Learn from the Future

Last night I attended a VEPEC event where some of Belgium's foremost business leaders from the publishing & media world and politicians discussed the current crisis and its effects on our industry: disastrous to say the least. Some publishers said that income generated by advertising was down by as much as 30% (at least that's what they'll admit to in public). The CEO of the Alfacam Group and founder of the soon to launch television channel "EXQI" went even further, saying that "the 30-second spot will disappear completely in the foreseeable future."
Now if these two small snippets from an evening marked by unspoken unease and questions filled with fear or bewilderment don't spell "dawn of a new world order", then I don't know what it will take to wake people up.
Some people have been "awake" to the new realities for a while, including MIT professor Otto Scharmer. Author of "Theory U", Scharmer is an action researcher who creates innovations in learning and leadership that he delivers through classes and lectures across the globe.
In this 7-minute video he succinctly explains what the revolutionary statement "learn from the future" means. As I watched the video, it struck me that the requirements and method for innovation were based on a right-brain approach, of course also known to be more 'female' in that it requires unbounded qualitative patterns rather than linear sequences. 

Suffice it to say that I am curious to see how a largely hierarchal, linear, male-dominated business world will respond to these new non-linear rules for true innovation.