As a futurist, people frequently ask me how driverless automobiles and trucks will affect the future of urban areas. It’s not a bad question, but there’s a better question to ask: How can autonomous vehicles help create a more human-centric city? The focus of the first question assumes autonomous/self-driven cars are inevitable and urban planners…

Recently, I finished reading Clay Shirky’s excellent new book, Cognitive Surplus. One of the points he made which really struck home with me was his discussion of how “more” has a quality all of its own. To drive home the point, Shirky discussed how “pizza by the slice” works as a business model in big…

I don't mean do you physically live in Detroit. Instead, I mean do you and your business live in an environment where you're surrounded by like-minded individuals. Living with — and around — people who think the same as you can be comforting but it can also be very dangerous. The fact that the "Big…

Once we learn something it is hard to unlearn it. This is especially true if we learned it in our youth. To this end, ever since I began driving in the early 1980's, I was told to change the oil in my car every 3000 miles. While I haven't been a stickler about the rule,…

This past weekend three young women between the ages of 13 and 16 died in a car crash in my home state of Minnesota. They weren’t wearing seat belts. (On Sunday another six died in a separate accident. They also weren’t wearing seatbelts). If you still don’t wear a seatbelt, please watch this emotionally powerful…

Big problems such as health care, feeding the world and addressing climate change don't necessarily require big solutions. In the 19th century, Ignaz Semmelweis helped save the lives of hundreds of thousands of women by getting doctors to wash their hands prior to assisting in the delivery of a new-born child. (Unfortunately, however, it still required the medical community…

Fellow blogger and change agent, Seth Godin, has an excellent post today entitled "When data and decisions collide." In it, he recounts numerous examples of people ignoring data because it doesn't line up with their "hunches" — or what people think they know but "just ain't so." Godin is pessimistic about the time it will take most…

In my 2008 book, Jump the Curve: 50 Essential Strategies to Help Your Company Stay Ahead of Emerging Technologies, one strategy I encourage people to employ from time to time is that of reading the newspaper backwards. Why? Because it can help you more clearly see where the future is headed. This, in turn, will…

The German automaker BMW, in introducing its "Light Visionary Model" prototype automobile — which it dubs GINA (Geometry and Functions in "N" Adaption), writes this: "The key to affecting the development of tomorrow's mobility lies in our readiness to challenge what is established and in the ability to antihistamine-meds.com new options." In short, BMW is…

I have recounted before how scientific and technical knowledge is doubling every seven years and have pointed out that if this trend continues everything known today will represent just 1 percent of the sum total of world knowledge in 2050. Consider then how a significantly better understanding of the human brain might influence not just…