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The biggest trend that is affecting Minnesota and the United States, and, in fact, actually much
of the world, is that we're aging. We are growing older and that's going to continue throughout
the rest of our lives and well beyond.
We have now entered a period
of our national existence where we are no longer
a young,
highly mobile, risk-taking society. We've really changed in some very fundamental ways, and
in very dramatic ways.
And this this process is going to continue sharply. It's going to affect our economy. It's going
to affect where people live, and how they live, and the kinds of families they live in.
It's going to affect when they commute, or whether they commute,
and many aspects of our society. As it turns out, most of that increase in the
65 and older population
isn't going to happen in the rural areas--it's going to happen in suburban areas and in ex-urban areas
that are perhaps the least well-prepared
for this big explosion in an older population. And, we're going through a period now, this aging
process, that
has never happened before anywhere in the world,
and it's happening over much of the world. And,
it's going to tremendously transform
our society and our economy and almost everything that we do. Every aspect of our lives
will be transformed
by this. And it's not just about the baby boom generation. Everybody's involved in this.
And whenever there's great change like that, and these dramatic shifts,
coupled with the Great Recession and its fallout over a long period
of time,
whenever we see big changes like this,
we see a rise in the incidence rate of of disrupters, of disruptive events, and disruptive
innovations.
And there there will be dramatic changes.
We just need to be prepared for that. So, what that means is that organizations
need to--and bureaucracies, governments, corporations--
all of the above
need to
need to make sure
that they have a dual
nature to their organization.
They need to be focused, number one,
on
their current operational activities.
They need to be lean,
and they need to push on the productivity string as hard as they can.
And they they need to be the most efficient and effective
organization
that they can be.
But, they also have to have a dual nature.
And this dual nature is the exact opposite
of that. This is the yin to the yang. This is exactly opposite. And that dual nature is a
group within that is looking at the disrupters, looking at nonlinear
and nonevolutionary
events,
and ready to change the organization
on a dime, to create--to move the organization in an exactly opposite direction,
which, of course, the operational people hate.
They hate this kind of thing. And the first thing they want to do is to get rid of that
kind of group
because they don't see that it provides any useful
activity.
But it's going to be that group, that small group, that's going to save the organization.
And the big question is--is how are we going to deal
with the economic reality
of an aging society,
with an ever-larger dependent society.
And here's one of the basic rules of economics, one of the very basic, one of the
most, first, principles of economics
is that there are really only two ways to grow an economy
either increase the number of people making stuff,
or you increase the amount of stuff each person makes.
One has to do with the size of the workforce, which isn't going to grow much in the future
because we're aging and we've got a lot of people that are going to retire and
very few young people available to take their place.
And, the other is is productivity.
And, productivity is going to become almost the single-minded focus
of society in the next 10 years, 30 years, 40 years, 50 years.
At least out 25 years right now,
the forecast is that government budgets will continue
to face chronic shortages,
uh...
chronic shortfalls, chronic deficits. There'll be systematic and chronic cuts in services.
That's going to continue into the future. And the challenge
is going to be--for any government organization--
is how can we
cut 5 percent out of our budget this year
AND
increase the outcomes of what we do by 5 percent
Not "or", but "and."
So, it's got to be both
and that's going to mean a very different way of thinking about government at this state
and federal, state, and local levels. We're going to need to think very differently
about how we do things. That transition is going to occur in this decade
perhaps even in the first half of the decade. And it's going to be a sharp transition. And
there will be some societies that can be adapt to that, and there will be some that don't. It's going
to be a dramatic shift,
and, basically, all bets are off
and that will lead to the to the disrupters, to increasing disruptive events,
increasing disruptive innovations. and that's going to lead to a
dramatically different world.
Fasten your seat belts and enjoy the ride!