Episode 1 | Higher Education Futurist Bryan Alexander

Rural Futures podcast Author

06/05/2018 Added

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Bryan Alexander

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[00:00:00.520]Hi, it's Caitlyn, producer of the Rural Futures Podcast.
[00:00:04.490]Subscribe where you listen so you don't miss an episode,
[00:00:07.080]and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter,
[00:00:09.720]at RuralFutures.
[00:00:11.040]Thanks for listening.
[00:00:12.648](upbeat R&B music)
[00:00:13.950]For me, a futurist is somebody who helps people
[00:00:16.490]think about the future more strategically
[00:00:19.260]and with greater imagination.
[00:00:22.640]Rural Futures, the podcast where we connect
[00:00:25.730]thought leaders and doers at the intersection
[00:00:28.320]of technology and what it means to be human.
[00:00:31.310]Every episode we talk with entrepreneurs, researchers,
[00:00:34.660]and achievers, to create impact for generations to come.
[00:00:39.090]And now, here's Dr. Connie.
[00:00:41.640]Hi, and welcome to the Rural Futures podcast.
[00:00:44.260]This is Dr. Connie, your host, and joining me today
[00:00:47.750]in our conversation is Bryan Alexander.
[00:00:50.220]Bryan is a futurist specializing in how higher education
[00:00:53.360]and technology are changing.
[00:00:55.120]He writes, speaks, and consults widely,
[00:00:57.920]while living in Vermont.
[00:00:59.830]Bryan, that's a little bit about you,
[00:01:01.720]tell our audience a little bit more about you,
[00:01:03.740]give them a snapshot of Bryan Alexander.
[00:01:06.500]Well, greetings, and thank you very much
[00:01:08.480]for having me here, I really appreciate it.
[00:01:10.860]I'm coming to this rural podcast from rural Vermont.
[00:01:14.540]We live on top of one of the Green Mountains,
[00:01:16.920]about half off the grid, and we have a very, very deep
[00:01:21.160]connection to rural life.
[00:01:22.620]As homesteaders we have raised goats, chickens,
[00:01:25.950]turkeys, all kinds of animals.
[00:01:27.590]We heat entirely by firewood,
[00:01:30.000]most of which we log ourselves.
[00:01:32.720]Meanwhile, at the same time, we have a
[00:01:36.300]thin and dodgy internet connection through which
[00:01:38.730]I do most of my work, we have a Tesla Powerwall
[00:01:41.750]to backup when the electricity fails.
[00:01:44.530]We try in short to bridge the 19th and the 21st
[00:01:47.540]centuries at the same time.
[00:01:49.180]I think that's such a perfect spot in which
[00:01:51.860]a futurist and his family lives and creates an amazing life
[00:01:56.390]combining that sustainability and what you love,
[00:01:59.740]with building the future at the same time.
[00:02:02.540]Okay so Bryan, you are a futurist,
[00:02:05.030]and I know people on the show know I'm a futurist,
[00:02:07.820]but I think for them to understand what a futurist
[00:02:10.450]is and the value it brings would be amazing,
[00:02:13.160]so tell us, what is a futurist?
[00:02:15.270]And why is a futurist so valuable in this day and age?
[00:02:18.110]For me a futurist is somebody who helps people
[00:02:20.650]think about the future more strategically
[00:02:23.240]and with greater imagination.
[00:02:25.780]And this matters because, well we're all heading
[00:02:29.040]into the future, but also it matters because I think
[00:02:33.430]it's very difficult for us to really think about
[00:02:36.190]ways the future can be different,
[00:02:38.100]especially in ways that are practical and matter
[00:02:40.530]to our lives or families, and our jobs,
[00:02:42.940]and our immediate political world.
[00:02:45.410]So, I think futurists are really essential guides
[00:02:48.400]to living in the near, medium, and far future.
[00:02:52.090]I love that, essential guides, I think that's such
[00:02:54.820]a strong and powerful statement about what futurists
[00:02:58.370]bring to the table.
[00:02:59.960]Now you have a specialty around education technology,
[00:03:03.260]so tell our audience a little bit more about
[00:03:05.670]what you do in that sphere of futuring.
[00:03:08.302]Sure, well the sphere is the future of education,
[00:03:11.630]that's primarily higher education, although
[00:03:14.410]I do work in K12 as well as corporate learning,
[00:03:18.520]and also informal learning, and I have a strong
[00:03:21.840]emphasis on technology.
[00:03:23.480]That's where I think an awful lot of changes
[00:03:26.260]are happening, and there's a great deal
[00:03:27.600]of potential right there to do this work.
[00:03:30.720]I do a lot of consulting, so I travel to places,
[00:03:35.083]I do this online, I do research on spec,
[00:03:38.320]I do a lot of speeches, and workshops, mostly in the US
[00:03:41.920]but also in Europe and east Asia.
[00:03:44.380]I make a lot of stuff, I make books,
[00:03:48.110]I write articles, I do a weekly video conference
[00:03:50.990]discussion about the future of education.
[00:03:52.600]I have a podcast about ready to launch,
[00:03:56.040]I interview people, I am interviewed,
[00:03:58.120]so I like to make, I guess instead of stuff
[00:04:00.730]I should say media, of all kind.
