When I hold lectures and speeches about the future I have recently built the talks around the concept of “transition society” as an framing image. It is really hard not to overemphasize the increasing uncertainty and turbulence during this transition and quite often I get the question about if I really am optimistic about the [...]
Posts under ‘Future’
Do we really believe in science: the emergence of truthiness
In an article in the Guardian the other day Georg Monbiot wonders why climate change denial is spreading in spite of what the scientific community states: A survey last month by the Pew Research Centre suggests that the proportion of Americans who believe there’s solid evidence that the world has been warming over the past [...]
Don Tapscott on Internet and end of recession
Don Tapscott, is stating the paradigmatic effect of Internet on the whole society in this short and radical movie. He states that: The web is creating a global infrastructure for collaboration (which leads to disruption and confusion) As a result, all of our institutions have come to the end of their life-cycle The current recession [...]
Neoteny and the status of humanity
Sometimes a single word can spark a whole new set of thoughts. That is what the term neoteny did to me in the beginning of the summer. So, you don’t know what neoteny is? Neither did I until an acquaintance explained the term to me when talking about dogs and how they have evolved in [...]
What can we learn from Asimov’s Foundation trilogy?
The other weekend I reread Asimov‘s Foundation trilogy, one of the brilliant books that might have influenced me to work within the area of foresight. In these times it might be appropriate to use one of the major SF novels of all times in order to reframe the situation. I quote here from the first [...]
Nine areas of change, which are “rewinding” our society (to the Middle Ages)?
Since we can trace the birth of many of our defining concept of this society back to the end of the middle ages, why not try to mirror what is happening today in how the world looked like then? Here is X things that I have collected which sometimes seems to be rewinded: Organizing The decline of the nation state as the dominant organizing principle Hierarchical structures are challenged by the open spaces and market way of organizing things – innovation Knowledge and world view Increasingly relativistic view of knowledge – broadcasting model is challenged and is losing it’s politically and socially defining qualities The decline of the idea of a better future – the idea of progress The text-based knowledge society is challenged by a world of verbally told stories and images Breakdown of the quantitative perspective and re-emergence of a qualitative world view and geographical perspective – death of distance, valuing the people and the experience of a specific place without so much romancing about how far away it is from home’ Re-emergence of the risk society – the world out there is a dangerous place and we need to be protected Value creation Re-emergence of a non money value exchange systems – open source, make, prosumtion Break down of the immaterial ownership logic, where
Automotive industry and the future of mobility
What about the future of the automotive industry? It doesn’t look good from an American (or Swedish) horizon, but where is all this going and how are we going to transport ourselves tomorrow?? Yesterday I held a speech at a local conference of entrepreneurship. As usual I talked about scenario planning and it’s virtues of [...]
The future of Internet – the next 5000 days
Kevin Kelly say something like this in the speech: “The Internet’s development is really amazing, but strangely enough, we are not amazed?” Do we really understand what is going on? The last time I wrote about Kevin Kelly in this forum was when he had been writing an interesting article in Wired about the future [...]
LIFT08: Gen-Y and digital literacy/practice
This is my first post about the Lift Conference (LIFT08) in Geneva last week. It was really an amazing conference, maybe the best conference I have ever attended. Thanks to everyone who participated in the organization of it! At the first workshop day of LIFT08 I attended a workshop arranged by Dave Brown about how [...]
The Big (Bad) Picture! How ready are we??
Today Jamais Cascio wrote a post about The Big Picture where he paints a picture of the 6 main drivers behind the major development of the next 20 years. I am really looking forward to following posts in the issue. Climate Chaos Resource Collapse Catalytic Innovation Ubiquitous Transparency New Models of Development The Rise of [...]
