The cause of his audience's alarm? It's Ogden's message that North America's industry and institutions are slumbering through a global revolution.
He tells business leaders that their management hierarchies are cumbersome. labor unions that they have lost their purpose, educators that their curriculum is outdated, and doctors and dentists that they are training too many people.
"It's a whole new ballgame out there." he proclaims. "Either you embrace the enor- mous technological and social changes happening to us all or you'll be swamped by them."
Ogden is not about to have this happen to him: Providing information about the fu- ture is his mission and vocation.
The peppery 69-year-old futurist. who has been a member of the World Future Society for 20 years and calls himself Dr. Tomorrow, gathers global trends and tech- nologists from aboard a high-tech house- boat he describes as an "electronic floating cottage."
Ogden packages the information for specific audiences and delivers it as a lecturer, consultant, syndicated newspaper columnist and radio and television com- mentator. and in an electronic clipping service for his company, 21st Century Media Communications.
Depending on audience interest. he dis- cusses trends that include.. automobiles with microwave ovens; grocery shopping carts with videos that blabber commer- cials; apple trees that look like flagpoles because they have no branches: oranges grown in a vat; robot sows that reduce piglets' mortality rate: a cordless telephone that fits in a pocket and replaces cellular phones: and ceramic. earthquake-proof houses. "Everything I say, I back up with a video clip. slides or the product itself." he says.
"When I give a speech. if anybody has seen 5% of what I show. I don't charge." (His minimum fee is now $3,000, whether it's an hour lunch lecture or a four- hour executive briefing on the future. )
Ogden pulls his observations about the future, in part, from the air. The satellite dishes on the dock of Vancouver's Coal Harbour mark the home of his bright blue fiberglass houseboat, which bobs like a dumpy peanut amid the neighboring yachts and schooners.
Inside, Ogden and his one-man staff ceaselessly track 200 television channels and 2,500 data bases for up-to-the-minute technological changes worldwide. with special emphasis on Japan, which he considers the most advanced country.
"I started monitoring news and public affairs 10 years ago, and I now have these two sophisticated satellite dishes and pick up channels from all around the world. Nothing goes on that I don't know about." he boasts.
The TV signals are monitored with a "frame-grabber" an electronic computer card that captures any single video frame desired; the data bases are scanned: the information is recorded. time-coded and computerized.
"We've got more than 1 billion video frames of Canadian news and over a quarter of a billion frames of Japanese news, recorded and retained on videotape." he says.
His work is the continuation of an eclectic career. Born in Toronto where his parents--en route from England to the United States--stayed briefly, Ogden was educated through high school in Pennsyl- vania. He served six years in the Royal Canadian Air Force as a flight engineer. then spent time flying and selling planes and helicopters (he still holds the Canadian light-plane altitude record of 19,400 feet, which he set in 1951 ).
After he became a practicing futurist, one of his first clients was Edgar Kaiser of Kaiser Coal, who early on was interested in exploring global markets. His other long- time clients include the British Columbia Medical Assn.. Canada's Waste Manage- ment Ltd. and the British Columbia Utili ties Commission.
'I speak to people and I shock them with the volume and speed of change. I have a six-hour briefing on the future but not too many people can handle it.' --Frank Ogden (From the back of his houseboat)