[00:04:03.140]And you have a prolific website,
[00:04:04.690]a prolific online presence, and you're doing that all
[00:04:07.330]from a rural community, which of course at the
[00:04:09.340]Rural Futures Institute we appreciate,
[00:04:11.460]and would love to see your connectivity
[00:04:14.420]expanded just to continue to support this endeavor.
[00:04:17.910]Yes, well, as part of my work I travel a great deal,
[00:04:22.360]so that gives me exposure to a wide range
[00:04:25.250]of internet connectivity.
[00:04:27.200]So just last week I was driving across the mid west
[00:04:30.840]and northeast, had to pull over at a rest stop
[00:04:33.410]to do a video conference, so I ended up
[00:04:35.620]propping up my phone in one corner of a semi-abandoned
[00:04:38.260]Burger King, and my laptop on another table,
[00:04:41.010]and jerry rigged this.
[00:04:42.450]Meanwhile I can, the next day, drive to a place
[00:04:45.810]where I can get 100 meg down, it's quite variable.
[00:04:49.690]I just wanna emphasize that point about the web
[00:04:51.950]presence for a second; I find many, many consultants
[00:04:55.850]in general, not just in the futures world,
[00:04:58.230]tend not to have a web presence.
[00:04:59.730]They tend to run pretty dark.
[00:05:02.470]My practice is quite the opposite.
[00:05:04.700]I believe in conversation, so I like to throw
[00:05:07.480]stuff out there, through social media as well
[00:05:09.480]as in person, to try and provoke discussions
[00:05:11.930]and conversations.
[00:05:12.930]I try to host and facilitate those discussions.
[00:05:16.210]I think that combination of openness
[00:05:18.650]and conversation is a terrific way to move forward.
[00:05:22.330]It's risky in some ways, but I think it's really
[00:05:25.530]an appropriately 21st century way to look ahead
[00:05:28.160]to the 21st century.
[00:05:29.310]As a fellow futurist I totally agree,
[00:05:31.500]and I appreciate your presence because I learn a lot
[00:05:34.890]from what your posting and the thoughts
[00:05:36.980]that you're putting together, from all these different
[00:05:39.690]data points, phenomenon, different types of futuring
[00:05:42.800]tactics and tools that you're using,
[00:05:44.710]and I think this really speaks to you as a leader.
[00:05:47.970]I'd love for you to describe to us a little bit more about
[00:05:50.660]you as a leader, and your philosophies around leadership.
[00:05:54.080]Well, I think leadership has really changed
[00:05:56.810]in our generation, and that's something that we're
[00:05:59.207]still trying to grapple with.
[00:06:01.930]Because a lot of the older practices, a lot of the older
[00:06:04.410]habits still persist, and you can see this in politics,
[00:06:08.190]you can see this in pop culture.
[00:06:09.880]Some of the changes are very interesting, for example,
[00:06:12.640]we have the capacity to be more network centric
[00:06:15.530]in our leadership, and less hierarchical,
[00:06:18.470]and that can be challenging in all kinds of ways.
[00:06:21.420]Hierarchies famously exist to defend hierarchies,
[00:06:24.500]and it's difficult to break out of that.
[00:06:27.420]And network centric thinking, or horizontally organized
[00:06:31.030]thinking, can flop miserably.
[00:06:33.080]So I think we're still learning how to make that work.
[00:06:36.610]And it's tricky, there's new ways of learning that way,
[00:06:39.940]and there are ways of inspiring people
[00:06:41.680]and sharing vision through networks.
[00:06:43.530]For example, you think about the idea
[00:06:44.970]of the personal learning network as a way of learning.
[00:06:47.320]Now, to assemble a PLN, you have to deploy
[00:06:51.540]a whole bunch of skills, aptitudes, and habits
[00:06:54.470]that many people weren't trained in.
[00:06:57.000]It can be something as basic as pruning your Twitter feed.
[00:07:00.150]At the same time we have to figure out ways
[00:07:02.620]of doing this globally.
[00:07:04.100]It's a truism to say that we are increasingly
[00:07:07.350]globalized society, but it's the truth.
[00:07:10.083]Just to jump in there a little bit,
[00:07:11.550]one of the quotes I wrote about you in our pre conversation
[00:07:15.710]prior to this episode was that leadership has not
[00:07:18.590]taken globalization into account,
[00:07:21.570]and I hear you talking about that right now,
[00:07:23.720]and I'd love for you to expand on
[00:07:25.800]exactly what you're saying.
[00:07:27.100]There are people that wanna go hyper local
[00:07:30.160]and that's working in many ways, but it's because
[00:07:32.470]we're in a global society, so talk a little bit more
[00:07:35.990]about leadership and globalization, and that
[00:07:38.590]evolution that you see happening.
[00:07:40.250]Well I mean this in the broadest sense,
[00:07:42.690]that humans are more interconnected than we ever have
[00:07:45.397]been before, for better or for worse,
[00:07:47.470]and it shows up across a full range of human endeavor.
[00:07:51.360]Our conversation right now is gonna be accessible
[00:07:53.830]potentially to more people than it would have been
[00:07:56.431]10, 20, 30, 40 years ago.
[00:07:58.740]It means that when a disease spreads it can
[00:08:02.290]spread more quickly through a larger population
[00:08:04.610]than it used to be, historically.
