Think: Last Friday, high school students staged over 2,000 “Friday’s for the Future” protests in 100 countries. These activists are your future customers and they expect real action on climate change. The time to think about how their increasingly vocal demands will impact you and your business is now.
Think Twice: Why We Are Living in the Asian Century? As the United States contemplates spending $8 billion to build a wall to keep people out, China is investing $1 trillion in its “Belts and Road Initiative” to better connect Asia and its 5 billion people. America needs to Think Twice—it could be on Thin Ice!
Think Historically: What can Johann Gutenberg teach us about the future of manufacturing? More than you think: The Future of Manufacturing: A Revolution of Convergence.
Think Different: The world’s first genderless voice assistant is challenging gender stereotypes. Do you have a brand or manage a brand? If so, you may need to begin thinking differently about the “voice” you project to the public.
Think Smarter: The 100-Year Life: Living and Working in an Age of Longevity. The old “three-tiered life cycle” of going to school, working, and then retiring is rapidly becoming obsolete. Everyone, especially human resource professionals, needs to be thinking about how to prepare ourselves–and society–for radically longer life expectancies.
Think Harder: When 5G, facial recognition technology, and AI convergence, different things will be possible. In China, they are using the technologies to allow subway riders to pay with their face.
Think Ethically: What Can Digital Agencies Learn About Business Ethics from the Frye Festival? Are you choosing your clients as carefully as they are choosing you?
Think in Questions: There Are Now More People Older Than 65 Than Younger Than 5 for the First Time. This is a profound shift. You need to begin asking new questions. Here’s one for you: “How does this demographic shift impact my business?”
Think 10X: 3D printers are poised to get 10X faster very, very soon. If you’re a manufacturer, you need to expedite your thinking 10X.
Think Bigger: The World Would Be $78 Trillion Richer if It Had Open Borders. The opportunity for global prosperity is larger than most people imagine.
Think Faster: Supercomputers are set to become 7X faster by 2021–meaning they will be capable of a mind-blowing 1 quintillion calculations per second! Among other things, this will speed up the creation of new drugs and new materials. To keep up, you need to think faster.
Think Radically: Capitalism is Destroying the Earth. We Need a New Human Right for Future Generations. The idea of “property ownership” may be headed for a 21st Century upgrade.
Think Anew: Xenodesignerly Ways of Knowing. Human-centric design isn’t the only option, and empathy need not be reserved only for humans.
Think Sustainably: Forget Tesla, It’s China E-Buses That Are Denting Oil Demand. You may not yet be thinking sustainably, but China is–many of its buses are already powered from the energy produced from its growing array of solar cells.
Think the Unthinkable: Horses gave way to automobiles, sails gave way to steam, and landlines gave way to cellphones. When will fossil fuels give way to renewables? Sooner than you might think. A Future Without Fossil Fuels.
Want to think again? You can always revisit last week’s “Future 15”.
Until next week, remember: Don’t stop thinking about the future!
