[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 […]
[Note: A version of this column recently appeared in the Shift Age Newsletter. Please feel free to sign up for a free subscription.] I have been writing and speaking that IP is the wealth of the Shift Age for the last six years. And over the last six years, this reality has become ever more […]
Regular readers know that I have often written about Intellectual Property in this space. IP is increasingly important in the valuation of all enterprises. I provided a historical context to this trend here, and later talked about Ocean Tomo, one of the companies that is helping to create the IP marketplace. As mentioned in one […]
Amazon’s introduction of the Kindle electronic book reader feels momentous. It is the first time that the long anticipated, much debated future of the ‘ebook’ feels ready to begin in a meaningful way. During the past ten years there has been great debate about the ebook. Generally speaking there have been three points of view […]
Intellectual Property (IP) has always been important. However, as I have written here, in the last 30 years, it has replaced hard assets as the most important part of corporate valuations. In the Shift Age IP will be the most important asset that any individual or company can own. The ability to create value, transactions, […]
The New York Stock Exchange was founded in 1817. This was some 50 years after the beginning of the Industrial Age. The need for the NYSE was, in part, a result of the transition of the U.S. economy from one that was completely agricultural to one that was rapidly becoming industrial. During the course of […]
Fifteen years ago, when Americans went shopping and came across the phrase “Made in China†it usually was on small, inexpensive trinkets, toys and souvenirs. Ten years ago we started to see these words on apparel. Five years ago we started to see these words seemingly everywhere. During the last five months, if we saw […]
As mentioned in the last column I have had the opportunity to attend several conventions this year. In January I attended the Consumer Electronic Show and the NATPE television conference, both in Las Vegas and in February the Chicago Auto Show. This past weekend I was in New York attending the BEA book publishing convention. […]
Book Expo America is the large annual convention of the book publishing industry. For the past few days, thousands of people descended on the Javits Center in New York for the annual ritualistic gathering of the tribes of this 500 year old business. As regular readers know, this year I have attended the Consumer Electronic […]
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 […]