The "big" changes are the important ones in foresight. Trends that continue in approximately the same direction can be more easily understood and the information found in multiple sources. The perturbations of existing trends, or major new paradigms that develop generally have their roots in earlier events. Trying to find the "early warnings" of these new directions is of great use in developing foresight.

Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization. 1999. Thomas L. Friedman. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, NY. 394 p.

Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate. 1990. Ernest L. Boyer. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

A history of scholarship over time with sections on faculty, campus and community changing times. A report on internal changes in the academy, with another book coming on role of scholarship and the changing social context and emerging debate about "ways of knowing". The Boyer book concludes that scholarship must be defined differently in the future, and not just focus on working at the frontier of knowledge. He observes four main areas of scholarship: exploration of the frontiers of knowledge, integration of ideas and works, translation of thoughts into actions, and inspiration of students.

Technology and the American Economic Transition: Choices for the Future. 1988

Addresses the potential impacts of new technology on the economy over the next two decades. The approach is new and breaks out 10 components of the economy: food, housing, health, transportation, clothing and personal care, education, personal business and communication, recreation and leisure, defense, and government activities not elsewhere classified. Within each of these components, it is analyzed by construction, social services, transactions, transporting trade, manufacturing, and natural resources. The rules under which the economy operates are being reshaped by four major forces:

• new technologies: primarily those built around microelectronics
• the loss of U.S. preeminence in international markets
• the possibility that the price of energy and other resources may increase sharply by 2000
• changes in consumer and labor markets and a new attitude toward public regulation of economic activity, resulting - at least in part- from new values and tastes.

Dateline 2000: The New Higher Education Agenda. 1990. Dale Parnell. The Community College Press. 303 p.

Discusses a wide range of issues facing higher education, including opportunities and challenges for the 1990s, missing linkages of general economy to higher education, global issues (geography and culture), changing student base, and misconceptions about real costs of higher education. Each chapter has a series of forecasts and executive summary; the one for opportunities describes seven internal issues: understand and act on relatedness of issues, build a sense of community within and outside the college, recruit and retain more ethnic minority students and faculty, increase institutional flexibility, develop funding stability, solve the faculty shortage problem, improve governance and leadership effectiveness. Some of his forecasts mirror those of others and some are quite different.

The New Realities. Peter Drucker. Harper and Row, 1989, 276 pages.

Some of the issues/new realities:

• The social impacts of information (involving high and low tech, rich and poor users, old and emerging institutional structures).
• Organizational approach will be flexible (team size and makeup will vary with the task; defining right size is the question).
• Government/Society will not be the salvation of all ills (the issue is what will take its place with the new pluralisms that make up society - integration of various factions, revisions of economic policies, the role of education, defining social/private good).
• Economics will change to a longer term emphasis. Current economic theory does not provide for both long term and short term needs.
• International changes are significant (the disintegration of the Russian Empire, realization Mexico and Canada are neighbors).
• Arms are counterproductive (military costs, malperformance, in an era where "defense" is not possible and retaliation is, what is the role of the military?).

Forecasting, Planning, and Strategy for the 21st Century. 1990. Spyros Makridakis. 293p.

Management theories rise and fall, our judgement has biases and limitations, myth and reality about predicting the future, identifying megapatterns (trends vs cycles), the emerging future, business firms and managers in the 21st century, competitive and non-competitive strategies, creativity, avoiding or delaying failure, achieving and sustaining success, and toward a new management. Suggests the future organization will include highly automated methods to produce what the customer wants, and depend on creativity and ability to implement an effective strategy; this will separate the leading companies from others.

The Art of the Long View: Planning for the future in an uncertain world. 1991. Peter Schwartz. 258 p.

Major focus is on scenario building, including how to gather the information and begin the early creation process (use both conventional and unconventional sources). A guide would include reviewing driving forces as developed by an interdisciplinary team, look for ambiguity and uncertainty, and developing a plot for the scenario. He ends with three scenarios for 2005, assuming the following driving forces: shuffling political alignments, technology explosion, global pragmatism, demographic changes, energy, environment, and global information economy. I: New Empires (changes in the leadership nations). II: Market World (allowing things to work themselves out by the market system). III: Change without Progress (chaos and crisis).

The Cycles of American History, Arthur Schlesinger, Houghton Mifflin, 1986, 448 p.

Schlesinger discusses a 30-year cycle, with alternations between public purpose and private interest (this was first proposed by his father in 1949). If the 30-year cycle holds, at some point around 1990 there should be a sharp change in the national mood and direction. The 1990s would be a generational succession for the people that came of age in the Kennedy years and the Reagan age will fade into historical memory. Schlesinger (the elder) found 11 alternations, with 6 increasing democracy and in 5 to contain it. Schlesinger (the younger) believe the years of Reagan (the 1980s) were like the 1950s, 1920s, and 1890s. Thus, the 1990s may be more like the 1960s than the 1980s relative to public attitude and politically important perspectives. Schlesinger doubts parties can retain a "majority" in an electronic age, and therefore the "40-year cycle" of political parties may have less relevance in the future.

The Decade Matrix, James O. Gollub, Addison-Wesley, 1991, 353 p.

Gollub breaks the decades of your life into sections which include: Immersion (birth to 12), Diversion (13-18), Expansion (19-24), Conversion (25-34), Reversion (45-54), Revision (55-64), Transition (65-74), Emergence (75-840, and Transcendence (85 and over). He addresses each group by the decade in which they were born: Children of the Century (1900-1909), Dream Deferred Generation (1910-1919), Children of American Dream (1920-1929), Bridge Generation (1930-1939), Gap Generation (1940-1949), Baby Boomers (1950-1959), Technokids (1960-1969). He weaves the different perspectives of each group on how they interact/view the economy, technological changes, social and political environment. He notes that each group has a distribution of people that are hanger's on, leaders, and the core. He ends by giving his impressions of what we have ahead for the country and world given who the people are that will be living in it.

For the Common Good: Redirecting the Economy Toward Community, the Environment, and a Sustainable Future. Herman E. Daly and John B. Cobb, Jr., Beacon Press, Boston. 1989, 482p.

Sustainable America: America’s Environment, Economy and Society in the 21^st Century. 1998. Daniel Sitarz (ed). Earth Press, 312 p.

In 1992 the UN Commission on Sustainable Development was held, and the report was called Agenda 21. In 1993 President Clinton created the President’s Council on Sustainable Development. This book builds heavily on the Council’s reports. Topics include consumption, production, population, natural resources, agriculture, environmental management, energy and transportation, education, communities, and leadership. Each chapter is filled with action items following discussion, with some of the policy recommendations coming from the President’s Council and others developed by the other. The discussions are good and raise important issues, but many of the action item are a bit narrowly based and read "must or should" and therefore gives the book more of a dogmatic focus rather than a neutral discussion of the topics. However, it does discuss "sustainability" in terms that go beyond the typical "environment" focus and provides a number of useful examples.