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The Future is Available for Viewing on Re-runs of Star Trek

Growing up, I watched Star Trek but I never considered myself a “Trekkie.” Recently, I have to the conclusion that I should have been paying closer attention to the show. For example, look at the photo of Captain Piccard. Doesn’t the device he’s holding look like an iPad? Interestingly, the show was produced in 1987.

Earlier program’s (the one’s with William Shattner staring as Captain Kirk) were just as prophetic. Watch this interesting video, which I have also posted below, comparing Star Trek’s voice translator with the equipment that is available today. Or consider the USS Enterprise’s all-knowing computer--the one that could answer almost any question--and contrast it with IBM’s “Watson” computer.

The real take-a-way is this: Star Trek was supposed to take place in the 22nd century. It is only 2010. What does this tell us? The future will arrive sooner than any of us expect.

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The Future Means Never Saying Never

The Wall Street Journal has a chilling article on bioterrorism in today’s paper. At the end of the article, one analyst tries to make everyone feel better by saying, “The idea that four guys in a cave are going to create bioterrorism from scratch--that will be never, ever, ever.”

And, of course, he is right ... until he is wrong! History tells us that things which sound impossible today have a way of becoming possible tomorrow.

Don’t believe me? Who would have believed 10 years ago that four guys in a cave could mastermind a plot to send airplanes into the World Trade Center and, in the process, wreak havoc on the global economy.

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A Future of Black Swans

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The Future of Robots?

Did you know that if you could fold a piece of paper 50 times it would reach a height of nearly 62 million miles. Such is the incredible power of exponential growth. I now ask you to keep this analogy in mind as you view the future of shape shifting robots. The technology is fairly crude today but if it grows exponentially just imagine how the technology might transform robots for military and health care applications.

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Futurist Jack Uldrich on Regional Economic Development

Luncheon 2010 - Jack Uldrich from Katie Dye on Vimeo.

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The Future in One Picture

I love this picture. It is a wonderful example of how the future has a way of getting better, faster, smaller and cheaper.

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Helping Businesses Unlearn

As a leader you must nurture an organization that can rapidly adapt. Unlearning can help.

Unlearning can also help you innovate. In fact, unlearning can even assure you and your organization survive.

After years of work, I am pleased to report that I have now developed both a half and a full-day seminar designed to help organizations unlearn—and thus adapt, innovate and survive.

Below is a short 9-minute video overview of the program. If you are interested in how “unlearning” can help your organization, please contact me at jack@unlearning101.com or 612.267.1212.

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Why Businesses Must Unlearn

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Futurist Jack Uldrich Keynotes Conference

In the past year, I have given dozens of keynote presentations to a variety of clients. Below is a short 10-minute speaking demo. If you are looking for an engaging, entertaining and informative keynote speaker for your conference or event, please contact either Mimi Hair or Ryan Foltz at Leading Authorities.

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The Future of Warfare

On this day in 1942, the Soviet Union beat back the German’s in the largest tank battle in history. It is now no secret that the U.S. is deploying untold numbers of unmanned aerial vehicles and robots in warfare. What is more interesting to think about is how these tools will be used in warfare and what are the implications of robot vs. robot warfare. Will they make war more or less likely and how will these tools change the thinking of decision-makers as to whether or not to engage in war.

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To Understand the Future See Things From a New Perspective

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Experiential Leadership Seminar: Into the Unknown with Lewis & Clark

I am pleased to announced that, in partnership with Jeff Appelquist of BlueKnight History Seminars, we have produced a new three-day experiential leadership seminar based on my best-selling book Into the Unknown: Leadership Lessons from Lewis & Clark’s Daring Westward Expedition.

For organizations and corporations looking to take advantage of tomorrow’s unknowable environment and who are interesting in not only discovering their future—but creating it—this is the perfect leadership and training seminar. Below is a short 5-minute video outlining the program:

For more information either contact me at jack@nanoveritas.com or Jeff Appelquist at BlueKnight History Seminars.