[00:08:06.670]It means that politics, and media, pop culture,
[00:08:09.630]sports, cross national boundaries much more rapidly,
[00:08:12.750]more frequently, and we really haven't fully taken that
[00:08:16.180]into account, we often think of ourselves
[00:08:18.470]in strictly national terms, or at best regional terms,
[00:08:21.650]and that takes a bit of practice, I think,
[00:08:24.550]a bit of attitude, a bit of habit forming
[00:08:26.800]so that we can get used to saying, alright,
[00:08:28.720]my words may be heard in Kazakhstan, in Australia,
[00:08:33.620]in Ecuador, and maybe I should shape them accordingly,
[00:08:37.280]and think about those different contexts.
[00:08:39.140]There's a self awareness where you have to think
[00:08:41.650]of yourself as being a member of a certain nation,
[00:08:44.580]or a certain region, or even smaller than that,
[00:08:46.930]a state, or a province, and that's a little trickier.
[00:08:50.740]And you get so many incentives not to do that.
[00:08:53.180]You can hear voices from your locality
[00:08:55.890]and really adhere to them.
[00:08:57.800]I think in rural areas this is especially true,
[00:09:01.300]because we are less densely populated,
[00:09:04.260]we value those voices a little more highly, I think,
[00:09:07.470]it's harder to disappear into a crowd when you're
[00:09:09.889]in the countryside.
[00:09:11.640]And I think also because of our relatively poor
[00:09:14.400]infrastructure, it's harder for us to get used
[00:09:16.900]to conversations with people around the world.
[00:09:19.110]And I think that's something that we really,
[00:09:20.940]in the countryside, we need to work on,
[00:09:23.470]both in our practice, but also in our infrastructure.
[00:09:26.040]Well, and speaking of that, I mean, obviously
[00:09:27.700]technology is a huge part of this conversation
[00:09:30.880]in enabling people to do exactly what you're saying,
[00:09:34.150]like how do we all emerge, and act and have different
[00:09:38.500]habits, and really opportunities in a connected world.
[00:09:41.430]Another change that you talk about is this
[00:09:43.680]gigantic force of demographic shift.
[00:09:46.080]How do you see that influencing the future
[00:09:48.680]of both rural, urban, and also globalization.
[00:09:51.640]Well geographic shifts are fascinating,
[00:09:53.307]because through most of the world, we have
[00:09:55.740]this phenomenon that we are aging, we are living longer,
[00:09:59.310]we are having fewer kids, and this is relatively new
[00:10:02.940]in human history.
[00:10:03.773]There are very few societies that have done this,
[00:10:05.750]especially at scale, and we're still struggling
[00:10:08.420]to figure out what this means, and how we respond,
[00:10:12.300]and you can think of these responses
[00:10:14.010]that are really, really diverse.
[00:10:16.250]For example, you can think about Japan,
[00:10:18.230]which is pushing very, very hard for robot development,
[00:10:21.270]so they can have more workers, and more caregivers,
[00:10:24.760]because they're running low on workers and caregivers,
[00:10:27.704]and they look at automation as a solution.
[00:10:29.840]Absolutely, one of my favorite emails is
[00:10:31.500]one of our partners, the Japan Society asking,
[00:10:34.090]hey Dr. Connie, what is the future of rural Japan?
[00:10:36.670]Because we don't know, and our government has now made it
[00:10:39.340]a national priority.
[00:10:40.768]Well, and it's a huge issue to think about,
[00:10:43.760]because the rural world, is in many ways, emptying out.
[00:10:47.030]One of the biggest trends of our time is this huge,
[00:10:49.760]oceanic shift of the human race out of the countryside
[00:10:52.980]into cities, see this around the world.
[00:10:55.210]You see this in Africa, you see it in China,
[00:10:57.659]you see it in the US, and it becomes self perpetuating
[00:11:00.770]because as more people pile into cities and suburbs
[00:11:03.730]that's where more and more of the action is,
[00:11:05.220]that's where more of the jobs are, that's where
[00:11:06.795]more of the excitement is, it draws still more
[00:11:09.260]people from the countryside, and in response the countryside
[00:11:11.510]looks emptier and then that just accelerates.
[00:11:13.680]Meanwhile, there are other forces driving this too.
[00:11:15.750]We have more automation in agriculture, we have more
[00:11:18.830]large scale agriculture, so that part of the countryside
[00:11:21.910]is no longer demanding large numbers of people.
[00:11:24.140]We have change in family size, so we're not spawning
[00:11:27.110]10 kids per couple, but more like two or fewer,
[00:11:29.890]so it may be that the countryside's future
[00:11:32.330]is to be very quiet and empty.
[00:11:34.700]You think about the part of Saudi Arabia called
[00:11:36.630]the Empty Quarter, that might be a model for us.
[00:11:39.650]Now there's an alternative, which is if we had
[00:11:42.740]decent infrastructure, if we had that set up,
[00:11:45.730]many people could, what used to say, telecommute,
[00:11:49.130]or do work from home.
[00:11:50.550]I mean if you can work in a cubicle,
[00:11:52.620]if you can work from anywhere, why not be in the
[00:11:55.050]countryside where you can enjoy all the benefits
[00:11:56.806]of country living rather than in the suburb or city?
[00:11:59.850]Yeah, I agree, I don't think we've fully explored
[00:12:02.210]or tapped into the potential of the 21st century
[00:12:05.420]model of work that really does include telecommuting
[00:12:08.510]and technology.
[00:12:09.696]There's a terrific futurist named Bruce Sterling
[00:12:12.840]who writes non-fiction and fiction.
