Powerful Times: Rising to the Challenge of Our Uncertain World

Understand the most revolutionary human transformation in four centuries... and prepare for it!

We're not just living through an age of change: we're living through a 'change of age': the most profound inflection point in human history since the Enlightenment. That's the thesis of Eamonn Kelly's remarkable new book Powerful Times. From terrorism and nuclear proliferation to emerging technologies and economic globalization, Kelly weaves together 7 powerful 'dynamic tensions' that will reshape human life in the coming decades. Kelly offers breakthrough insights into how these tensions will conflict -- and how they'll resonate, creating giant waves of change beyond anything we've ever faced. He takes on the truly big questions. To answer pivotal questions, Kelly draws on breakthrough 'scenario planning' techniques he pioneered: techniques hundreds of top organizations now rely on. Simply put, this book will help you prepare for humanity's most profound transition in 400 years.  For every executive, strategist, manager, entrepreneur, public policymaker, and citizen interested in the trends that will most powerfully impact business and life in the coming decades.

Eamonn Kelly, the CEO and president of Global Business Network, the renowned future-oriented network and consulting firm, has for over a decade and has been at the forefront of exploring the emergence of a new, knowledge-intensive economy, and its far-reaching consequences for society, organizations and individuals. He has consulted with senior executives at dozens of the world's leading corporations in virtually every leading business sector; with key global and national public agencies, and with major philanthropic foundations. Kelly co-authored What's Next: Exploring the New Terrain for Business and The Future of the Knowledge Economy, and authored GBN's 2003 Scenario Book.

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Author's Site

Author Web Site -- Powerful Times Web Site

Online Sample Chapter

Secular and Sacred

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Preface

 1. History Unleashed

I. WHAT’S HAPPENING?: PREDICTING THE PRESENT

 2. Clarity and Craziness

 3. Secular and Sacred

 4. Power and Vulnerability

 5. Technology Acceleration and Pushback

 6. Intangible and Physical Economies

 7. Prosperity and Decline

 8. People and Planet

II. WHAT IF?: CHANGING FOR THE CHALLENGES AHEAD

 9. Governance

10. Innovation

III. WHAT’S NEXT?: SCENARIOS FOR THE NEXT DECADE

Chapter 11:  Three Snapshots of the Future

IV. SO WHAT?: ACTING IN AN ERA OF TRANSFORMATION

12. Creating Our New Future

Endnotes

Afterword: Using This Book in Your Life and Work

Downloadable Sample Chapter

Sample Chapter - 146 KB -- Chapter 3: Secular and Sacred