Recent events and news stories have had a familiar feel to me. It is because many of them had been part of my predictions for 2007 that I published here in January. When something I can see happening in the future actually happens, in a way it has already occurred for me. For example, I […]
It was reported yesterday that Americans are driving less, in large part due to the high price of gasoline. For the first time since 1981 the average American motorist is driving less. After 25 years of steady increases, the growth in total miles driven has leveled off in the last 18 months. This is in […]
Last week it was reported that the ratings board of the motion picture industry is now going to factor in cigarette smoking as part of the overall rating of a film. Films with excessive smoking will now certainly get a PG-13, if not an R rating. The goal is to cut down on the influence […]
A newspapers function is to report the news. It is also to sell newspapers. As a result we the readers usually are subjected to endless articles about national and local politics, the disaster in Iraq, the latest news of the celebrity or celebrity couple of the moment, and most recently all aspects of the global […]
We are all more aware of global warming than we were years ago. As a country we passed through the tipping point of awareness in the last year. We have a better understanding of what it is that we each do to contribute to global warming, and a number of us have taken action to […]
The news out of Detroit last week was that GM had given up the title of the world’s number one auto company to Toyota. This was a development that had been expected, but when both companies reported first quarter sales last week, the numbers made it official. Toyota sold 2.35 million cars and trucks, about […]
The New York Times is my favorite newspaper. Amidst all the media that I consume, it holds a disproportionately influential place in my life. It is a pleasure to read. In fact a number of columns I have written for this blog have been reflections on an article that I read in the Times. So […]
It is often valuable to have a grasp of history when looking to the future. Too often those that don’t have a historical perspective think that everything is new when in many cases what is new is a refurbished version of a past success model. The other day Clear Channel Communications announced that a station […]
A recent column discussed the historical context for the emergence of intellectual property as the new and most important valuation of a company. While this point of view is becoming more main stream every day the current problem is that there is no liquid market that can help determine actual valuations. Corporations and individuals can easily […]
One of the many unique aspects of the time in which we live is that it is no longer unusual to have more than one career in a lifetime. Since the beginning of the Information Age 30 years ago it has been increasingly common for adults to have two or even three careers during their […]