[00:12:14.460]He has this resonant phrase that I keep coming back to.
[00:12:17.900]Someone asked him, well what do you see as the future?
[00:12:19.420]And he said, for me, I can't do his accent,
[00:12:21.670]he has a great Texas accent, to me the future is old people
[00:12:26.260]in big cities afraid of the sky.
[00:12:29.180]Oh wow, that's really interesting, yeah.
[00:12:31.710]Perspective and phrase.
[00:12:33.560]It's got three things in it, you've got the demographics
[00:12:35.670]of aging, you have the shift to the cities,
[00:12:38.940]and you have climate change.
[00:12:40.220]People argue with this phrase a lot, they push it around,
[00:12:42.750]but it just resonates.
[00:12:45.040]And then, okay, let's move on from the cities,
[00:12:47.760]let's move our point of view to the countryside,
[00:12:50.560]and you're gonna have very few people,
[00:12:52.480]is that something we want?
[00:12:54.070]Is that something that a country can risk having?
[00:12:58.070]And we have to really treat that seriously.
[00:13:00.300]We can't get nostalgic, we can't think,
[00:13:02.530]ah, if only people appreciated the countryside,
[00:13:05.050]they're not doing it.
[00:13:06.077]That's right.
[00:13:06.910]We have to now think this as existential moment.
[00:13:08.635]And I think that is where the discipline
[00:13:10.257]of futuring and strategic foresight comes in.
[00:13:13.330]So how do we more deliberately create the future we want,
[00:13:16.770]rather than just continuing on in the same path
[00:13:20.060]we have been with that mindset that we don't control
[00:13:22.670]what happens?
[00:13:23.560]And that might be partially true, but the other truth
[00:13:26.850]is we are not really having these bold conversations
[00:13:30.080]that need to be had in so many ways to address this
[00:13:33.340]from a systems level, not just one topic or the other.
[00:13:36.010]And I think futurists can really bring that to the table.
[00:13:39.430]I agree, in part because these are frightening
[00:13:42.090]conversations, but also as I mentioned before,
[00:13:45.790]it's difficult for us to think of a future in ways
[00:13:48.380]that really break out.
[00:13:49.417]One of the challenges we wrestle with at the Rural
[00:13:52.070]Futures Institute is answering these questions of why rural?
[00:13:56.250]Why now?
[00:13:57.170]It's been our theme for this year,
[00:13:59.570]how would you tell someone, or describe to them,
[00:14:02.250]especially because our population is very urbanized,
[00:14:06.430]and decision makers live in mostly urban areas,
[00:14:09.690]why should our country invest in infrastructure
[00:14:12.580]and rural when the population there is in decline?
[00:14:15.912]I think there are a lot of great reasons.
[00:14:17.968]And one of them is simply economic benefit.
[00:14:20.233]There's a project in China right now where the
[00:14:22.980]Chinese government goes out into central China,
[00:14:25.270]which is very rural, and goes to villages
[00:14:27.460]that are obviously very rural, and poses to them a deal.
[00:14:31.640]If the village will try its best to form
[00:14:34.410]internet based businesses, then the Chinese government
[00:14:37.360]will wire them up to high speed broadband.
[00:14:39.250]It's a real smart deal, because the villagers
[00:14:42.390]get the benefit of internet connectivity,
[00:14:44.197]and the rest of China gets the benefit of having
[00:14:47.560]this boost to their business development.
[00:14:49.660]And the businesses can be anything.
[00:14:50.990]They can be selling flowers online,
[00:14:52.570]they can be services online, you think of this
[00:14:54.690]as an enormous untapped business opportunity,
[00:14:58.210]for really growing an overall economy, I mean how many
[00:15:00.940]businesses, how many consumers are out there?
[00:15:03.330]There's a Pew study which said 40% of Americans
[00:15:06.220]over 65 are not connected to the internet, 40% in 2018.
[00:15:10.880]Now you think about that, if you're still
[00:15:13.110]in economic terms, you think, my gosh, what a population
[00:15:16.610]that could be buying stuff on Amazon, or selling things,
[00:15:20.120]or offering services, and so just the economic
[00:15:23.610]market is one.
[00:15:24.790]A second is the cultural argument.
[00:15:26.670]That we can use the internet, especially broadband,
[00:15:30.240]to grow our culture.
[00:15:31.540]We know this as ways we can consume culture,
[00:15:34.030]more and more, everything from YouTube videos,
[00:15:35.930]Netflix streaming, to podcasts, to reading Wikipedia,
[00:15:38.560]but also to producing culture,
[00:15:39.870]that we can shoot video and upload it to YouTube,
[00:15:42.130]where we can write stories and make stories of all kinds,
[00:15:45.040]and share them with just about any platform.
[00:15:47.270]So if we can connect more people, we can further
[00:15:50.610]deepen and grow our culture, and that benefits everybody.
[00:15:54.330]A third reason, and this is my line of work,
[00:15:56.300]is education, we have such capacity for teaching
[00:15:59.530]and learning online, it's truly extraordinary.
[00:16:02.100]I mean, in many ways, the business of education
[00:16:04.940]is pretty fragile right now.
[00:16:06.660]That's right, we know that, here at the University
[00:16:09.360]of Nebraska, it's absolutely true.