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Every Employee is Now a Marketer

I’m in Hershey, PA today preparing to give a keynote presentation on the “future of social networking” to PANPHA—the Pennsylvania association of non-profit senior services. One of the key takeaways for my audience will be that in this new era of social media every employee is now a marketer. That is every employee by his or her actions—or inactions—can either enhance or tarnish your organization’s reputation.

In this new era, anyone with a cellphone and a social network has the ability to immediately comment on an organization’s service by tweeting, blogging or sending a YouTube video to dozens, hundreds, thousands or, potentially even millions of people as United Airlines recently experienced at the hands of this clever and hilarious YouTube video by a disgruntled passenger.

For a more concrete example of now every employee is now a marketer, I’d like to introduce you to Zach Fogel—an employee at the Hershey Lodge where I am staying. As a “VIP” representative (every guest is a VIP, I think) Zach called to ask me if a I needed anything. “Yes, as a matter of fact, I do,” I said. “I left the charger to my iPhone at home and I called the concierge to see if the hotel had one but she said, “No.” Zach then informed me he was an iPhone user and that I could use his cord for the evening. To make the situation even more impressive, Zach was on his way home for the evening but took the time to run the cord up to my room.

For this simple action, I am now not only singing Zach’s praises but I am also giving the Hershey Lodge a little free publicity on my various social networks because I think their management understands how every employee is now a marketer.

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Experiential Leadership Training: Using History to Navigate into the Future

As a professional futurist it has always struck many people as odd that I have also written a book on the leadership lessons of Lewis & Clark. The reason I did so is because I am a strong proponent of metaphorical learning experiences as well as using history as a guide for the future.

In partnership with Jeff Appelquist of BlueKnight History Seminars, I recently put together a three-day experiential leadership seminar using Meriwether Lewis, William Clark and the Corps of Discovery’s historic journey “into the unknown” as a learning platform.

Below is four-minute video documenting the course which took place in Montana and included visits to Great Falls, the Gates of the Mountains, Three Forks and the Continental Divide.

If you and your company are interested in a similar experience, please contact me at 612.267.1212.

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Leadership Lessons from Lewis & Clark

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A Million, a Billion, and a Trillion Reasons to Care About the Future

If something doubles just ten times it is one thousand (1024 times to precise) larger. This is an important concept to grasp if you want to better contemplate the future.

Why? Because no fewer than nine technological trends—semiconductors, data storage, bandwidth, genomics, gene sequencing, robotics, nanotechnology, brain scanning and scientific knowledge—are doubling anywhere from every 6 to 18 months.

To put this in some perspective, consider the following examples.

If the military is currently deploying 1000 robots in Afghanistan but the number is doubling every year by 2020 that means there will be one million robots deployed in the country. This will change warfare as we know it.

If Wal-Mart is currently deploying 1 million RFID (radio frequency identification) tags but that number is doubling every year this suggests by 2020 that there will be 1 billion RFID tags deployed. This will fundamentally transform the global supply chain management system.

And if gene sequencing equipment can today translate one billion sequences every few hours (at an estimated cost of $20,000) but the technology is doubling year year, this implies we will be able to translate one trillion genes an hour by 2020. If this comes to pass, sequencing your genome will not only take minutes it will cost pennies on the dollar. Such a change could radically transform how we treat disease and will have profound implications for both the health care and the pharmaceutical industries.

A million, a billion and a trillion might not seem that different (perhaps because they rhyme) but here’s one way to think of the change coming our way:

One million seconds was 12 days ago;
One billion seconds was 32 years ago;
One trillion seconds takes us back to the year 30,000 B.C.

My advice? Buckle up because your future is about to expand in a million, a billion and a trillion different directions.

