Blogs

On Wednesday I was invited to speak on a panel at the 2012 National Electricity Forum, an event sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, in Washington DC. As the kickoff speaker on the panel, my message to them noted that the power industry is an industry that is under attack. An attack not being carried out by terrorists or invading armies, rather it is being attacked by emerging new technologies that have been advancing quickly and are currently beginning to boil around the edges.

The The Wall Street Journal's Journal’s editorial board has long been understood to be not only antagonistic to the facts of climate science, but hostile. But in a remarkable example of their unabashed bias, on Friday (January 27th) they published an opinion piece that not only repeats many of the flawed and misleading arguments about climate science, but purports to be of special significance because it was signed by 16 “scientists.”

The cloud will evolve from being a static repository of data into an active resource that consumers rely on throughout their daily lives. Consumers will have new capabilities for accessing online expert systems and applications that provide information, analysis, and contextual advice. Virtual agents will migrate from being an automated form of phone-based customer service to a personalized form of support and assistance that provides information and—more importantly—performs useful tasks.

What if our great corporations could direct their enormous capabilities to solving the global mess we have all created – financial crises, depressed economies, political gridlock, climate change, and endless conflict?

Originally posted at The Trend and Foresight Blog.

This article in the Harvard Gazette focuses on "shrilk" -- a new material made from discarded shrimp shells and the proteins found in silk. It's another great example of a trend we call Biomimicry in Design.

I found some time this past weekend to read more of ConsumerShift, the new book from Andy Hines, who is a lecturer at University of Houston's Graduate Program in Futures Studies, one of Innovaro's network partners, and someone I've had the pleasure to work with a lot over the years.

As the world’s farmers strive to produce more food, they rely on ever-increasing quantities of pesticides—which includes products to kill weeds, insects, and any other organisms that might threaten crops. Environmental groups warn that the extra food comes at a heavy cost, however, of severe harms to the health of farmers, consumers, and ecosystems everywhere.

When I moved to Hawaii six years ago to pursue a Master's degree in Religion at the University of Hawaii, I did not expect to earn a PhD in Futures Studies. To be honest, I had no idea that one could even pursue such a course of study and become a futurist.

Yesterday I was honored to be one of the featured speakers at the TEDxReset Conference in Istanbul, Turkey where I predicted that over 2 billion jobs will disappear by 2030. Since my 18-minute talk was about the rapidly shifting nature of colleges and higher education, I didn’t have time to explain how and why so many jobs would be going away. Because of all of the questions I received afterwards, I will do that here.

Today, the increasing number of futurists, scholars, business planners, and others in the futuring field is a good sign of the usefulness of Futures Studies for humanity, just as Dator wished so 26 years ago (Dator, 1986).