What the Visionaries See, and What We Can Learn From Them

Many of you have no doubt read the October issue of CU Magazine which invited a number of visionary leaders of the U.S. credit union system to briefly describe their vision of what the CU system will look like 30 years in the future. We were pleased to contribute to this special issue and greatly enjoyed the rich and diverse comments provided by other system leaders.

It is interesting to note that in its September 14, 2012 issue, USA Today included a special section titled “The Next 30 Years” in which they invited global visionaries to provide their views of the world a generation from now. Their list of visionaries spanned a very diverse set of domains of expertise, ranging from Richard Branson to James Cameron to Bill Ford.

We certainly did not agree with all of the visions presented in “The Next 30 Years”, but that is not the point. After all, none of us can be certain of what life will look like three decades ahead. Consider, for example, the fact that 30 years ago the Internet and personal computers were both in their infancy. Few could have predicted how dramatically those two developments would redefine life as we know it.

The real value of any forward-looking exercise such as “The Next 30 Years” is not to debate particular scenarios, but rather to stimulate our own thinking about whether our own business models are robust enough to survive and thrive despite the turbulent changes that are almost certain to occur. In that regard, the entire USA Today section is worth reading. However, we found the comments of three visionaries to be of particular interest for credit union leaders: Marc Andreesen, Jack Dorsey and Blake Nordstrom.

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