Roberta Shaffer, Executive Director, FLICC/FEDLINK was the speaker for the program: Competitive Intelligence and the Government Librarian, put together by the Competitive Intelligence Division and Military Libraries Division.
One of the things that Roberta talked about that I found particularly interesting was her list of the seven emerging nations for leadership. They were:
- Finland for its educational innovation. With no major or discipline required, students study something based on problem solving rather than disciplinary segmentation.
- Philippines for its workforce's work ethic. It has the most productive workforce of any country in the world.
- Korea for its manufacturing efficiencies. Vertical not horizontal - own whole process.
- Nigeria because it is a portal between Africa where there are raw materials and first world countries that use them through manufacturing and consumption.
- Netherlands for their open society. She observes that the more open a society, the more attracted business is to that entity.
- Norway for its flexible and citizen empowered government. Government uses Web and Web 2.0 to communicate with citizens. It wants to know what citizens are thinking. More and more participation. However, very homogeneous society. Not highly diverse.
- Brazil is her favorite country to watch. Brazil is part of BRICK countries. It has an alternative currency to the dollar, top ten largest oil reserves, deep water petroleum exploration. and biological diversity.
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