pushing the boat out

I am feeling in need of some assumption challenging

ie lets talk about the ocean not the boat

what if consumerism in its current form is wiped out?

what if companies were mostly owned by their partners, employees, customers (not shareholders)?

what if most 'marketing' (eg launches of new ideas) was done through networks of active community?

what if the entire economy was service based (including the service of fixing & upgrading & reusing existing goods)?

what if media and brands were virtually the same thing?

what if income tax was replaced by (an equally onerous) carbon tax?

what if the economy, energy, food production & everyday life were profoundly relocalised?

...so that all that travelled were ideas?

what if we moved back from a brief period of surplus to scarcity (basis of true luxury)?

what if brands were primarily made out of meta-tags eg clouds of reviews from other users

what if radio was the main medium again, or live entertainment, or something so immersive it might as well be real life?

ie if we sketched some far-out scenarios

and then make the leap of assuming that creative/communication services is still a viable specialism

THEN what sort of strategising' might we get to?

it's about looking 40 years ahead after all

:J

ps we might decide that planning for good was an early indicator of something very reachable (open source planning)
if so in some decades planning would be a medieval style guild, with people posted to agencies as liaison rather than staffer

speaking of which do check out the new briefs (london branch meets next friday I believe)