licensing, its now-and-then restrictions on water use.

 "There's state and federal governments ... with threats of services taxes.

 "There's the Environmental Protection Agency ... which any day may take away my competitors' free use of pesticides and hand me a big chunk of their business. There's the Agriculture Department in Washington which regulates citrus.

 "There's the I.R.S. ... which monkeys with the tax laws on depreciation of equipment.

 "There's the insurance companies ... who have made theft insurance impossible and each year jack up my rates for liability insurance.

 "And I have a category called SUPPLIES AND SUPPLIERS.

 "The equipment industry is consolidating and raising prices.

 "The repair shops are on the brink of bankruptcy, at least the ones who give good value.

 "The plant wholesalers have no way to predict a blight like the Med-fly and citrus canker. And I worry that they will sell their land to the developers.

 "And my gasoline bill is sky high already, so I wonder about another oil crisis."

 I see, I thought. He made a list of every person and organization that affected him.

 I asked, "How do you keep track of all of these people and organizations?" He said, "I began browsing through the library and the bookstores and newsstands. I drew up a list of magazines and newspapers I thought would give me the information I want. The list was not long, at the beginning. Also, I asked my banker, the aggie extension agent, the reference librarians at the downtown library...anyone who was a reader."

 "You make it sound easy," I said.

 "Mister, nothing is easy. My list kept growing longer. It was 'the list that swallowed the universe.' So I had to cut it back."

 "Cut it back? You should be good at pruning."

 "Well, here's what I had to do. I decided not to stew over some things I can't do much about. I don't read insurance magazines, for instance, because I trust my insurance gal to look out for my interests. You have to trust someone.

 "Next, I classified each of my worries three ways. First, is it a Biggy or a Smally?"

 "Huh?"

 "Well, worker supply is a Biggy. Growth of competing landscaping services is a Biggy. Restrictions on trash collection is a Smally. They would hurt me, but not mortally."

 "So you rate future events and trends as big or small depending on their effect on your business?"

 "Exactly. A war in some obscure part of the world would probably be a Biggy for someone else. For me it would be a Biggy or a Smally depending on how it affected me. If it cut off the supply of petroleum, it might be a Biggy. If it cut off only the supply of platinum, I think I would rate it a Smally, as I don't use much platinum."

 He doesn't know much about catalytic production of petroleum, I thought, or he'd worry more about platinum. But he seems to have a pretty good system, taking everything into account.

  "You said you classified your worries three ways."

 "Yes, and the second way is according to likelihood."

 "Likelihood?"

 "Yes, likelihood ... the probability it will occur.

 "For example, I am great with plants, but machinery buffaloes me, totally. So I am completely dependent on repair shops.

 "Now, it is not impossible to believe that one day there will be a crisis in the repair business. Maybe the vocational schools will not produce enough workers.

 "Or maybe the equipment will become too complicated for the average repair guy to fix and franchises will take over the industry and jack up the price of repairs. Who would have believed the way that the chains have been gobbling up the restaurants, real estate offices, and the hospitals. And just look at the way the airlines are merging."

 "So you are worried about a major structural change in the repair business?"

 "Yes, that would be a Biggy for me. But it is not a Likely. It is an Unlikely, so I don't dwell on it."

 So even his Biggies lose urgency if they are not also Likelies, I realized.

 "So, if something is big but unlikely, I don't forget about it, but I don't follow it closely."

 "What about the third category?"

 "That would be Nearies and Faries."

 "Huh?"

 "Some of the Biggies are just too far away to worry about today. For instance, take this business of the 'Greenhouse effect'."

 "You mean the gradual increase of the Earth's temperature?"

 "Exactly .... Well, if I understand what I have been reading, as the temperature rises, the polar icecap will melt."

 "And that will raise the level of the oceans ...."

 "And that will inundate low-lying coastal areas. Which will put Florida under water ..."

 "Which will put you out of business!"

 He laughed. "Exactly. Out of business ... unless I specialize in underwater landscaping: seaweed! ... But that is so far off, in the middle of the next century, that I am not following it very closely."

 "So, what I have done is first to draw up a long list of 'worries'.."

 "...and then reduce the list by evaluating the impact, likelihood, and time horizon for each item ..."

 "... which I was able to do only after I had studied each item long enough to develop an understanding of it ..."

 " ... to assess its strength of impact on you ..."

 "...its likelihood of impact ...

 " ... and its year of impact, more or less."