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Into the Unknown with Lewis & Clark

I will be in Montana for the next few days leading a corporate group “into the unknown” using my 2004 book (Into the Unknown: Leadership Lessons from Lewis & Clark’s Daring Westward Expedition) as a guide. We’ll be visiting Great Falls, The Gates of the Mountains, Three Forks and the Continental Divide. It is amazing how relevant the leadership skills the two captains displayed during their 863-day, 8000-mile journey still are to this day.

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Leadership Lessons from Lewis & Clark

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The Internet is Making Smarter … and Dumber

Two of my favorite writers and thinkers have recently released books. Clay Shirky has written a book entitled Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age in which he persuasively argues, among other things, that the Internet is making us smarter because it is allowing society to produce such knowledge accelerators as Wikipedia at virtually no cost.

On the other hand, Nicholas Carr has just released his book, The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, in which he outlines his thesis for why the Internet is making us dumber. (In a nutshell, Carr convincingly argues that the Internet distracts us and makes prolonged thought more difficult. In the process, the Internet is literally rewiring our brain.)

Over the weekend, the two men outlined their respective arguments in the Wall Street Journal. (Shirky’s argument can be read here and Carr’s here.)

So who is right? Many people will be swayed by various arguments and place themselves firmly on one side of the debate or the other. In my humble opinion, however, both men are right. The world isn’t black or white, it is black and white as well as various shades of gray—all at the same time.

This can be a difficult concept to grasp but as F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote: “The test of a first rate mind is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.”

If you don’t believe this is true, just look at the optical illusion to the right. Does it say “true” or “false” or does it say both at the same time? Once you learn to embrace ambiuity, you will be one step closer to embracing the future.

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Futurist Jack Uldrich to Keynote the MoneyShow

From August 19-21, 2010 I’ll be joining Steve Forbes at the 2010 MoneyShow in San Francisco to discuss how exponential trends in technology will impact your investment portfolio. If you’re in the area, please consider joining us. For more information, click here.

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Navigating the Future with Robots

Another impressive video demonstrating how advanced robotics are becoming. It won’t be long before these little buggers are replacing both toys and pets in people’s houses.

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The Future is Everywhere

Watch this clever video entitled iPad + Velcro. It is a spoof of course but I also believe it offers a hint of what the future will look like. The truth is that people would love to attach their iPad to their wall, dashboard and ceiling. This isn’t practical—yet. However, as flexible electronics become more inexpensive and come to be embedded almost everywhere, I believe people will soon be able to turn their dashboards, walls and ceilings into computer screens.

iPad + Velcro from Jesse Rosten on Vimeo.

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Jaywalking into the Future

Did you know that more pedestrians die in crosswalks than when jaywalking. The reason is because people have a false sense of security in crosswalks and are less likely to look both ways.

This is a wonderful metaphor for how you should think about the future. I know most people believe there is safety in doing what you did yesterday and the day before yesterday. Alas, the paradox of the future is that playing it safe is, in fact, the riskiest thing to do.

The future is racing ahead at breakneck speed and a number of trends—in information technology, biotechnology, nanotechnology, and social networking—are about to smash into our “crosswalks.” If you want to survive the future my advice is to “unlearn” safety and jaywalk a new path into the future. It may feel riskier but it isn’t.

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Someone else’s Wrong Doesn’t Make You Right

I am preparing to speak to a major public power association early next week on the impact of disruptive technologies. Among other things, I will be discussing breakthroughs in solar, wind, biofuels, wave power, energy demand managment, and fuel cell technology. I will also being mentioning possible breakthroughs in the field of “cold fusion.”

The field has been held in very low regard since 1989 when other scientists could not reproduce the results of Martin Fleishmann and Stanley Pons. Humiliated by the scientific establishment, Fleishmann and Pons were forced to close their labs, flee the country and, basically, drop out of sight.

This was unfortunate because it highlights a behavior many of us must unlearn: Proving another person wrong does not prove us right. To wit, just because Fleishmann and Pons were not successful in achieving nuclear fusion at room temperature does not mean that it can’t or won’t be done sometime in the future.

