Virginia Postrel, "The Future and Its Enemies: the Conflict Over Creativity, Enterprise and Progress", Rotman Lifelong Learning 2005, June 3, 2005

Lifelong Learning 2005, Rotman School of Management, (University of Toronto), held at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel, June 3, 2005, 8:40 a.m.

Virginia Postrel, Author, The Substance of Style (Harper Collins, 2003); The Future and Its Enemies (Free Press, 1998); Columnist, The New York Times, Forbes ( Dallas)

These participant's notes were created in real-time during the meeting, based on the speaker's presentation(s) and comments from the audience. These should not be viewed as official transcripts of the meeting, but only as an interpretation by a single individual. Lapses, grammatical errors, and typing mistakes may not have been corrected. Questions about content should be directed to the originator. These notes have been contributed by David Ing (daviding@systemicbusiness.org) of the Systemic Business Community ( http://systemicbusiness.org ).

Introduction by Andrew Gowers

Princeton grad in English
Columnist
Author, The Substance of Style
Rotman school has given a copy of her first book
Website: http://dynamist.com
Before, a report for Inc.
Lives in Dallas

[Virginia Postrel]

First time in Toronto

West coaster

What will the world look like in 2020?

No idea

In the 20th century, thought we knew what the 21st century would look like

Jetsons
High towers, peopleless plaza
Or Bladerunner view
Live in the sky, go to work by monorail
Computers will rule the world, centralized, and will manage
And a lot of lycra (in the science fiction garb), but not in the way people thought

21st century looks different:

Walmart, KFC in Beijing
Lycra not to show off wonderful form, but at current rate, all Americans will be overweight by 2059

In the early 1990s, started noticing issues that were wonky (e.g. trade) were only by interested groups (e.g. economists, unions).

This has changed.
Issues that used to not be in popular discourse are not hot button issues.
They're hot button, but don't break down along left / right or conservative /liberal
There are people on both sides of issues

Hot buttons

Trade / globalization
Pop culture / media
Immigration
Biotech / biomedical research

Hot, e.g. around biomedical

On many issues, it's more predictive not to think about left and right, but instead stasis and dynamism

Core values: stability (static) or control (sticking to plan, linear extrapotlaiton)
Reactionaries
... vs. technocrats

One example: biomedical

False Hopes, Daniel Callahan
Modern Medicine: has neither evident boundaries nor carefully considered final goals
Open ended
This is true, post-scientific revolutoin
By Callahan thinks that this is a problem, that people want to much
Not just the doctors, it's the patients.

Stem cell research: Bush asked Cass to bring someone with a different political perspective

Cass brought Daniel Callahan, who is a liberal democratic

Dynamism: learning, as individuals,, and as a society

Doesn't work towards marching towards a central plan
A lot of decentralized competition
Underlying rules are simple -- not chaos, but not controlled
This gives a sense of progress, but open ended

Move from political analysis (in the book) to how dynamism works

How can you talk about ...
Demand side: form faollows failiure
Supply side: near infitinite
x

Form follows failure

From Henry Petroski, engineering on bridges, etc.
If you have an invention, and it has no bugs (mythically) and it does exactly what it's supposed to do, and have it as a focal point, you'll want to other things with them
e.g. contact lens, want to sleep in them, have different colors
True with prophecies
Process of discontent, on the side of producers, and the side of consumers, that drive unexpected forms of progress

From new book: The best surprise is no surprise

Progress was didn't have to have deprivation, didn't have to have bad surprises
e.g. guaranteed reservation
Would have an ugly bedspread, but knew that there would be a bedspread
Guarantee basic services that define what it means to be in a hotel
This was progress, a tremendous form of innovation in its time
General phenomena: getting everyone to a certain level
If progress was aboiut achieving a level, then all hotels would look like this

But then dissatisfaciton:

e.g. shampoo with different bottle styles

Late 1990s, what have you done for me lately: what Aveda shampoo at the hotel, because I use that at home

Then you have bathrooms like Marriott
Marriott put tvs into armoires
They're getting into a hotel looking more aesthetic
In Four Seasons Toronto: tell you that they'll have Internet access, but I want wireless
Hotel improvement trend at Starwood, why do I have to have an ugly bedspread, why can't I have a cordless phone?
This is an example of something that had been perfected, that still has plenty wrong with it, which makes innovation and improvement possible

The future perfect can only be a tense, not a thing: Henry Petroski

Supply side

How we can we have infinite progess with finite resources?

The resources are limited, but the way that you can combine them is not unlimited, but barely limited
e.g. 3 colors of Lego blocks can be combined 109 million ways
e.g. 52 playing cards at 10**68 combinations
(Dated) floppy disk: bits 10**(3.5 million) combinations as word, graphics, audio, video
People who work with computers, music, words, don't worry about limits: always concerned with how we recombine

Knowledge Problem: what do you make?

For developing countries, the challenge isn't what to make, but what comes next

Involves tapping dispersed knowledge from consumers about what they want, and in product development about what is feasible
Static like a royal Palm Tree: leaves at top
Knowledge more like bushy tree: dispersed knowledge
Creates problems, even with predictable trends

Finding the X-factor

In the early 1990s, people in apparel were trying to get scientific

Knew that women were getting older and fatter
Thus, stock up on basics
But, old women are not going to buy them, because they already have basics
They missed the X-factor, something that isn't going to come out in focus groups, something that makes an items seem hot to a consumer: Amy Spindler, NY Times

This is true in other businesses

e.g. white bedspreads in Starwood hotels
Could say that did science that it looks clean
This developed by tapping into knowledge

Lenscrafter: glasses in about an hour

This didn't come out in focus groups
But researchers noticed people were time-stressed
Could tap into this, with other attributes

What sold? Mini-skirted business suits

People saw them on Melrose Place
It was unpredictable

Blocking progress: barriers to progress, other than limits to mind and limits to creativity?

Could ban things: we're not going to allow that, and static people would like this
- People don't usually go this far.
- 1996, Clinton ran on building a bridge to the future: static, but progressive
- Bob Dole said he was going to build a bridge to the past, but people don't go there.
- Thus, not much support for bans, except for ecology, biotechnology
More likely, restrictions on competition
Rigid categories, on the way the world is the way on which it always was

Starbucks, opening in San Fran said that can't have restaurants where you can hang out

Starbucks got law changed: can't open a restaurant, but can open a beverage house

EU vs. Grape Tomatoes:

Sweet
Wonderful story of globalization, but can't buy them in the EU, because there are only four types of tomato: round, ribbed, oblong or cherry
Assumption that categories that exist today, will exist tomorrow

Discovering the future

It is the process of leanring something new that man finds the gifts of his intelligence: F. A. Hayek

x x

Will still have fights about things like intellectual property: combinations

Questions

Question: Government policy. How to apply this to government policy that is about central regulation?

A hard question
Agenda in writing the book, not in investigating the dichotomy, but to break a certain mindset
In the early 20th century, industrialized world became enamoured with planning, from the advances in business where you could do things at scale
Misapplied these lessons on social systems, much too large for them
Go back 50 years, thinkers in liberal democracy (UK and U.S.) advocated central control
Has been a mindset, but insecurity about something new: how are going to regulate it, control it
What usually happens: fight things one by one, and it's a race
If can block things for a while ...
e.g. people with Internet, how are we going to stop it
Technological workarounds make it hard to stop things
Then people get used to it, then cease to look for government policy
Have to get to a mindset: government policy not to set the outcomes, but to set the specific rules of the game
Will still have fights about things like intellectual property: combinations
Want those types of arguments

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