Our thanks to our sponsor for this event, the law firm of Cooley Godward for their generosity and support.
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Four years ago, the WCNC presented Peter Schwartz, Cofounder and Chairman of Global Business Network as he discussed Big Surprises of the Next Decade That You Should Be Planning For. It was a sellout crowd of over 150 people who came to San Francisco's St. Francis Yacht Club to hear the father of modern scenario planning talk about how the world is likely to change over the coming decade and also about scenario planning as a tool to anticipate and plan for that change.

On Thursday, January 26th, the Wharton Club of Northern California will present Peter's colleague, GBN CEO and author, Eamonn Kelly, who has spent 15 years helping organizations understand what’s coming next, so they can embrace risk, master uncertainty, and act with confidence to shape their own destinies. Eamonn will discuss the Powerful Times in which we now find ourselves to help you prepare for future possiblities and transform this moment of uncertainty and complexity into opportunity.

As Eamonn puts it, we're not just living through an age of change, but a change of age--perhaps the greatest inflection point in history since the Enlightenment. Chaotic to some, perhaps, but with the right tools, this can be a time of immense opportunities--not only for businesses and individuals but also for whole societies.

Register online

Date. Thursday, January 26th, 2006
Time. 6:00pm - 7:00pm. Registration and reception with appetizers
7:00pm - 8:15pm. Presentation, Q&A
Place. Cooley Godward. 3175 Hanover Street, Palo Alto, CA, 94304. Tel: 650-843-5000. Directions
Cost. $30 for current WCNC members and their accompanied guests. $45 for non-member alumni and other guests. $30 for current members of affiliate clubs/organizations. $10 additional fee for registrations--if available--after 5:00pm Tuesday, 01/24/06. All preregistrations include a complimentary copy of Powerful Times (list price $26.99).

Eamonn Kelly weaves a compelling story of these Powerful Times and the profound possibilities that lie ahead:

• Unexpected Consequences of Transparency. Technology has provided us with more data, more details and more insight into our world. We enjoy unprecedented clarity, driven by abundant information, powerful analysis, ubiquitous connectivity and remarkable transparency – yet these same forces also lead to confusion through misinformation and misjudgment.

• Technology Acceleration and Pushback. New technologies provide us with greater opportunities in business and medicine, as well as greater power to manipulate our world. However, the rapid proliferation of these technologies can have consequences that should be considered.

• Intangible and Physical Economies. As services, experiences, and relationships become more valuable, we see the breakdown of our physical infrastructures (i.e. levies in New Orleans, the electricity grid, highways, bridges, etc.), but our future depends on maintaining and improving them.

• Prosperity and Decline. Economic growth has increased in the developed world, but the disparities between wealth and relative poverty has increased in many developing countries, as well as in the United States, leading to increased polarization.

• People and Planet. With a population that has quadrupled in the last 100 years, and is expected to increase by 50 percent in the next 45 years, can our planet sustain this growth? Moreover, the planet holds its own cards—and may play the last hand.

Eamonn Kelly
Eamonn Kelly is CEO and president of Global Business Network and a partner of the Monitor Group. He has consulted at senior levels to dozens of the world's leading corporations in many sectors, including healthcare, energy, telecommunications, transportation, financial services, manufacturing, computing, professional services, and consumer goods. Eamonn has also worked with key global and national public agencies, as well as several major philanthropic foundations. For more than a decade he has been at the forefront of exploring the emergence of the new, knowledge-intensive economy and its far-reaching consequences for business, society, organizations, and people, and frequently presents his provocative ideas all over the world. Prior to joining GBN, Eamonn was head of strategy at Scottish Enterprise, one of the world's most respected development agencies, where he led the creation of new and effective strategies for economic and social development in a new era. Eamonn is co-author of What's Next: Exploring the New Terrain for Business (Perseus/Wiley, 2002) and The Future of the Knowledge Economy (OECD, 1999). Eamonn studied drama, sociology, and economics at the University of Glasgow and also holds an MBA from Strathclyde University.