Today, scores of researchers have now picked up the mantle of Fleishmann and Pons and are working on cold fusion. I don’t know enough about the field to say with any certainty if they will be successful but I’d remind skeptics that someone else’s wrong doesn’t necessarily make you right.

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Tic-Tac-Toe: The Future is Unknowable

Take a look at the familiar tic-tac-toe grid to the right. In how many different ways could you make the journey? It is not common for people to guess 27, 81 or even 243. The answer, however, is 362,800. This is because 9x8x7x6x5x4x3x2x1=362,800. (The actual number of winning or draw games is 255,168. For a more complete explanation click here.) My point is that either number is significantly larger than most people expect.

The same is true when thinking of the future. It is comforting to believe we can predict future with great certainty but as a professionalist futurist--and you may find this ironic, counter-intuitive, paradoxical or even disturbing--I make no claim to be able to predict the future.

Here’s why.

Consider almost any issue. What factors are involved? In my work as a professional futurist and forecaster, I regularly speak about 1) technology; 2) competitors; 3) customers; 4) employees; 5) money; 6) demographic characteristics; 7) politics; 8) regulatory issues; and 9) human behavior.

In many ways these characteristics are analogous to the X’s and O’s in a tic-tac-toe game and they can play out in hundreds or thousands of ways. In fact, the real number is so astronomical as to be incalcuable because there isn’t just one technology, one competitor or one employee to be concerned with in each circumstance. There are many and each one adds exponentially to the number of new possible outcomes.

All of this is not to say that forecasting isn’t valuable and worthwhile. It is. (I wouldn’t be a professional futurist if I didn’t believe this.) Rather, I merely want you to unlearn the idea that the future can be predicted with great clarity. It can’t.

Counter-intuitively, though, you can gain a better feel for the range of future possibilities but only if you first think and long about all of the variables which can affect your future.

P.S. But, as the post below suggests, don’t forget about Black Swans.

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The Practical Futurist vs The Impractical Futurist

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Nanotech, Google & Unlearning

As a professional futurist who has written two books on the topic of nanotechnology, including The Next Big Thing is Really Small: How Nanotechnology Will Change the Future of Your Business, but is now interested in how the skill of unlearning can help society better prepare for the future, I couldn’t but help notice this article: Does Google Alter How We Think About Nanotech.

According to the research, people searching the term “nanotechnology” on Google are being directed toward more healthcare-related searches. Now there are legitimate questions about the relationship between nanoparticles and human health and these concerns shouldn’t be dismissed, but it is equally problematic that people’s perceptions about nanotechnology are being based on popularity. As the article states: “Sergey Brin and Larry Page created Google to sort search results, in part, based on how popular particular sites were. For science information, that means that surfers may be offered the most popular results rather than the ones that best represent the current state of science”.

As I wrote earlier today, exposing yourself to unlearning is difficult, and it isn’t made any easier if search engines are steering people toward “popular” information as opposed to the most scientifically valid information.

To this end, it is worth keeping in mind this wonderful quote from Galileo: “In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.”

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Nanotechnology in 250 Words or Less

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The Future Is In Your Hands

Check out this cool video from MIT. If you don’t think that “hand gesture computing” won’t transform work, play and education in the not-too-distance future you’ve got your hand-up-your-a#$.

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The World is Changing

The following quote is from Hugh MacLeod’s new book Ignore Everybody and 39 Other Keys to Creativity. This is Rule 17: The World is Changing:

“Some people are hip to it, others are not. If you want to be able to afford groceries in five years, I’d recomend listening closely to the former and avoiding the latter. Just my two cents.”

Great advice. It’s exactly what I meant when I wrote The World is Changing: Unlearn. It is also an excellent reason for hiring a futurist.

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The Practical vs The Impractical Futurist

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Sliding into the Future

On this day in 1947, the sleek Italian racing car named for its developer, Enzo Ferrari, made its racing debut. Since that time, Ferrari’s have continued to improve and get better.

