Frank Owarish was part of a privileged group at the United Nations that met with Alvin Toffler and Heidi Toffler when they came to the United Nations for a special commemorative event for UNITAR. I had read all the books of Alvin Toffler and raised several questions about his and Heidi Toffler's visions expressed in the Toffler books in particular the Third Wave and Power Shift.

Most leaders from the developed countries either read the Toffler books or those in their surrounding circles do and the power of the visions and predictions of the Tofflers are put to beneficial use. The leaders of the developing countries were not so privileged and in my role as Director of Training at UNITAR I felt it was my mission to bring the news so to speak to the leaders of the developing countries.

A special meeting of the Tofflers with representatives at the UN from the developing countries was held and presentations were made and later ideas were exchanged during an informal reception. The Tofflers were very approachable. Today, when I reflect upon the exchanges we had with the Tofflers I cannot help but recognize the power of their ideas. I think that the ideas exchanged should be shared once again because of their continuing relevance and because of the fact that those who paid attention have gone forward and those who have not gone forward may not be aware of the messages. So let me share the messages once again:

1) the world will be split between the fast and the slow;

2) the new system for making wealth consists of an expanding global network of markets, banks, production centers, and laboratories in instant communication with one another, constantly exchanging huge and ever increasing flows of data, information and knowledge; this is the fast economy ... it is the source of great power as well; to be decoupled from it is to be excluded from the future and this is the fate of many developing countries; many deals collapse when a slow country supplier fails to meet promised deadlines; the different pace of economic life in the two worlds make for cross-cultural static; the increasing cost of unreliability, of endless negotiation, of inadequate tracking and monitoring, and of late responses to demand for up to instant information further diminish the competitive edge of low wage muscle work in the slow economies; so do expenses arising from delays, lags, irregularities, bureaucratic stalling and slow decision making - not to mention corrupt payments often required to speed things up. In the advanced economies the speed of decision is becoming a critical consideration; the executives speak of speed to market, quick response, fast cycle time and time based competition;

3) the new economic imperative is clear: overseas suppliers for the developing countries will either advance their own technologies to meet the world speed standards or they will be brutally cut off from their markets - casualties of the acceleration effect.

4) there are other important ideas put forward by the Tofflers and interested leaders and managers will no doubt figure out how to find out what these are about!!

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