 "Exactly!"

 "This is very clever," I said. "But you make it sound like a never-ending task. You add something to the list, then later you begin to understand it better. And then you promote it or demote it, based on your three-dimensional scale."

 "You don't understand half of how complicated it gets.... Because, as I absorb a subject, I begin to think about it conceptually.

 "For instance ... take this business of workers... I now believe that I'll be dependent on immigrants. So I am interested in demographics, but also political conditions in South American and the Caribbean.

 "And that's not all. I worry about motivation. That means I am starting to study business books on motivation, and I am finding them lacking ... because they don't tell me how to motivate my Haitian and Hispanic workers. ... So I have to keeping my eyes open for good material on cultural differences."

 "And that is not easy for you, because you never went to college."

 "Well, it's a lot easier, now that I have my wife back home. She can't do my thinking for me, but she can send me to the right libraries and bookstores. And she lends me her library card from the university!"

 "I'm glad to hear you are back with her."

 "She said she could see an improvement in my attitude. She thinks I am more intellectual and a better conceptual thinker."

 "Great!"

 "But I suspect that the main reason she came home is that her mother sent her home. Grandma got tired of chasing after grandchild. And wifey wants to go back to the university to prepare for the exam as a certified public accountant.

 "So now I am the built-in baby sitter. She still puts me down..."

 "She patronizes you?"

 Annoyance flickered across his face. "She still puts me down because I am not a college guy, but she only does that if we are arguing over money or housework, so I know she is desperate for something to beat me with. And, thank goodness, she is home."

Chapter Two

 If you are at all self-reflective, you may have noticed that two forces are at war in your personality. One makes you see situations, even unfamiliar situations, in familiar terms, in stereotypes, in familiar categories. Allow this force to dominate and you will react in conventional ways to almost everything you encounter. And you will apply tried and true solutions to all your problems.

 On the other side of the war is your penchant for seeing everything in a new light, for following your curiosity, your hunches, your instincts wherever they may take you, for groping toward insight and freshness, for trying the unconventional, possibly eccentric approach.

 You have to establish a middle ground between these forces. Almost anything you face can be handled routinely or originally, by one side or the other in this mental war, but almost anything can be handled better by striking a balance -- not the same balance in every situation, since some situations require more conservatism, some more innovation -- but a balance, nonetheless. Generally, pursuing an opportunity requires you to lean toward the unconventional.

 So here is what you have to do. First, you have to develop a sense of how conventional or unconventional you must be in different situations; and, second, you must strengthen your ability to be unconventional. The force for unconventionality is almost certainly weaker because our school-job system has probably kicked a lot of unconventionality out of you. In fact, the longer you have lingered in school, the weaker is your surviving taste for eccentricity. Unless you majored in the fine arts, say, in which case your straight side might require some nourishment, you will have to develop your capacity for the unconventional.

 How original, or eccentric, or idiosyncratic, or whimsical can you hope to become, should your search for opportunity require it? Let me avoid the details now. (Let me say, for the time being, that you have to take two things into account. First has your life's story left you with a personality that permits room for originality? Or have the school system, Mom and Dad, your military service, Corporate America, and everything else you have lived through, left you trembling in a comfortable illuminated corner of your own consciousness, afraid to explore beyond the light? And, today, do your job, banker, stockbroker, friends, and family leave you any latitude for originality? Or do they kick the legs out from under you, whenever you show a spark. Do they threaten to slice out your heart every time you take a risk? We'll come back to these questions.)

 In this chapter I shall assume that your past and current environments allow you at least wiggling room. How to deal with a scarred past or a back-busting present -- these we will save for later.

 Let's eavesdrop on several conversations. As we listen, notice how differently the parties react to attempts at original thinking.

 The Case of the Guidance Counselors

 Martha "Marti" Marble was 40, married, and dressed unfashionably in clothes from Sears. She pushed open the door marked "Teachers Lounge" and saw that Charlie has already arrived. Charlie -- her sometimes friend, sometimes burden. Lately, my burden, she told herself.

 The lounge was too warm and dark for her, yet it was a haven from slick kids waving applications to U of Miami. I love 'em, she thought. But I love to get away from 'em. What a way to make a living!

 Charlie was bent over Real Estate Principles, the dullest book she has ever seen him reading. The dullest book I have seen anyone reading!, she thought. He was 35. An empty glass and the communal aspirin bottle stood by his book -- both half empty -- and he sporadically blinked and squeezed the bridge of his nose. Guidance counselor headache! Caused by unappreciative parents.

