Years ago, I read a wonderful ebook–The Flinch, by Julien Smith. In the book, Smith exhorted his readers to take a cold shower. He provided no other explanation. He just said, “Put the book down and go do it now.” Smith anticipated that most of his readers would ignore his odd request and then make…

As a professional futurist, I am a strong proponent of strategic experimentation. The future is accelerating so quickly, and technologies and trends are advancing and converging at such a rate that is impractical to believe strategic planning alone can “research away” all of the uncertainty that the future holds. Therefore, I advocate businesses take incremental…

  Every business leader feels it and knows it–the world is changing at an accelerating pace. Business models are shifting, consumer behaviors and preferences are evolving swiftly, and emerging technologies and platforms are transforming the competitive landscape. In such an environment, it is difficult to look ahead to the next quarter, let alone the next…

This past February, I read this article in my local newspaper: “Nearly a Billion Monarchs Have Vanished.” After reading the article, I asked myself two questions: How do I feel about the condition of the butterflies? How do I explain the condition of the monarch butterflies to my children? The answer to the first question…

Dear Readers: This Christmas instead of giving my kids more stuff, I decided to give them the gift of an idea. The idea is pretty simple: We can all make the world a little better place. Please watch this 3 minute video and then perform the four easy actions. They will take less than 10…

Does no one in a position of authority like your business proposal, your manuscript or your idea? Stop listening to others "no" and say "yes" to yourself. Give yourself permission to become your own authority figure.