The issue of blanket surveillance by the NSA now heads to the Supreme Court. The powerful ruling by Judge Richard J. Leon of the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia against the blanket surveillance now means that the issue will be argued before the Supreme Court. This will happen as Judge Leon, while […]
The fast and easy answer is yes. The privacy our parents and grandparents had is no longer. The privacy we still have in pockets of our lives will not be available to our children and grandchildren. The historical definition of privacy that has existed for centuries no longer exists. In the last seven years I […]
[This column first appeared in the Shift Age Newsletter ] People often ask me about what books I read. I sense that they expect some kind of unique or weird answer from a futurist. In addition to this question I am often given books or names of books to read, usually books that have transformed […]
In the middle of the 19th century, the telegraph was the first technology in history to speed up communications between two people or two locations. Prior to the telegraph the speed of human communications was measured in horse days; how far a horse could travel in a day. It always amazes me to think that […]
This column first appeared in the Shift Age Newsletter. Regardless of what transpires in the geo-political landscape relative to the civil war in Syria, it may well be looked upon as a pivot point for citizens of the United States. This could be the beginning of a necessary and critical conversation about the future of […]
Burning Man has become a meme. A fast moving, rapidly expanding, global meme. That was my take away from being at Burning Man this year. It has moved beyond the San Francisco Bay area word of mouth organic growth of the 1990s and the 2000s and blown up into a phenomenon. I first became aware […]
In the last column here I wrote about the decline in what used to be called privacy. The definition of privacy is mutable, ever changing. What was considered private 100 years ago, even 20 years ago is practically non-existent today. As I wrote in 2006 before the iPhone and all devices that have followed “Technology […]
Now that PRISM has been revealed, there is and will be significant discussions about personal privacy and government monitoring of personal communications. There are several levels or developing issues and trends that this very significant revelation triggers for all of us to think about. Here and in future columns we will look at the major […]
In two recent columns, here and here, I wrote about two of the three consumer economic trends that are and will dramatically change consumer and buyer behavior well into the 2020s. In this column I address the third major consumer economic trend, moving from an ownership to a rental society. This trend as with the […]
Since 2010 I have been speaking about what I see as three new consumer economic trends that will alter consumer behavior in the developed countries of the world. A number of aligning forces are significantly increasing the influence and impact of these three trends. In a recent column here, I wrote about Conscious Capitalism, one […]