Recently my blog “Calgary: An ideal place for entrepreneurs to thrive in post-COVID world” was circulated by an Everyday Tourist reader to several of his colleagues - including Ruben Nelson, a respected futurist who has spent the last 30+ years seeking to understand the forces that will shape our lives in the future.

Link: “Calgary: An ideal place for entrepreneurs to thrive in post-COVID world”

In response to my blog, Ruben wrote:

I do not disagree with the case Richard makes in his article. But this is not the end of the story.

The conditions we now live in and those yet to emerge require all of Calgary’s leaders to be self-critical and reflexive. They must be honest about the downsides of cheerleading and that which they love. It is not enough to identify Calgary’s redeeming strengths; one must also identify how the city can be free of its fatal weaknesses.

So let’s begin to have the conversation that Calgary’s champions we never get around to:

What features of our emerging world and ourselves put Calgary at risk and threaten our future?
What do others see in us that we do not yet see in ourselves?”

I shall mention just four features of Calgary’s present character that grieve me.

We have developed a culture which rewards cheerleaders who are willfully blind to our own failings. The result: we lack the quality of character in our leaders that is required to develop an insightful and courageous understanding of ourselves, how the wider world is developing and what this means for our place in it. Accordingly, we keep setting ourselves up to be run over by history. Then, when we are in trouble, we blame everyone but ourselves. We are not known as a city that takes responsibility for our crises. These are not attractive characteristics.
Calgary is not a city the rest of world really cares about. We need to understand this and deal with it. The world is not looking to Calgary for insight, direction or resources.
Calgary is not fostering or attracting “thought leaders” i.e. individuals who are forward-looking, wise, integrated and able to assess what the world will require of us and others in the coming generations.
Worse, we do not seem to understand that such insight matters and that we are blind to just how much trouble Calgary is in for, over the next few decades.

We must have an open conversation about these and other issues that are facing Calgary whether we like it or not.

I am serious about this as a conversation, if you are up for it. I invite you not only to challenge me, but to add to and/or refine my ideas and your own.

What grieves you about Calgary and how we have set ourselves up to cope with the emerging character and requirements of the next three decades of the 21st Century?

And, let’s not rush to the “What are we going to do about it?” conversation. First, we need a reliable diagnosis of our actual situation and condition.

Yes, we do oil and gas, hospitality and new business initiatives with the best of them. But that is not enough to thrive in the middle of the 21st century.

Respectfully and with a heavy heart,