[00:16:11.230]We're going through a huge shift in higher education
[00:16:14.750]and I think that's where the futurist perspective,
[00:16:18.980]and futuring and strategic foresight are so critical
[00:16:21.552]for organizations, industries, like higher education
[00:16:25.090]and others right now, and I know you've talked about
[00:16:27.880]this tipping point of online versus face to face,
[00:16:31.770]when do you see that happening?
[00:16:33.170]I'm not sure at this point, so just for listeners,
[00:16:36.500]there's this interesting question, at what point
[00:16:38.610]will the number of learners taking classes online
[00:16:42.420]roughly equal the number of learners taking classes
[00:16:45.010]face to face?
[00:16:45.900]I know Creighton Christiansen predicted this would
[00:16:47.930]happen around this year, it hasn't quite hit there
[00:16:51.210]but we're closing in on it, and at some point soon
[00:16:55.200]we're gonna hit that point, and I think that'll be
[00:16:57.170]an interesting milestone.
[00:16:58.440]It'll clarify a lot of developments for a lot of people.
[00:17:01.530]So we've seen some institutions where the online
[00:17:05.290]branch teaches more students than the face to face branch.
[00:17:08.940]And in fact I've worked with several institutions
[00:17:10.790]where the online branch makes more money
[00:17:13.840]than the face to face one, and now subvents and supports
[00:17:17.040]the face to face one, which is quite a 21st century moment.
[00:17:19.930]I mean, it's possible that we will look at education
[00:17:23.140]kind of the way we look at movies.
[00:17:25.440]Where if you want to watch a movie you have
[00:17:28.090]tons of options from where you're sitting right now.
[00:17:30.810]Phone, from your TV, and you can get a pretty nice
[00:17:34.150]experience, so if you're gonna go to a movie theater,
[00:17:36.690]you need to have something special to haul you out there,
[00:17:39.330]and that's why you have, depending on the theater,
[00:17:41.500]you have stadium style seating, you have more food,
[00:17:44.020]you have a bar, you have places like Alamo Draft House
[00:17:47.070]where you can go off and have fun previews,
[00:17:49.140]and have food served to you and all that,
[00:17:51.710]I think a lot of businesses are doing that,
[00:17:54.090]where they're trying to figure out ways
[00:17:55.410]to compete with what we can get online.
[00:17:58.020]Absolutely, it's an experience economy,
[00:18:00.212]in so many ways with that.
[00:18:02.220]Yes, you go to a campus, bricks and mortar
[00:18:04.510]institution, what's gonna make that different?
[00:18:06.780]So that's what education has to work on.
[00:18:08.900]So looking ahead five years, thinking
[00:18:11.230]about education specifically, higher education,
[00:18:14.250]what do you see evolving and changing?
[00:18:16.840]In addition to this sort of experiential economy
[00:18:21.010]emerging even in higher education?
[00:18:23.350]Looking ahead five years, there are a few trends
[00:18:25.540]that I think are pretty predictable,
[00:18:28.370]not too controversial, and one of them is,
[00:18:30.670]to come back to an earlier point, demographics.
[00:18:33.000]In the US we're following many other countries
[00:18:35.170]and we're getting older, and we're also seeing shifts
[00:18:37.920]within the US as the northeast and mid west
[00:18:41.050]are aging much more rapidly, and losing children,
[00:18:45.810]and so we're seeing institutions in the mid west
[00:18:47.747]and the northeast marketing more and more to the
[00:18:50.670]Rocky Mountain central area, to Texas, Arizona,
[00:18:55.160]and trying to find where they still grow 18 year olds.
[00:18:58.810]And so I think we'll see that continue,
[00:19:01.990]in education that means, among other things,
[00:19:03.840]trying to reach out more and more to adult learners,
[00:19:06.540]but also trying to more aggressively recruit
[00:19:09.170]other students, recruiting more and more
[00:19:10.831]international students, and that's been
[00:19:12.670]a success until last year.
[00:19:14.300]I think higher education institutions in the US
[00:19:16.300]are gonna aggressively recruit.
[00:19:17.770]It's not just in the US, many, many nations are seeing
[00:19:21.150]themselves now as being part of an international
[00:19:23.980]higher education market.
[00:19:25.470]So you're seeing European institutions marketing,
[00:19:28.030]I've seen European universities marketing themselves to
[00:19:31.430]American high school students, with a pretty clear message.
[00:19:34.610]They'll say come to our interesting cities,
[00:19:36.900]and we won't give you student loans, pretty convincing.
[00:19:39.760]Yeah, I would say so, I mean I think that's one
[00:19:42.390]of the great conversations, and challenging conversations
[00:19:45.470]we have in higher education right now, so,
[00:19:47.850]if you choose to go to college and pursue
[00:19:50.540]higher education, the student loan debt conversation
[00:19:53.850]is a big part of that, but then also that means
[00:19:57.230]people will have to go where there are jobs,
[00:19:59.633]and that means it's gonna be hard for them to start
[00:20:02.150]a business, and specifically in rural communities
[00:20:04.690]in our case, we can't expect all that to work.
[00:20:07.870]So re-envisioning this whole network of how people learn,
[00:20:12.550]start businesses, work for other companies or businesses,
[00:20:16.080]has really been changing, and it's really interesting
[00:20:18.640]to watch right now as all these areas such as healthcare,
[00:20:21.560]education, retail, are experiencing this exponential
[00:20:25.350]shift at the same time.
