This is the second of three columns where I look at all the forecasts I have made about things that might happen through the end of 2013.  As I wrote in the first column here this is not an exercise in self-congratulation.  It is an opportunity to look back not just on forecast accuracy but […]

[This column was first published in the Shift Age Newsletter #27] Eight years ago I first began to write and speak about the future full time.  Then, as always, I was asked about what accurate forecasts I had made.  This told me of course that my legitimacy to some degree would be based upon this.  […]

The word cyberspace is ubiquitous.  I don’t think I know of an adult that does not know or use the word.  Cyberspace is most often used when talking about all that exists on the Internet, the space/time area of computer interactions.  It is a word that has settled into use and understanding around the world.  […]

Privacy was clearly a major topic in 2013.  The ongoing conversations around the world subsequent to Snowden’s revelations have been extensive and on-going.  His recent comments to England on Christmas Day and the recent interview in the Washington Post provoked a lot of commentary at the end of the year. The Center for Internet and […]

[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 […]

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 […]