Cloudy horizons
I had a conversation with some people over the weekend who asked me to explain the difference between ‘blue sky thinking’ and ‘horizon scanning’. I think they assumed – given that I’m an editor and everything – that I would understand these words. It was my own fault I suppose, for trying to turn the conversation round to editorial issues.
Anyway, I managed to bluff my way through it – I said something about one being up and the other being ahead. Told them to imagine they were at sea.
They were all sporty types of people who like kayaking – the sort who don’t often talk to the likes of me. I don’t think they really wanted to discuss plain English. Fortunately, they mistook my panic for a form of wit and that was the end of it.
But when I got home I thought I’d better find out what ‘blue sky thinking’ and ‘horizon scanning’ actually mean. Sometimes just being able to spell isn’t enough.
When I googled blue-sky thinking I found a website called ‘phrase finder’, which said:
“This phrase is well known in business circles in the UK. Here it seems to relate to the concept of opening up your mind as widely as possible in discussion – as wide as the ‘blue sky’ – when trying to think up new strategies…”
I chuckled to myself quietly at the thought. Outside my window, the clouds were circling in the sky above.
On the horizon I could see the house across the street where my neighbour was putting on the kettle. Unfortunately, the phrase finder didn’t have any results for ‘horizon scanning’. However, my research did lead me to discover that:
“The National Horizon Scanning Centre aims to provide advanced notice to the English Department of Health and national policy makers of selected key new and emerging health technologies that might require evaluation, consideration of clinical and cost impact or modification of clinical guidance around 2-3 years prior to launch on the National Health Service.”
Wow! There it is in a 54-word sentence which makes do with very little punctuation. Could it be that they – the conspirators who laugh at editors everywhere – don’t really want us to work out what horizon scanning is?
I had to investigate further. I clicked another google result, this time for some government set-up calling itself Foresight.
The site had jargon all over it and sentences as long as a train pulling out of Kings Cross.
It’s the government – MPs again! Taking our money so they can mess with our minds.
July 17th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
Its all consulto-speak – putting a ribbon and a bow around something we all do and selling it as a service we all need and they can provide.
However you want to dress it up, its called thinking. Imagine if us ordinary Joes put the equivalent on our CVs – “I like to breathe, pump blood around my body and read Jacobean tragedy.”
And blue-skying is the worse kind of thinking as it doesn’t have to justify itself and rarely considers consequences. Our current economic plight is the result of blue sky thinking. A few mofos sitting around dreaming up ways of making money from thin air and BOOM, sub-prime mortgages appeared. Some other mofos then start thinking how they can make even more money from this new money that doesn’t exist and BOOM, CDOs, hedge funds, derivatives and the world is ‘ucked. Why couldn’t they sell crack on street corners like everyone else!
Must be fair though, there are blue skyers that do good work – the chaps and chapesses that dream up new products and technology. They don’t always get it right, but their original idea may form the genus of a successful product. The reason why these guys are good blue skyers is that they have powerful forces that regulate them on a daily basis – the marketplace… you and me.