Predict Our Future

I was reading Harvard Business Review lately, but of an older edition, there they discussed the social scenario in the next 20 years and suggested a streamlined approach to do it yourself. I was impressed!

It dealt with a topic of totally new happenings, extremely sudden which will influence their times, something out of the blue which will cause a revolution and change the course of history. Why will that happen and how much time will it last. What when that will fizzle out, will anything else take over? If yes, what can that be? Discussion was in totality, the reader (me in this case) would be transfixed, fixated to the concept. Never was something of this novelty exposed to me and that too this simple (Well, it seemed simple after reading it all.).
I was totally hung on to it for two whole days, thinking about the points it stated to predict your own version of the future, which all according to you will make an impact?

I thought of the WWW, even iPOD for that case, YOUTUBE, Email, mobile phones, all sort of things but I had never considered RELIGION in my thoughts, I always had considered myself to be secular, true to the INDIAN spirit, UNITY IN DIVERSITY i used to think and then i read about the feud between Christians and RSS in Orissa.
This changed my approach drastically... Suddenly I found myself differentiating on communal grounds, What made some religions tick? What made them stand the course of time? Why are they still revered by their own faithfuls? Why is this first and probably the most important point of differentiation? And then, this little puny sized mass of jelly weighing a little more than 1.5 Kgs. steered in a completely new direction, BENCHMARKING.. If you are good, how can you make yourself better? If you are the best, how can you leave competition behind by miles?

Interestingly, if you observe, any new startup trying to wriggle itself out of obscurity has something new to offer, something so profound that users of that segment are tempted to deviate from their tried-tested area to that unknown new ground. If we apply that to religion, I myself being a HINDU, was highly pleased to hear that CHRISTIANS were and had a history of going the extra step in helping mankind, they are the ones to set up health camps (This is in context without any reference to NGOs and any otiose government agencies), shelters, etc. The JAINS for that matter have BHRAMHAKUMARIS, a wonderful organisation running by parallel lines, The MUSLIMS being very protective of their religion have Madarassas to help their kin, every religion for that instance has something or the other which has bonded into faith.
Now, I being from the majority part of the INDIAN population, should not be thinking about all this but sadly had to... Why cant we be better? Why cant we take cues from these and better ourselves? Why cant we organize shelters? Why cant we set up health camps? It may serve a dual purpose, for those authoritarians, it may serve as advertisement and for followers, it may serve as a new spark of humanity within themselves. Why cant we do that? Why cant we apply the PDSA cycle here? Are TQM principles inapplicable to religion?
Do we need Joseph Juran, Edwards Deming, Armand Feigenbum or of those types (From present era those who are alive of course) to put some sense? I do not call out just towards my faith for that instance, I call out to every faith, Every creed for that matter to better itself. If that happens, me turning into a total optimist is not far.
Alchemy may take over then.