[00:20:26.940]Well healthcare's an interesting piece of this,
[00:20:29.320]because the American healthcare sector is very, very large,
[00:20:33.320]economically, and socially, and it's growing
[00:20:35.670]larger and larger, and again, as we continue to age
[00:20:38.830]that just means statistically we're gonna consume
[00:20:40.720]more healthcare, and also the R and D of our medical
[00:20:43.820]sector, which is tremendous, is gonna produce
[00:20:45.930]more market options for healing people,
[00:20:48.290]and it adds an interesting kink to the evolving pattern.
[00:20:52.159]Because we now have this tendency of more and more
[00:20:55.590]young people are born and grow up in cities
[00:20:58.020]and in suburbs, and they're more and more likely
[00:21:00.300]to go to higher education in cities, and then they're
[00:21:04.410]more saddled with debt, which about two thirds of them are,
[00:21:08.050]they're more and more likely to wanna stay in cities
[00:21:10.160]so they can find a job, enable them to pay off that debt.
[00:21:14.090]But meanwhile, in the countryside, as we age more rapidly,
[00:21:18.520]healthcare becomes more and more important,
[00:21:20.800]and in fact when I go across the country and I go
[00:21:22.820]to small towns, small cities, it's interesting
[00:21:25.630]to see how the healthcare sector, architecturally,
[00:21:28.890]looks kind of like the way churches used to.
[00:21:31.337]A looming hospital, which becomes central to the community,
[00:21:36.240]the drug stores are no longer pharmaceutical
[00:21:38.550]dispensaries but they're full grocery stores.
[00:21:40.580]They're like general stores right now.
[00:21:42.690]So maybe these young folks in their 20s, early 30s,
[00:21:46.360]will be lured out to the countryside simply for the
[00:21:49.040]opportunity to work in the medical sector.
[00:21:50.740]And I mean the full gamut of allied health,
[00:21:54.050]I mean home healthcare aids, I mean surgeons,
[00:21:56.670]I mean people doing medical informatics,
[00:21:58.640]medical administration, radiology, EMTs,
[00:22:02.727]the whole healthcare sector is actually very, very large,
[00:22:05.960]so maybe that is one way forward for the rural world
[00:22:09.850]is center ourselves less on agriculture
[00:22:12.490]and more on healthcare.
[00:22:13.750]Yeah, I work with a lot of rural hospitals
[00:22:15.880]and part of that discussion is how do those hospitals
[00:22:20.095]really become more engaged within the community?
[00:22:23.140]Because they are an epicenter for those rural
[00:22:25.790]communities in so many ways in terms of
[00:22:28.250]not just providing for people that are sick
[00:22:30.950]or hurt or injured, but also wellness has become
[00:22:33.950]more of a factor, they are, in many ways,
[00:22:37.380]the economic driver of those communities,
[00:22:39.710]so how do we make sure that they stay viable
[00:22:42.590]in a time when they're having to shift their business
[00:22:45.470]models, but also really look at the opportunities
[00:22:48.520]ahead in terms of being able to really help these
[00:22:51.690]rural communities thrive in a different way,
[00:22:54.180]and I think technology is just a huge part of that.
[00:22:57.490]We've talked about DIY dentistry, home birth, et cetera,
[00:23:00.450]I know you've mentioned that in other conversations,
[00:23:03.160]and that's going on all over, we have a medical center
[00:23:06.020]here in Nebraska that's just doing amazing things
[00:23:09.120]with virtual reality and all types of technology,
[00:23:12.410]so it's very exciting to see those trends, but also
[00:23:16.150]the opportunities that are coming with them,
[00:23:17.900]even though we have to recognize there are challenges.
[00:23:20.584](easy synthesizer music)
[00:23:23.280]Well I know you've built about 40 scenarios for higher
[00:23:26.040]education through the work you've done,
[00:23:28.690]and one of the things that you and I both really
[00:23:32.910]have explored is this whole issue of non traditional
[00:23:35.670]learners through this lens of higher education as well.
[00:23:40.070]So thinking about, right now recruitment's still focused
[00:23:43.090]on high school students, largely, for all these
[00:23:45.240]institutions, very few, I mean there are some, but so few
[00:23:48.920]have decided, you know what?
[00:23:50.090]We have a lot of non traditional students that also
[00:23:53.210]benefit from higher education, or continuing education,
[00:23:57.490]but they can't come to a campus.
[00:24:00.420]This whole piece of online and real time learning,
[00:24:03.190]all the different types of technologies available,
[00:24:05.640]specifically in rural.
[00:24:07.460]I just published a paper where I talked a lot about this.
[00:24:10.490]In the evolution of rural healthcare, the importance
[00:24:13.630]of teaching people in place, where they are,
[00:24:15.700]not expecting them to move, but rather let's value
[00:24:18.840]who's already there and give them some new opportunities.
[00:24:22.490]For those listeners who haven't seen this,
[00:24:23.860]in healthcare there's a long tradition at this
[00:24:26.940]Finnish University, and I was walking through their
[00:24:29.740]medical school, and they were showing me their simulation
[00:24:32.320]wing where they had devoted an entire wing of their
[00:24:35.450]university to simulation.
[00:24:37.710]It's kind of a no brainer, it's better to have medical
[00:24:40.240]students work on simulations than on live human beings.
