Rule the Future With This Simple Rule
Rule the Future Rule #1: Ignore all the rules.
Question the Future With Questions
Tomorrow, I’ll be traveling to work with a large multinational corporation. In addition to delivering a keynote speech on future trends and “unlearning”, I’ll also be facilitating a session in which I’ll help them consider how they might begin conducting “business as unusual.” As a part of the process, I’ll ask a lot of questions. [...]
The Future Won’t Be One Size Fits All
In my years working as a futurist, I’ve come to discover many people fear the future because they don’t—or can’t—see a role for themselves in it. They can only see how their job or industry might disappear. This is myopic. The future has never been one-size-fits-all and it never will be. Want proof? Consider the [...]
For the Future: Feel the Fear of Failure and Do It Anyways
A Mediocre Message for Future Success Like millions of other parents across America, I spent this morning watching my son’s soccer game. On the sideline, not far from me, was the parent of an opposing player wearing a t-shirt that read “Fear Failure”. As a competitive person, I understand the sentiment behind the slogan [...]
Think Week: Start Thinking About Tomorrow, Today!
With all due respect to Fleetwood Mac, many people “can’t stop thinking about tomorrow” because they never begin in the first place. Bill Gates’ solution to this problem is to dedicate one week a year to thinking about the future. He calls this week, quite unoriginally I might add, “Think Week.” Now, I can almost [...]
The Future’s Next Avalanche
It has been said that you could study a grain of sand for a million years and never anticipate how a single grain might trigger an avalanche. With this metaphor in mind, I’d like you to contemplate a single sensor. By itself, it doesn’t amount to much. What happens, however, when 50 billion sensors are [...]
The Paradox of the Future
The paradox of the future is this: The future is being created now. Innovative researchers, scientists and entrepreneurs are working today to create a radically different future. What if in five years you can: --Recharge an all electric vehicle in less than 30 seconds; --Sequence your genome in less than a minute for a single [...]
The Future Has Officially Arrived: Drone Delivered Beer
With summer just around the corner many of us will quench our thirst on hot days with an ice-cold beer. Now, thanks to some creative and innovative entrepreneurs in South Africa, you may soon be able to have that ice-cold beer delivered to you via a miniature drone. (See the 45-second video below). While obviously [...]
Beware of the Invisible Gun of the Near Future
Cody Wilson of Defense Distributed delivered a real "shot heard around the world" last week when he demonstrated an operational 3D printed gun. As profound as this event is, the future is about to become even stranger--and more frightening. This is because researchers at Duke University have just created a simple invisibility cloak using a [...]
Warhol Was Wrong. Wanted: Worldly Wisdom
Warhol was wrong. In the future, everyone won't be famous for 15 minutes. If we are lucky, we'll be anonymous for 15 minutes. As Juan Enriquez shares in an insightful and provocative 6-minute TED talk (posted below) all of us are being plastered with "electronic tattoos" as our Facebook posts, Tweets and even our physical [...]