John Naisbitt, author of Megatrends: Ten New Directions Transforming Our Lives and Megatrends 2000: Ten New Directions for the 1990’s, released the book Mind Set!: Reset Your Thinking and See the Future in 2006. In this book, he discusses how much an individual’s mindset influences the data collected and the conclusions drawn.

The first part of the book discusses 11 mindsets that helped him in his work.

1. While many things change, most things remain constant
2. The future is embedded in the present
3. Focus on the score of the game (referring to his habit of reading the newspaper back to front, Sports section first – Naisbitt suggests that as you move forward in a newspaper you are subject to increasing opinion and conventional wisdom)
4. Understanding how powerful it is not to have to be right
5. See the future as a picture puzzle
6. Don’t get so far ahead of the parade that people don’t know your in it
7. Resistance to change falls if benefits are real
8. Things that we expect to happen always happen more slowly
9. You don’t get results by solving problems but by exploiting opportunities
10. Don’t add unless you subtract
11. Don’t forget the ecology of technology

The second part of the book talks about 5 cultures he sees emerging:

1. A visual culture is taking over the world
2. From Nation-States to Economic Domains
3. China: The Periphery is the Center
4. Europe: Mutually Assured Decline
5. Our Evolutionary Era: Reservoir of Innovation

It a very good book that helps you rethink some of the ways you think about things. I highly recommend the book.

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