HONOLULU – John Naisbitt previewed material
from his soon to be published book, The Elephant in the Boa
Constrictor, at the Naisbitt/JAIMS executive roundtable
and public forum held January 19-21 in Honolulu.
The “Evolutionary Trends and Future Mindsets” event
invited leaders in education, government, business, and the community
to listen and pose questions to the renowned author of Megatrends.
Among many of his perspectives, Naisbitt discussed
his insights into the globalization and decentralization of the
global economy and culture. “Simultaneous globalization
and decentralization,” he said, “are the twin paths
of the world’s future and that is where the world is headed.”
Panel members of the public forum – Frances
Hesselbein, chairman of the Leader to Leader Institute; Floyd
Takeuchi, president and COO of the aio Group; and Shunji Yanai,
former Japan ambassador to the United States – provided
their own reflections on Naisbitt’s ideas.
“For so many of us, globalization has been
hard to grasp…” said Hesselbein. “We weren’t
sure how this would affect us, and when [Naisbitt said] we have
to see well with our hearts as well as our heads, it connected
to us in a very powerful way.”
After the public forum, select attendees adjourned
to a roundtable discussion to share their own reflections on
Naisbitt’s perspectives on education, offshore outsourcing,
global domains, and Americanization. Naisbitt joined the roundtable
participants the next day to field questions and expound further
on his insights.
James Reed, executive managing director and head
of the equity division for Mizuho Securities USA Inc. said, “Of
all the seminars and roundtables I have attended through the
years, this was the most educational. I learned that an exchange
of ideas has no boundaries.”
Roundtable participants also attended informal
luncheons and dinners with performances by entertainers from
Japan and Hawai‘i.
More than two hundred Hawai'i business and community
leaders attended the public forum on January 20; and more than
forty senior management executives from Hawai'i, the U.S. Mainland,
Japan, South Korea, and Australia attended the executive roundtable
from January 20 to 21.
Naisbitt and his wife, Doris, expressed their
appreciation for the event. “I’ve just enjoyed this
so much…” he said at the final roundtable session, “It
was such a rich human experience.”
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