With this little history lesson in mind, I encourage you to watch this video of a robotic car executing a nearly flawless “sliding park” manuever--the kind which we regularly see in action movies.

Like the Ferrari, robotic-driving technology is only going to get better and it suggests that self-driving vehicles may be a reality sooner than many people expect.

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Questions from the Future

Some people never set sail because they are convinced they have already arrived. This is true in both the big and the small things in our lives. I was reminded of this fact after reading this fascinating article in the New York Times magazine, The Data Driven Life.

The story is chalkful of examples of how people are using data to change small personal habits—everything from reducing the amount of caffeinated coffee they drink to improving their infant child’s language skills—but I especially liked this line: data “includes answers to questions [we] have not yet thought to ask.”

From a larger perspective, the article highlights the growing importance of data-mining algorithms and technology. If the past was about finding the answers, the future is more about finding the answers to those “questions we have not yet thought to ask.”

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The Practical Futurist Vs The Impractical Futurist

A fellow professional futurist bills himself as the practical futurist. The label has always rubbed me the wrong way and it’s not because I don’t also believe that some futurists can get a little ahead of themselves. Rather, it is because I think the phrase “practical futurist” is an oxymoron. By labeling himself as “practical” what he is really doing is confining himself to only “practical” ideas and if history teaches us anything it is that the future is rarely practical.

In 2006, would a practical futurist have predicted that the social networking site, Facebook, would be larger than all but three countries in this world or that Apple would have the most successful cellphone in the world and that it would possess over 150,000 different “apps” and these apps could do everything from tell you what song you are listening to ... to mimicking the sound of a fart?

In 2001, is it likely that a practical futurist would have predicted that people working for free and with no overhead would ultimately produce an encyclopedia larger and more accurate than anything Encyclopedia Britannica could produce? Or that this “people’s encyclopedia” would thump Microsoft’s plans to hire a hundred of the brightest PhD’s to construct Encarta—an online encyclopedia? Of course not, but today everyone uses Wikipedia and it is available in no fewer than 250 different languages.

In 1991, when a cellphone was the size of a large brick and cost $5000, would a practical futurist have predicted that in less than two decades 2 billion cellphones would be in existence on the planet and that fishermen in Africa would be using the devices to do everything from checking the weather to exchanging cash?

In 1981, when video games were only as sophisticated as Pac-Man, would a practical futurist have predicted that someday video games would be a larger industry than all of Hollywood? Would a practical futurist have predicted that bottled water would be a $17 billion a year industry?

In 1971, would a practical futurist have predicted that Moore’s Law would continue unabated for another 40 years and ultimately make computer chips so inexpensive that McDonald’s would give these computers away (in the form of cheap disposable toys) with a $3 Kid’s Meal?

In 1961, when computer memory devices were the size of a large desk, stored 5 megabytes, and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, would a practical futurist have predicted that some day tiny memory devices with a million times more storage capacity would be given away for free as trinkets at a national conference for gays, lesbians, trans-gender and trans-sexuals? (Perhaps they may have predicted the former but I bet the latter was nowhere near their “practical” radar screen).

In 1951, would a practical futurist have had the foresight to see that in the future pet food would be a $40 billion-a-year industry and that people would hire pet psychologists or that an airline would be created to cater specifically to those pet owners who wished to fly their pets in first class?

In 1941, would a practical futurist have predicted that the United States two greatest threats—Germany and Japan—would rank among our staunchest allies in less than two decades? Or, on the heels of the Great Depression, that some day obesity—and not hunger—would be among our greatest health threats.

In 1931, when no less of an authority than Albert Einstein was saying that there “wasn’t the slighest indication that nuclear power can be harvested,” would a practical futurist have predicted that an atomic bomb would be created less than 15 years later?

