Yes, these are hard times (although I just started a new consulting project today and will likely add another in the next week or so) but it’s time we leave the gloom and doom talking and start thinking (and acting) on ways to improve.
I always like to pick ideas from well thought, well structured texts. I have just come across some recent (2015) BCG publications (https://www.bcgperspectives.com) on the current state of affairs in Exploration and Mining:

• Value Creation in Mining 2015: Beyond Basic Productivity: BCG-Beyond-Basic-Productivity-Aug-2015.
• Managing Commodity Price Uncertainties.BCG-Managing-Commodity-Price-Uncertainties-Oct-2015.
• Tackling the Crisis in Mineral Exploration.BCG-Tackling-the-Crisis-in-Mineral-Exploration-June-2015.

A couple of other interesting documents are not available in pdf format but you can read them at:

• Mining and Metals in a Sustainable World 2050.
• Steel as a Model for a Sustainable Metal Industry in 2050.

Thanks to BCG for publishing these reports.