Contents of the Current Issue

FUTURIST: January-February 2008

The Experience Economy: The High Life of Tomorrow
by Eric Garland [principal, Competitive Futures Inc.; author, Future, Inc. (2007)]

      SUMMARY: "Luxury" goods are now increasingly available to average consumers. So how are the super wealthy going to spend their money (and differentiate themselves from the masses)? One possibility is the consumption of experiences that are not possible for the non-wealthy, such as space vacations. Luxury consumers are also touched by the green movement, buying hybrid vehicles that are responsible but still proclaim their prosperity. Includes brief commentary by Larry Bean, editor-in-chief of The Robb Report magazine.

 The Consumer Is the Medium
by Arnold Brown [chairman, Weiner, Edrich, Brown, Inc., co-author, FutureThink (2006)]

      SUMMARY: Consumers have taken control of their own "marketing"--i.e., collection of information about the products they consume. Surveys by other consumers trump slick ad campaigns, and collaborative filtering software enables peer reviews of everything from music to restaurants. Businesses will increasingly use this bottom-up tool (crowd sourcing) to mine for new ideas for products and services.

Fighting the Cult of the Amateur: A Web 2.0 Critic Takes on the Confederacy of E-Dunces
by Andrew Keen (Web 2.0 critic and blogger, founder of Audiocafe.com, and author of The Cult of the Amateur (Currency, 2007)]

      SUMMARY: In an interview with associate editor Patrick Tucker, Web entrepreneur Andrew Keen argues that the user-driven content frenzy of the Internet, in which anonymous posters can say virtually anything they want, has led to increased incivility in Web-based discourse as well as critically compromised reliability of Web-based information. In the future, those seeking more authority than amateurism in their media diet will drive the development of a better World Wide Web.

Nihilism, Fundamentalism, or Activism: Three Responses to Fears of the Apocalypse
by Richard Eckersley [founding director, Australia 21; visiting fellow, National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, Australian National University; author, Well & Good (2004)]

      SUMMARY: Origins of our negative expectations about the future are both external (threats of environmental or economic disaster) and internal (inability to adapt or to set realistic goals and move toward them, lacking control). Our suspicion that the Apocalypse is near may take different forms: some give way to nihilism (giving up, allowing decadence to rule), others embrace fundamentalism (retreating to rigid beliefs), and others still take an activist approach (creating a new, more hopeful conceptual framework of the world and its problems.

Scanning the Global Situation and Prospects for the Future
by Jerome C. Glenn [director, The Millennium Project, World Federation of UN Associations; co-author, 2007 State of the Future]

      SUMMARY: An overview of global trends studied by the Millennium Project for more than a decade finds both positive and negative developments. We are healthier, wealthier, and better educated, but our world is also becoming more congested, heated, and dangerous. The digital divide is closing, but the income gap is expanding. And corruption is increasing in our leaders and institutions, leading to great human tragedies such as that in Darfur.

Order the print edition of the January-February 2008 issue of THE FUTURIST ($4.95 plus $4.90 postage and handling) or become a member of the World Future Society ($49 per year).

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