 "I'm going to do it, you know. I'm going to do it, Marti." He stated his determination bluntly. "I'm going to pass the real estate exam, and then Wham!, it's goodbye to West Dade High School. My brother gets a new salesman, and West Dade loses a burned out counselor."

 "Then I'll have to work twice as hard," she said, "until we find a replacement. So let me put it bluntly. I don't want you to run out on us. I want you to help me fight the conditions here. Show a little spine." She thought, Show a little spine for a change!

 "Marti, forget it. There's not a thing we can do about the salaries..."

 "...Salary is not the issue. Salary stinks, but salary is not driving you away..."

 "...and not much we can do about the abuse from the parents."

 "That's not so. Really, Charlie, I disagree."

 " 'I disagree, Charlie!'" he snapped. Oh, it's easy for you to say. It's easy, coming from the great Mrs. Marble, coming from the darling of the School board, coming from the superstar lecturer to every Kiwanis club, Lions club, and Jaycees club between here and Hialeah, coming from the woman everyone wants to hear from."

 He continued: "What happened when I told the Lloyd kid to take a few computer courses after graduation, when I told him not to go right into the family business after graduation?"

 "That was a an unfortunate incident, Charlie..."

 "That was a typical incident, Marti....Look, Marti, I explained to the kid that if he wanted to go into the auto service business, then swell! great! He had the aptitude ...tested out well ...took all our vocational courses. And he got along well with his folks. And he was a hard worker."

 "But his father wanted him in the family auto business pronto after graduation ..." she remembered.

 "And I told him that with his aptitude for computers plus the break of taking over the family garage ..."

 "... he would have an unbeatable chance to take the business in new directions -- computer-assisted diagnosis, and so forth.... providing he took a few computer courses"

 "Yes. I told him that nothing lasts forever, not even the auto business, that he owed it to himself to prepare for the Information Age, not the Industrial Age..."

 "And his father raised hell with the School Board..."

 "...and I had to defend my position, which I could not do, because I can't prove that my view of the future is the 'true' future ..." He was, by now, barking.

 "Calm down, Charlie...."

 "And nobody even wants to hear my views, because I'm only a pipsqueak guidance counselor ...nothing but a high school teacher!"

 "But, Charlie, you and I both know that there is no way to prove anything about the future. We have to develop our credibility. ... Do you remember my experience with the Damone kid?"

 "Of course. Again, a typical hassle. Nice kid, pesky grandparent."

 She continued: "Yes. The kid wanted to go into genetic engineering. He dreamed of himself ten years out as a Ph.D. in chemistry. But his grandfather, who happened to be a lovely old man with tons of money, wanted the kid to go to medical school or law school..."

 " And his mother, being a widow, was intimidated by the old guy .."

 ".. was influenced by the sweet old man's offer to pay for seven, eight, nine, ten years of Ivy League schooling ..."

 "And around and around you went, with the kid, the mother, the grandfather, and finally the principal."

 They reviewed the events of Affair Damone, the recriminations, the meeting with the principal, the eventual reconciliation.

 "It isn't fair," he whined. "The old man, the mother, the kid, the principal -- they ended up eating out of your hand. You convinced them. How did you convince them? It isn't fair! ... Look, I am a doctor of education. I could be a principal next year....Everyone says I dress really nicely....Everyone admits that I'm really nice to the kids ....But I'm still a pipsqueak guidance counselor. Just a pipsqueak!"

 "And I ... "

 "And you! You are a local celebrity. You give newspaper interviews. You testify before the School Board....And all because of your radio show....And if people knew that you bought air time, they would have a fit."

 "The School Board pays for the air time, Charlie. And everyone knows it....And, by the way, they are not paying for 'air time.' They are paying rental on the public radio communications satellite. They are transmitting my weekly broadcast to over 100 public radio stations. And it's really cheap."

 "That's not fair. Who made you a radio commentator? Who made you an expert on future careers?"

 "I made myself a commentator." What a jealous baby!, she told herself. I sensed that when I first me him. Can I reason with him? "Look, Charlie, you and I agree pretty well on the future these kids face...."

 "Sure. Information Age technologies. Computers, telecommunications, robotics, genetic engineering. Innovation. Uncertainty. Upheaval. Excitement...."

