Blogs

When I was a student in the Futures Studies program at the University of Houston Clear Lake (Class of 2000), there was considerable concern among students about how they would build a career from what they had learned. Some would apply what they learned to their current career, others expected to become consultants (internal or external). A few hoped to be professional speakers or writers.

Ant behavior is extremely fascinating. Humanity could learn a great deal from the way these tiny creatures communicate, travel and manipulate their environment. Researchers from the University of York are fitting one thousand northern hairy wood ants with micro radio receivers.

Chemical toxins are an increasingly serious threat to human and environmental health worldwide, according to Global Chemicals Outlook, a report that the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) released on September 5.

As something of a grand finale to their 11-week, full-immersion Ruby on Rails class, our first graduating class of DaVinci Coders took the stage on Demo Day to talk about the projects they worked on.

There is quite an uproar among the cryonicists at the moment about Kim Suozzi, a young woman who is about to die from a fatal brain tumor and is seeking donations to fund a cryosuspension she irrationally wants but cannot afford on her own.

A recent study found that people think differently about their purchases when they are using physical cash versus credit cards (and probably the same for other forms of digital currency like gift cards, mobile money, etc). People have a harder time parting with cash because they focus more on how much they are spending rather than what they are getting for it.

originally posted at The Trends and Foresight Blog

...Until, One Supposes, There Is Nobody Left To Buy Anything In A World Reduced To An Uninhabitable Cinder. You Know, for Profit!

During the late 1990s business and industry began to panic over the issues surrounding Y2K, which later turned out to be mostly manufactured fear. In the chaotic world around us, it has become increasingly difficult to separate genuine problems from manufactured fear. And it is especially difficult to make plans for the future when we can’t properly gauge the severity of a legitimate issue we know we’ll have to deal with.

Understanding long-term trends is an important tool in identifying opportunities and risks.  STEEP analysis looks at the world through five different perspectives – Social, Technological, Economic, Ecological, and Political. 

The following are the major themes that are presently shaping the future...

The leading cause of car accidents is pretty obvious - its human error. The only way to truly make driving safer for everyone is to give the person behind the wheel more tools to drive safely - or even remove the human element altogether.

originally posted at The Trend and Foresight Blog