[.ca] The Art of the Long View (ISBN 0385267320)

What a great book?:
You have to buy The Art of the Long View. I don't know how to explain how great the book is. Don't hesitate to grap one

Scenario for personal life:
As an international student who stays in Hawaii for a while, Peter Schwartz's The Art of the Long View inspired me to make planning for my future whether in Hawaii or other places. His explanations about scenario building may be adapted to my personal life as well as in business to plan my better life in future. Moreover, as a human being, we have an innate ability to build scenarios and to forecast the future. He said that scenarios are apparatuses for helping us to acquire a long view in a great uncertainty rather than simply predicting the future. Therefore, it is possible to prepare for our future. In real time, the eight steps of developing scenarios which he suggested in his book are used in many fields. Most websites about forecasting adopt his idea as a basic foundation to prepare alternative future with social, economic, political, and technological points of views. Although he said scenario building as "art" not "science", it may not reduce the important of scenario building to identify alternative dimensions of future by recognizing the driving forces and composing the plots. I recommend for a beginner in particularly non-native English speaker in forecasting or in future planning reading this book as a guide. His guide is easy and simple to apply for everyone to anticipate unexpected changes.

Planning is everything, plans are nothing by themselves:
The reviewer who says this is useless futurist stuff with no "real-world" basis or application has never been in planning efforts of big organizations. Understanding alternative futures, which is what Schwartz very effectively shows the open-minded reader how to begin to do, is a core behavior for leading change. Knowing the alternatives, understanding what indicators to watch for as the future becomes the present, and continual replanning -- that's what makes taking the long view work. It doesn't all take place in the boardrooms, because board members aren't equipped to do this kind of planning -- and the smart organizations that survive know that. His/her cynical single star is emblematic of a closed mind. This is the best book on strategic planning I've found in more than ten years.

Out of date, meandering and biased.:
This book was first published in 1991, the second edition 1996 has very little done to update the content. But, what's worse is the fact that references made by the author to the "Sony Walkman" and other technologies and products actually date the origin of the writing to the early 1980's. The book is boring and anecdotal; stuffed with name dropping, and score evening and self praise: the CIA were wrong- me and my team were right. Senator "so and so" is a fool he was wrong we were right and bla bla. If you like listening to your grandpa when he's on medication and in a mean mood - buy this book. The author also exhibits "America Bashing" circa 1988 : That was when the USA was in steep decline and Japan was the light from the East... well times have changed -- there are other reasons to bash the USA but not one reason to praise Japan. I don't know why all the reviewers from Hawaii gave the book so many stars; but they comprise most of the reviewers and the result has been skewed. In place I recommend: Creating Better Futures: Scenario Planning As a Tool for Social Creativity by James A. Ogilvy. If you want to learn more about Japan try ;Dogs and Demons: Tales from the Dark Side of Modern Japan by Alex Kerr. I recommend this book to Mr. Schwartz.

Open Your Brain and Reperceive the World:
This book will help you to learn the scenario planning process. At the beginning, the author presents a short but insightful example how scenario playing an important role for starting up a gardening tool company. The author also shares an "information hunting and gathering process" which tell you where to get some helpful data. Various factors influencing the futures are also discussed (including socials, politics, economic, technologies, and environment). In addition, at the end of the book, the author provides a user's guide (eight steps of how to hold a strategic conversation) and eight steps to develop scenarios which I found very useful. The book enables us to use scenario planning as a tool to deal with uncertain futures. Scenarios help us to awake and "reperceive" others possible and impossible alternative futures including both short and long term. The author also believes that a good scenario leads you to ask better questions. The point of scenario-planning is "to help us suspend our disbelieve in all the futures: to allow us to think that any on of them might place. Then, we can prepare for what we DO NOT think is going to happen." (p.195) However, one annoying thing in this book is that the author keeps referring to chapters (e.g. look in chapter 7) but physically, there are just no chapters number indicated in the book. There are just short titles in the table of content and at the beginning of each chapter. You have to go back and forth between the TOC and chapters to to see which one is actually being referred. However, I consider this is a minor issue comparing to what you will learn from this book. You may find this book useful if you are preparing for your strategic plans, making decisions having critical impacts to your firm or your personal life, or even you are just an ordinary reader, this book will open your mind to a new level of critical thinking and imagination about unfolding futures. Highly recommend.