 "...Yes, Charlie! There it is, Charlie! You said it, Charlie! You said the 'T' word ...'telecommunications.'...The difference between you and me, my dear boy," she stressed "boy," "is that I believed what we are talking about, our dream of the future. ..."

 She reminded him of that Day When John Naisbitt Came to Town, as she called it.

 The downtown auditorium was packed with people who had paid $50 apiece to hear the author of Megatrends. She and Charlie had played hooky and attended on passes generously contributed by his brother when two business associates decided to skip over to the beach for the day.

 The famous futurist droned on and on, and the audience ate it up. Yet it occurred to Martha that she could do even better. My God! she thought, he is spouting ideas that others discovered long ago. I can do better than that. Yes! I can do better. I can be more imaginative. I can be clearer.

 And then she looked around the auditorium, and whom did she see? She saw Jerry Seally's father, the guy who had laughed in her face when she recommended that Jerry learn Spanish. And old man Seally was today lapping it up, even the part of Naisbitt's lecture about the need to learn languages. And there was Fanny Bone's mother (another real estate broker) who had ridiculed Fanny for talking about robots, and Fanny's mother was nodding sagely when Naisbitt talked about automated factories.

 "That's when I decided that, if I wanted people to take me seriously, I had to be somebody, to stop being just a 'pipsqueak,' as you would put it....So I thought about everything that you and I believed in, and I decided that telecommunications was the secret....And I checked, and I discovered that public radio in Washington rents time on its communications satellite. If you want to, you can record a program and public radio will, for a fee, transmit that program to all its stations."

 "So you admit it. You buy air time."

 "That's not true. That stations don't have to use your broadcasts. But if they like what they hear, they can record it from the satellite and play it for their audience whenever they wish."

 "The idea came to me in a flash. I used $200 of my savings, and I made an audition tape, just four 5-minute commentaries on future careers, and I rented some satellite time, and some of the stations liked what they heard and put me on their schedule....I snooped around School Board headquarters and found (as I knew I would) a few thousand dollars left over in the audio-visual budget, and I wrote a couple of dozen more shows, and now maybe a few hundred stations use my commentaries....Maybe they use them at 2 o'clock in the morning...Who knows?"

 "But now you are no longer a pipsqueak."

 "That's right. Not a pipsqueak any longer. Now I am a 'syndicated radio commentator. Now I am 'heard on over 100 stations around the U. S."

 "And now you are invited to talk to all the luncheon clubs, to the School Board, to the P. T. A. ..."

 "...to the people whose kids I am advising..."

 "...and now you get some respect."

 "That's right, Charlie. And I earned that respect. I earned it because I used my imagination. I earned it because I followed through on what I believed. And I'll tell you this, my old friend. For you there is a way out of the box, if only you can find it. But you are going to run off and sell real estate, which is a fine profession, though not for you, and you are going to spend your life being miserable."

 Enough of this conversation. No doubt you have noticed how very different Charlie and Marti are in their approach to life. Let's explore this difference.

 The Safekeeping Self and the Experimenting Self

 George Prince has named two modes of thinking the safekeeping self and the experimenting self. Prince believes (and I agree) that every normal human being is capable functioning of in either mode or of alternating between modes. The so-called (by Prince) safekeeping self censors, evaluates, reassures and supports the Establishment, analyzes, is realistic, avoids surprises, avoids wrongness, avoids risks, makes and supports rules, is serious, is cautious, is suspicious, is fearful, punishes wrongness, punishes mistakes, and probably punishes what Mom and Dad would have disapproved of. The safekeeping self is also very much concerned about wasting time and keeping to schedule.

 Charlie (directly above) has a highly developed safekeeping self. He blames others for his misfortune, evaluates himself ("Pipsqueak") and others ("pesky grandparent"), supports the establishment that he complains about ("I could be a principal..."), is suspicious and supports rules ("Who made you a commentator?") and has an overly developed sense of right and wrong ("It isn't fair...." "It isn't fair!..." "It isn't FAIR!!!!)"

 The safekeeping self probably makes very little productive use of the subconscious, since the subconscious is quite unconcerned with such matters as being right, being on time, following cultural rules, and so forth. The subconscious is much too primitive and irrational for these artifacts of modern Western civilization. Dreams are the archetypal subconscious process, and you know how little control most people have over their dreams and how little use most people make of their dreams.