[00:24:43.160]You might think of say, the Resusci Anne doll
[00:24:45.730]where people learn how to do CPR.
[00:24:47.760]So I walk through this corridor and I looked
[00:24:49.610]into a room where they had a robot that simulated
[00:24:52.910]a woman in child birth, in the next room
[00:24:55.410]they had a kind of multi purpose room where you could
[00:24:58.050]see patients going through multiple procedures,
[00:25:00.530]there was another room which was a ward,
[00:25:02.270]which had a mix of human actors and robots,
[00:25:05.530]it was tremendous stuff.
[00:25:06.560]And then the last room we went to blew me away,
[00:25:09.240]because it was a living room, a meticulously
[00:25:12.090]tricked out living room, with a carpet,
[00:25:14.220]a TV in the corner, a sofa, I said,
[00:25:16.810]well wait a minute, have I gone in the wrong building?
[00:25:18.550]They said, no, no, no, one of our biggest
[00:25:20.420]demands is home healthcare.
[00:25:22.240]That's absolutely right, it is where it is at right now.
[00:25:26.290]Literally where it's at.
[00:25:27.242]Yes, if it blew you away, it had to be awesome.
[00:25:29.715](laughing together)
[00:25:31.040]It was so surreal, I thought that I had walked
[00:25:32.990]into a movie set, and the idea is,
[00:25:35.170]well what do you do with students who grew up
[00:25:37.190]in a major city, lived in the city,
[00:25:38.820]learned the city ways, and now they're gonna be
[00:25:40.620]sent to central Finland, which is as rural as it gets,
[00:25:43.650]to help people in their homes?
[00:25:46.000]And so it was a really great idea to do that,
[00:25:47.860]so I think care in place, learning in place
[00:25:51.500]is something that we're really, really going to be
[00:25:53.980]doing more of.
[00:25:55.000]When it comes to education, I think, in many ways,
[00:25:57.860]we have to think about this in some more imaginative
[00:26:00.900]and more effective ways.
[00:26:02.690]So if we have a learner who's in rural Nebraska,
[00:26:05.190]and we want them to learn, we have to really think
[00:26:07.860]hard about how we do digital learning,
[00:26:09.940]so we have to figure out where synchronous technologies,
[00:26:12.700]like video conferencing, really work.
[00:26:14.570]How to do asynchronous learning,
[00:26:16.350]how to create a sense of learning community online,
[00:26:19.080]how to do that better, where a lot of online learning
[00:26:21.690]is really not community based, it's more instructor,
[00:26:25.370]student, and pile of stuff.
[00:26:28.200]So beginning to recreate that.
[00:26:29.143]I would love to see rural places be one of the first
[00:26:33.540]areas to use holograms, in these sorts of places,
[00:26:37.760]so it doesn't just have to happen in Silicon Valley,
[00:26:40.550]it could really happen in our rural communities.
[00:26:42.540]It really should, and it shouldn't,
[00:26:45.080]I mean, in many ways, one of the great uses
[00:26:47.360]of virtual reality, or holograms, or any visualization
[00:26:49.710]is helping learners visualize something
[00:26:51.570]they just can't get to.
[00:26:52.910]And that happens across the disciplines,
[00:26:55.140]for example, people in classical studies.
[00:26:57.822]Building visualizations of ancient Rome,
[00:27:00.290]because it's gone, and also because most people
[00:27:03.400]can't fly to Rome, and check out ruins right now.
[00:27:07.660]In sciences, people do visualizations of say proteins.
[00:27:10.850]So imagine, again, this hypothetical learner
[00:27:13.050]in the middle of rural Nebraska has the chance
[00:27:15.890]through VR say to glimpse Cairo, or a human
[00:27:20.450]skeleton from the inside, or the solar system from
[00:27:23.040]the outside, again, when you describe it, it sounds
[00:27:25.930]blindingly obvious, yes, we have to do this,
[00:27:28.502]but we have to do this, and it takes some work to do.
[00:27:31.033]Well and I think it's one of those things that could
[00:27:33.070]help stop, or at least slow down, this exodus from rural
[00:27:37.175]into our more urban centers, because there is the perception
[00:27:40.650]that there's more opportunity in urban,
[00:27:42.800]and I think to some extent that's true,
[00:27:45.160]but I think the other part of it is we need to think
[00:27:47.470]a little bolder, and bigger, to say how do we create
[00:27:50.600]that community?
[00:27:51.433]How do we create access?
[00:27:53.160]How do we recreate rural in a way that's a 21st century
[00:27:56.720]model that people can use?
[00:27:59.004](easy synthesizer music)
[00:28:01.920]Well Bryan I'd love to know some parting
[00:28:04.080]words of wisdom that you could share
[00:28:06.410]with our audience.
[00:28:07.508]A few things, one is to focus on imagining
[00:28:10.493]a future that can be different.
[00:28:12.000]I find this to be very, very challenging,
[00:28:14.040]for various reasons we tend to think about the future as
[00:28:17.090]an extension of the immediate past.
[00:28:18.670]For all of our vaunted love of disruption,
[00:28:20.680]we really see that as an exception,
[00:28:22.560]and tend to think of the future as being version seven
[00:28:26.448]of version six and five that we've just experienced,
[00:28:29.470]and it's really important to think about the ways
[00:28:31.650]it can be gradually and even exceptionally different.