In 1921, when planes still hadn’t crossed the Atlantic Ocean, would a practical futurist have predicted that Atlanta would someday have the world’s largest airport and that 90 million people from all across the globe would fly through the once sleepy southern city?

And, in 1911, would a practical futurist have had the audacity to predict that just a decade later that an innovative entrepreneur would have created a way to transmits the human voice across the Atlantic Ocean? Not likely since in 1916 Lee De Forest was prosecuted by government officials for making such a preposterous claim. (Luckily he wasn’t found guilty and founded RCA in 1919.)

My point is simple. The future is accelerating and advances in biotechnology, nanotechnology, information technology, robotics, genomics, stem cell research, regenerative medicine, brain-scanning technology, data storage, Internet bandwidth, photonics, energy technology, algorithms, voice recognition technology, social networks and synthetic biology—among others—are going to rock our world in ways that are difficult to imagine today.

If you want to be told that tomorrow is practical—because it might make you feel comfortable or because you don’t have the guts to hear things that may sound impractical—then, by all means, hire a practical futurist. I offer only this caveat: What I might say as an “impractical futurist” may not come to fruition but I can guarantee you this: If the future sounds “practical” it definitely isn’t going to come true.

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Want to Understand the Future? Study History!

In his famous speech at Rice University where he declared that it was America’s intention to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade, President Kennedy said “the greater our knowledge increases, the greater our ignorance unfolds,” adding that “the vast stretches of the unknown and the unanswered and the unfinished still far outstrip our collective comprehension.”

Kennedy went on to offer a historical perspective for the magnitude of change society had experienced over the short course of human history. He asked his audience to condense the 50,000 years of man’s recorded history into the span of fifty years. Under this scenario, Kennedy noted that not much happened for the first forty years. Ten years ago, man emerged from his cave, and only five years ago did he learned to write. Christianity appeared two years ago, the printing press this year, and just two months ago the steam engine appeared. Last month electric lights, telephones, automobiles, and airplanes became available, and only last week did we develop penicillin, television, and nuclear weapons. To reach “the stars before midnight tonight,” Kennedy then poignantly added that Americans would have to “dispel old [and] new ignorance.”

Since achieving Kennedy’s goal in 1969, progress has continued exponentially. In the last proverbial “day” computers, biotechnology, the Internet, and the sequencing of the human genome have all appeared on the scene.

What Kennedy’s analogy reminds us it that will need to continue to ‘dispel old ignorance”—or continuously unlearn if you will—only on a faster scale because the future is about to change in the “blink of an eye.”.

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The Future is on the Fringe

Take a look at the image to the right. It is a visual display of Everett Roger’s famous model of diffusion. I, however, want you to look at it differently. Consider it, instead, “an unlearning curve.” Conventional wisdom tells us that it is safe in the middle. Advertising and marketers frequently target their message toward the “early majority” and the “late majority” in the middle. What they are really doing is focusing on the “average” person.  I say screw that! The future is on the fringe!

The true innovators go after the fringes. If you have a cool new product target it toward the “innovators” or the “early adopters.” Those are the people who really care about your product. If they love it, they will tell their friends and anybody who will listen. They may even improve it for you.

Alternatively, if you want to innovate try looking at the laggards. That’s exactly what Nintendo did when they began considering video games for the elderly. The result was the Wii remote and guess what? Not only did seniors love the easy-to-use hand-held stick so did middle-age parents and even younger kids.

If you want to embrace the future, screw the majority. Focus on the fringes!

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New Keynote Presentation: The Future Demands Unlearning

As long-time readers know, I have been focused on the concept of “unlearning” for some time now. I dedicated an entire chapter to the idea in my book, Jump the Curve and, in addition to this website, later this year I will also be releasing the first in a series of books on the topic of unlearning.