 Prince also identifies the experimenting self, which takes risks, experiences feelings, breaks rules, sees connections, recognizes patterns, plays, speculates, is curious, sees the fun in things, like surprises, is open to practically anything, makes impossible wishes, does not mind being wrong, does not mind being confused, sees images, thinks intuitively, is impetuous, uses seemingly irrelevant ideas, and is highly aware of dreams.

 This experimenting self is something that we must bring to the fore, to make better use of the subconscious mind and its provocations. Unfortunately, we have been taught since childhood not to admit being confused, not to break rules, and so forth. So we may have to work rather hard to build up our experimenting selves.

 No doubt you have noticed that, although Marti exposes some of the same safekeeping behavior as Charlie, she is flexible enough to take risks and bend the rules by rising above her designated place in life.

 The Case of Import-Export

 Here is another conversation, this one a chat between people, Dolly and Simon. Pay attention, and you will see that one of the parties, Simon, has a really outrageous, insensitive, experimenting self, while Dolly is much more conventional. Yet her safekeeping self is able to "steal" good ideas from Simon.

 Notice, too, that this conversation meanders somewhat more than Marti's and Charlie's. Although Dolly would like to keep it on track, Simon persists in letting his imagination run free, and, since he is practically thinking out loud, he is uncommitted to sticking to one point for very long.

 He says: "I hear you've fallen for the greatest racket in education?"

 She says: "Oh? And what's that?...What have you heard?"

 "You've fallen for the learn-a-language scam."

 "I'm learning Spanish, yes: that's true. But it's no scam. It's good business, she says.

 "Good business? Then you are planning to move your business to Miami?"

 "Don't be a chauvinist, Simon. You know there are good reasons for learning Spanish."

 "Name one," he says.

 "Well, I can name a few. But the main reason is to expand my export business to Central and South America."

 "You are going to sell typewriters to South America?"

 "Yes. And to Central America. Costa Rica, El Salvador...." she says.

 He says: "I know where Central America is, my dear. What I cannot figure out is why you want to sell typewriters there."

 "Simple, old friend. Remember what they taught us in college. 'Get in on the ground floor. Find an expanding market.'"

 "Dolly, Dolly....The Americas are not an expanding market. Don't you read the papers?...Recession. ...Double-digit inflation ...Austerity."

 "But ..."

 He cuts her off: "And revolution ...assassination. Some market!"

 "I say we can still get in 'on the ground floor.'"

 "If you want to make money, you've got to exploit their instability."

 "Exploit? ..." Puzzlement.

 "Sure. Find a way for the ruling class to smuggle its money out of the country. Sell them investments. Sell them Florida real estate."

 "Surely you are kidding."

 "Maybe. Maybe not. But the Americas are not my idea of a place to expand. My idea is..."

 "Let me guess. The Arab Gulf states."

 "No. Too xenophobic."

 "Korea. Singapore."

 "They can make their own typewriters better and cheaper than we."

 "Okay. Where?"

 "Africa!"

 "Africa? Africa! Why, Simon! you amaze me. I know how you feel about black people, and..."

 "Business, my dear, is business...."

 "Which is another way of saying you have no principles."

 "Dolly, my dear. Stop and think. Africa is the 'ground floor' that you want to 'get in on'....The continent is loaded with minerals...."

 "But, Simon. My God! Consider the suffering of the people. Consider the populations being uprooted, the starvation, the epidemics. Human life is so cheap..."

 "...and all the other evidence that the continent has fallen as far as it can. They are truly at rock bottom. Things can only improve....And, speaking of starvation..."

 "Truly, you have no conscience."

 "...And speaking of human life..."

 "You make me ill!"

 "...And speaking of populations being uprooted, I wonder if you have read the latest news from the medical industry. A shortage of cadavers."

 "What?"

 "Despite all the bums dying in our streets, we cannot give our medical students sufficient cadavers."

 "Simon! Really. We don't call them bums. They are homeless."

 "Call them bums. Call them the 'homeless.' The fact is, we are too finicky to scoop them up and ship them to the med schools."

 "This is the United States."

 "Ah! Yes. This is the United States. But would they be so finicky in Africa, let's say?"

 She is appalled. "Are you proposing what I think? "

 He torments her with his coyness. "What do you think I am thinking?"

 "I think ...I can hardly believe this...yet coming from you, I can believe it...."

 He taunts her. "Yes! Yes!"

 "I think you intend to import cadavers from Africa. I think you intend to buy them up cheap and ship the over here...."

 "... chained in the holds of sailing ships?...No, Dolly ...But packed in dry ice in freighters."

