"It’s not about getting out of the box, it’s about asking the question "why a box?'"
So says futurist Watts Wacker, who opened MUFSO’s Monday sessions with outsider insight flying fast and furious. A lecturer, best-selling author and visionary, Wacker promised "not to tell people what to think or how, but to not think the same way again."
Things are different, Wacker said, they’re not bad, but they’re different. So we need to “recreate the basics” as we figure out our new normal.
Here are Wacker's top five tidbits of advice for the industry that made me say, “Hmmmm”:
 

1. Know the technology. In the past, older people gave up on keeping up with technology, but Baby Boomers will be the first “Techno Geezers.” In less than 20 years, Wacker predicts, “the definition of literacy will be the ability to read and write (computer) code.”
2. Be Smarter. The dominant economic philosophy going forward will be about intellectual property, or your ability to out think other people.
3. Have an “invitational nature.” It is hospitality, after all. Are we really being as welcoming as we can be?
4. Think about “experience engineering.” When Avis began coming out to customers returning cars, rather than forcing them to walk to a counter, it changed the nature of the experience.
5. “Beauty is back.” Art is a window on the times and architecture is the No. 1 canvas today. “Even McDonald’s is figuring that out,” Wacker said. “Are you?”

Hear some of Wacker's other ideas and tips, in his own words, in this audio-stream interview in NRN.com's Media Library at:

http://www.nrn.com/audio/watts-wacker-outsiders-are-trendsetters

 
--Lisa Jennings