To this end, I am pleased to announce that I have developed a corresponding keynote presentation on the topic. It is a perfect motivational speech for any business, organization or institution that knows it must drive change in order to survive but is running into resistance from those “leaders,” managers, employees or customers who refuse to unlearn the old ways of doing business. Below is a brief description:

The pace of technological change is accelerating. Today’s organizations are living in a world where “constant change is the only constant.” New advances in biotechnology, nanotechnology, and information technology are bringing forth exciting and unexpected discoveries every day, while the expansive and growing power of the Internet, social networking and the open-source movement are fueling the fires which threaten to consume much of today’s existing business landscape.

Life-long learning will obviously be more essential than ever in this chaotic and churning environment; but often lost in this new emerging reality of exponential change is the fact that before an organization can seize tomorrow’s opportunities it must first unlearn old, obsolete knowledge as well as unlearn the old ways of doing business.

In this fascinating, informative, entertaining, interactive and enlightening presentation, noted global futurist and best-selling author, Jack Uldrich--who has been hailed by BusinessWeek as “America’s Chief Unlearning Officer"--will not only explain why unlearning is a critical skill for your company and your organization’s employees, he will also demonstrate how unlearning can help:

-- Successfully navigate a future where the pace of scientific and technological knowledge is doubling every seven years;
-- Prepare for competition that doesn’t yet exist; and
-- Seize opportunities which are, today, only on the periphery of their imagination.

(For more information on this presentation, you may contact any one of the leading professional speakers bureaus which represent me or contact me directly at 612.267.1212.)

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Designing Hospitals with the Future in Mind

Take a look at the picture to the right. It’s a hospital circa 1910. Do you notice anything special about the photo? If you’re like most people you probably don’t. What makes the hospital interesting are the steps. The implicit message they sent to a prospective patient was that they had to be healthy enough to walk up the steps before the hospital could serve them.

In 1910, Tuberculosis, Typhoid, Diphtheria and Small Pox were the leading causes of death; less than two percent of hospital patients were considered “retired;” and healing was the exception--not the rule. Obviously, a great deal has changed in the past 100 years but it’s important to realize that things are going to change even more in the future and hospitals and healthcare facilities must think through these implications now.

Advances in biotechnology, nanotechnology, stem cell research, genomics, robotics, social networking and wireless technologies--to name just a few--are going to revolutionize healthcare in the years and decades ahead. Consider the following:

--Continued exponential advances in computers; Internet bandwidth and sensors are altering how providers monitor patients’ health. Remote monitor tools, for example, not only have the ability to keep a great many patients from needing to visit the hospital in the first place, they will also allow more patients to leave the hospital quicker because the doctor will be able to monitor patients progress from home. Such tools will alter the throughput and turnover rates in hospitals dramatically.

--The price of sequencing the human genome has plummeted from an astronomical cost of $70 million in 2007 to less than $10,000 today. By 2012, the cost is expected to drop below $1000. The amount of genomic information that will soon be available could transform the treatment of some cancers as effectively as Jonas Salk’s vaccination addressed Polio. If so, what does the oncology ward of the future look like?

--In 2005, less than one percent of all prostatectomies were performed by robots. In 2010 this figure will reach 70 percent. As monumental as this change has been it just the first ripple in a real sea change. In the coming years, robots are also expected to perform hysterectomies, heart surgery, and eventually even brain surgery.

The pace of change in the healthcare industry is accelerating exponentially. Those organizations don’t prepare for this future will be left with facilities that are prepared to treat the wrong clients for the wrong diseases with the wrong tools. It will be the metaphorical equivalent of making patients walk up a flight of stairs to receive treatment. The bottom-line is this: if you want your facility to send the right message tomorrow, you must think through these issues today.

Jack Uldrich is a healthcare futurist and author of Jump the Curve: 50 Essential Strategies for Dealing with Emerging Technology. This November, along with Rebecca Hathaway, Senior Vice President, HMC Architects, he will be presenting a session for the Healthcare Design Conference entitled “Designing in an Era of Exponential Change--How to “Jump the Curve” to a Smarter Healthcare Future.”