[00:28:34.290]And this is a mental habit that I recommend
[00:28:36.840]that science fiction is a good way of spurring that habit,
[00:28:40.640]in fact I really think if you're not reading
[00:28:42.530]science fiction you're not really ready for
[00:28:44.070]the 21st century.
[00:28:45.260]I agree, I think that's a great point.
[00:28:47.780]Second thing is to connect with people.
[00:28:50.700]I don't mean in a kind of Hallmark card cheesy way,
[00:28:54.660]I mean to take advantage of these technologies
[00:28:56.690]and reach out and connect with people so that
[00:28:59.430]you can learn from them.
[00:29:00.550]The future right now is such a vast
[00:29:02.700]and dynamic, complex system that it's very difficult
[00:29:05.750]for any one person to get a handle on it.
[00:29:07.790]Really need the points of view of different people,
[00:29:09.877]and I think using the technology well is a really
[00:29:13.120]great benefit, and we really need to do that,
[00:29:15.220]and it's not just a consumption angle,
[00:29:16.770]we have this inherited mid-20th century habit
[00:29:19.690]of sucking down media.
[00:29:21.590]Really, more importantly with 21st century media,
[00:29:24.490]as literally interactive.
[00:29:26.380]I think we really, really need to do that.
[00:29:28.480]So that's a second bit of recommendation.
[00:29:31.740]Third is I think really to focus on,
[00:29:34.840]and advocate for, the rural world.
[00:29:37.330]We're not really on the cultural radar.
[00:29:39.730]We don't have much of a presence in pop culture,
[00:29:42.310]and we really need to, I think, push for ourselves,
[00:29:44.980]because right now we're on the back foot,
[00:29:47.490]we're not the most important sector anymore,
[00:29:50.287]and we have to really, I think, experiment
[00:29:52.701]with what we do, and we have to make our voices heard.
[00:29:55.800]Yeah, I just think that's so incredibly important.
[00:29:58.840]One of the things the Rural Futures Institute
[00:30:00.687]has been working on is really elevating the voice
[00:30:03.533]of rural, because you're so spot on, it's very lost,
[00:30:07.272]I think in the media world today, but also when it is
[00:30:10.780]out there it's portrayed in a pretty stereotypical,
[00:30:13.490]negative way, and so elevating that conversation
[00:30:16.400]to really demonstrate the value of rural,
[00:30:19.340]but all the amazing, cutting edge innovation
[00:30:21.630]happening in rural is something we're hoping to do,
[00:30:24.660]and we're so excited that you've spent this time
[00:30:27.230]with us, during the show, to help us do that.
[00:30:29.600]I know you do that in your work,
[00:30:30.800]and we appreciate and value what you're doing,
[00:30:32.670]so as people are looking to creating the future,
[00:30:36.350]they're getting help from people like you
[00:30:37.780]to do that in a very positive way.
[00:30:39.850]Well Bryan, thank you so much for this conversation
[00:30:42.300]today, I know people are gonna be curious
[00:30:44.640]and interested in finding you,
[00:30:46.280]so where can our listeners find you?
[00:30:48.510]Well, you can find me pretty much everywhere,
[00:30:50.950]I'm very, very active online, I publish almost
[00:30:54.520]everything I do to the open web.
[00:30:56.710]The best central location is the Future of Education
[00:30:59.390]Observatory, just go to FutureOfEducation.us,
[00:31:02.990]you'll find an introduction there, as well as links
[00:31:05.180]from there to my blog, to my other social media
[00:31:08.480]platforms, and my weekly video conference, that's one way.
[00:31:11.630]You can find me on Patreon, where I have supporters
[00:31:14.330]there who help keep me going, Patreon.com/BryanAlexander.
[00:31:18.548]And naturally I'm on Twitter all the time,
[00:31:20.690]just my handle just BryanAlexander,
[00:31:22.467]B-R-Y-A-N, Alexander.
[00:31:24.430]Excellent, I know our listeners will wanna check that out,
[00:31:27.120]I'm a huge fan, and will continue to be,
[00:31:29.510]and we so appreciate all the insights,
[00:31:31.470]and futures perspectives that you shared today, thank you.
[00:31:34.205]Well it's my pleasure, thank you for the opportunity,
[00:31:35.597]and thank you for the great conversation.
[00:31:38.670]Thanks for listening to the Rural Futures podcast
[00:31:41.280]with Dr. Connie, subscribe where you listen
[00:31:43.640]so you don't miss an episode, and reach out to us
[00:31:46.130]on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at RuralFutures
[00:31:49.230]to let us know what questions you have
[00:31:50.950]and who you think we should bring on the show.
[00:31:53.230]Next up, Dr. Connie talks with Microsoft General Manager
[00:31:56.420]Shelley McKinley, about rural connectivity
[00:31:58.720]and leadership in a world of exponential change.
[00:32:02.090]We are really on the brink of this fourth
[00:32:03.620]industrial revolution, we need to take action now,
[00:32:05.837]one of the number one things going forward is we
[00:32:08.410]have to ensure that we've got a good,
[00:32:10.490]diverse, and inclusive set of people around
[00:32:13.260]the world that are working together to really
[00:32:15.360]try to tackle some of these humongous challenges
[00:32:18.350]we have in front of us in things like
[00:32:20.740]the environment, and things like accessibility,
[00:32:23.390]and things like human rights.

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Episode 1 | Higher Education Futurist Bryan Alexander

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