 He continues: "There is, of course, one problem. Who will be my agent? Who will find me my cadavers?..."

 "...Outrageous ..."

 "...Someone who can travel freely ..."

 "...Ashamed of you!...."

 "...Someone who knows the rudiments of American business..."

 She is speechless.

 He thinks silently.

 He breaks the silence. "Dolly! Do you still teach a class at the university?"

 She remains silent.

 "...Because, you can do me quite a good deed...."

 More silence.

 "...Am I right in believing that quite a few young Africans are studying at your university? ...Of course I am!...Well, here is what I want you to do."

 She remains silent as a stone.

 "I want you to keep your eyes open. I want you to find me the African students who you are pretty sure are heading back to Africa after graduation...I'd prefer the ones majoring in economics."

 He thinks further. "Yes, I prefer economics majors. They will quite certainly end up underemployed in a sinecure in government or a bank...free to travel...free to engage in outside commercial activity, free to act as my agents."

 Silence.

 Silence.

 "Simon," she says. "Think about AIDS."

 "What?" he says."

 "AIDS....Think about AIDS. It's epidemic, you know, in Africa. Who in the world will buy an African cadaver?"

 Now Simon is silent.

 Then Dolly speaks. "But you have quite a good idea there. Certainly I would not have thought of it. ..."

 He remains morose and silent. "I'm going to make a small scholarship available to African students, the ones you identified, the ones heading for underemployment."

 His annoyance increases.

 "And I'm going to get to know them really well and become their friend. I'm not going to exploit them, Simon, but be their friend. And I'm going to recruit them as my agents, to sell my typewriters."

 His silence is deafening.

 "You are quite bright, Simon. Not at all like poor dumb Dolly who never has an idea of her own."

 "But you know," she continues, "we make a great pair. ...Your ideas are so cheeky -- and so useless....But I never talk with you without discovering something in your madness that I can make tame and practical..... Thank you, Simon, dear."

 Enough.

 What's my point? Useful ideas often emerge when the experimenting self and the safekeeping self resolve their differences.

 The dialog above happens to be between Simon and Dolly. Yet it illustrates a basic principle: give the experimenting self enough leeway and it may produce a new idea. And even if that idea is too wild to be practical, your safekeeping self may find a useable germ in the wild idea.

Chapter Three

 Opportunity comes in many forms.

 (Wait a minute.  It does not actually "come," since most of the time you have to look for it, or, better yet, discover it.)

 There are big opportunities, the ones that can change your life in one swoop, and small opportunities that can also change your life, but in small steps, one opportunity after another.

 Some of these are "sexy" opportunities, so called in advertising jargon if they are contemporary, unique, and clever.  They don't necessarily have anything to do with sexuality and gender, though should you perfect a pill that restores the sex drive of centenarians and can be paid for by Medicare, that would be both sexy and "sexy."

 As I've said, opportunity is packaged so diversely that I am not even going to try to write you a catalog.  Let me mention a few forms, though.

 There are marketing opportunities.  Sell more of something or persuade people to pay more.

 There are planning opportunities.  Do something today to avoid trouble tomorrow or to put your competitor in harm's way.

 I'd like to start this chapter by telling a story, one I made up specially for this chapter.  As you read this, try to make a list of all the opportunities that the characters might have perceived at various points in the story, and all the ones they missed.  Add to your list whatever opportunities you would have perceived had you been there, and maybe all the opportunities that someone you know well would have perceived.  It is essential that you write them down as you read.  Do not wait until the end to see how things turned out.

 Later, compare your list with mine.  Still later, after you have read the chapter (or the book), go back and you will certain see a few things you missed on first reading.

 A word of warning.  I wrote this literary invention in the form of a magazine article in the Sunday magazine section of an imaginary newspaper in an imaginary Gulf Coast state.  This is the same state mentioned in chapters one and three, in connection with the imaginary Caliban county.  It isn't Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, or Florida.  It is the wholly imaginary state of Beaufort.  The story is about Quattro Petroleum and Ventures, Inc., which is know to its workers as "The Oil," and PDQ, the petrochemicals division of Quattro.  The story is also about development of Baysite outside the town of Smallport, in the state of Beaufort.

 You might as well know: The story more or less took over and wrote itself and turned out differently than I planned.  In my original, one page concept, it turned on the demand of visiting PDQ technicians for wine, woman, and song, and a little gamb