by The New York Times has a great piece, Japanese Take Food Supply into Their Own Hands, that provides an excellent example of the “distrust of authority” streak in postmoderns can be watered, nourished, and coaxed to grow by “old-school” government policy. The article notes that the Japanese government was quick to pronounce food supply’s safe from fallout despite, shall we say, less-than-comprehensive testing. Empowered Japanese citizens did testing of their own, and found there were indeed issues. And they spread the word about this using social media, invoking postmodern values of empowerment, skepticism, community, etc. identified in ConsumerShift. I’m not suggesting that people get together and have a meeting about their values and say, “which [postmodern or integral] values are we going to invoke today.” Rather, values are implicitly guiding decision-making and behavior. It’s interesting to see the more activist side of postmodern values emerging more prominently in Japan, where as the article notes, the collectivist cultural heritage tends to discourage individuals from speaking out against established authority. Andy Hines
About Andy Hines
Dr. Andy Hines is Program Coordinator at the University of Houston’s Graduate Program in Foresight, bringing together the experience he earned as an organizational, consulting, and academic futurist. He is also speaking, workshopping, and consulting through his firm Hinesight.
Before that, he was Managing Director of Social Technologies/Innovaro, and served as an Adjunct Professor with the university since 2004. Hines enjoyed earlier careers as a consulting and organizational futurist. He was a partner with Coates & Jarratt, Inc., a think tank and consulting firm that specialized in the study of the future. He was also Futurist & Senior Ideation Leader at Dow Chemical with a mission of using futures tools and knowledge to turn ideas into new business opportunities. Before that, Hines established and ran the Global Trends Program for the Kellogg Company.
Hines is motivated by a professional hunger to make foresight practical and useful, and he believes that foresight can help deliver the insight that is so needed in today’s organizations and the world. His goal, he says, is to infect as many change agents as possible with this message. Thus, he has honed a skill set designed to make foresight more actionable in organizations.
In this pursuit, he has authored five books: Teaching about the Future: The Basics of Foresight Education (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012); ConsumerShift: How Changing Values Are Reshaping the Consumer Landscape (No Limits Publishing, 2011); Thinking About the Future: Guidelines for Strategic Foresight (Social Technologies, 2007); 2025: Science and Technology Reshapes US and Global Society (Oak Hill, 1997); and Managing Your Future as an Association (ASAE, 1994) and has another in the hands of publishers: Teaching about the Future: The Basics of Foresight Education. He has also authored dozens of articles, speeches, and workshops, including the 2003 Emerald Literati Awards’ Outstanding Paper accolade for best article published in Foresight for “An Audit for Organizational Futurists” and the 2008 award for “Scenarios: The State of the Art.” He has appeared on several radio and television programs, PBS Houston, KRIV-26 News, and the CBS “Early Show.” He also co-founded and is former Chair of the Association of Professional Futurists.
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