Commerce

On Election Day, the citizens of both Colorado and Washington made the bold decision to legalize marijuana and manage it with controls similar to alcohol, prompting speculation about Amsterdam-style “drug tourism” and a new round of jokes about Colorado’s official song, Rocky Mountain High. It may sound silly to walk into a bar and order up a beer with a weed chaser or to open a late night box of cereal called “Weedies” to help you sleep, but that is exactly the era we’re moving into.

In the 1980s, as a young human factors engineer at IBM, I spent much of my time working with anthropometric tables, a compilation of statistical data about the human body used for designing a product’s ergonomic interface. At the time, much of the data for these tables was compiled by the U.S. Military through a series of 40 separate anthropometric surveys of military personnel between 1945 and 1988. The research involved 240 distinct measurements of the body such as weight, height, arm length, distance between eyes, circumference of fingers and toes, and much more.

In 2008, I was asked to speak at the Leaders in Dubai Conference along with several world famous speakers like former NYC Mayor Rudy Giulliani, Tom Peters, and former World Bank President James Wolfensohn. Attending the conference were 1,200 world leaders and influencers from 40 different counties. At the time, Dubai was a shining new star on the global stage, attracting the world’s best architects, building remarkable structures, tackling ingenious new projects, and raising the bar for creativity around the world.

“I look for businesses in which I think I can predict what they’re going to look like in ten to fifteen years’ time…A long-term or durable competitive advantage in a stable industry is what we seek in a business.”
Warren Buffett

Warren Buffett did not become one of the most successful investors of all time by being a bad futurist.

What will happen to money, and especially cash, in this new electronic age? Will all money eventually be digitized? Will PayPal become the big bank of the future? Will virtual currencies like Linden dollars one day rival the British Pound and other currencies?

Tape recorders, portable music players, digital cameras—mobile phones and their apps are already substituting for, or even replacing, many such products that used to be ubiquitous in everyday life. Don’t be surprised if they soon stand in for car keys and credit cards, as well.