For other articles relating to the future of health care, check out the following:

Social Networking: The Future of Health Care
The Future of Health Care is as Near as Your iPhone
Healthcare is the “Verge” of Something Big
Here Comes Intelligent Medicine
The Future of Healthcare is Accelerating
Personalized Medicine’s Accelerating Future
The Future of Health Care: Preventing Disease
Health Care Providers Need a Second Life
The Future of Health Care: Part 3 (Robotics)The Robot Will See You Now
Hospitals Robotic Future: Part 2
Hospitals Robotic Future: Part 1
Hospitals Get a Lift

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A Beautiful Call to the Future

At the beginning of the year, I outlined 20 predictions for 2010. (You can read the full list here).

Number five on the list read: #5: A socially-networked song in which none of the band members knew one another prior to the song’s release will become a Billboard Top Ten hit. The band will attempt to conduct a conventional tour but will soon breakup citing “artistic differences.” The real cause: they find they just don’t like one another.

I invite you to watch the video below. It isn’t quite want I had in mind when I made the prediction and I don’t know if it’ll become a top ten hit but Eric Whitacre’s virtual choir singing “Lux Aurumque” is far more beautiful and powerful than anything I could have imagined. Enjoy!

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I Spy Your iFuture

Word on the street, according this new article, is that Apple has filed a new patent for 3-D glasses. The obvious application is that the glasses will be used to watch 3-D movies and play more immersive video games. Less obviously is that the glasses may also be a boon to innovative educators and physical therapists. What do you spy in our iFuture?

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Stuff Yourself on Digital Crumbs

Data mining or reality mining, if your prefer, is going to be one of the biggest trends in the near future. This fascinating article provides an excellent overview of how smart retailers will start using the “digital crumbs” from anonymous cellphone signals to track the location and behavior of people. For example, in a manner that doesn’t violate anyones personal privacy, advertisers will soon know exactly how many people walk by a certain ad at 2:15pm on a Saturday afternoon. This will allow the owners of billboards to price their spaces accordingly.

Reality mining companies will be able to determine not only which stores are most frequently visited in a mall but also which combinations of stores these people travel to. This, in turn, will allow these stores to start putting together clever joint ad campaigns to further exploit these findings.

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Touch the Future

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The Future is on the Back Pages

I am re-reading Dan Pink’s excellent book, A Whole New Mind, and was just reminded that the creation of written language (invented by the Greeks around 5500 BC) helped reinforce the dominance of the brain’s left hemisphere--which is more analytical and sequential in nature.

There is nothing inherently wrong with this, but I believe it does speak to our need to break out of our regular habits (and patterns of learning about the world) from time to time. For example, a while back I encouraged my viewers to read the newspaper backwards occasionally because it was my experience that, often, the most important stories (from a long-term perspective) were those buried deep on the back pages of the paper.

Of course, I don’t believe newspapers or magazines are the only or best source of information these days but I can’t encourage you enough to break away from your regular sources and methods of gathering news. This is especially true if you wish to better understand the future. I invite you to watch this interesting TED talk by Kirk Citron of the Long Now Foundation discussing the idea of what stories from today will really be important in 100 years. Not surprising, Citron reaches the same conclusion I did and that is that the most important stories are not those which are being covered on the front pages; leading the nightly newscasts; or generating the most Internet traffic.

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Aging is No Game

It’s now a well accepted fact that the Wii video games are very popular among seniors. Less well appreciated is now games—and specifically video games—will revolutionize the actions and behaviors of seniors in the near future. Posted below for your viewing pleasure is an extraordinarily insightful presentation from Jesse Schell, a professor at Carnegie Mellon and a video game designer himself. I specifically encourage you to watch the last ten minutes of his talk where he discusses how the proliferation of sensors, cheap computer and camera technology and what I call a “video game mind-set” will converge to change people’s behavior in some interesting and unexpected ways.

For example, if your cellphone’s accelerometer monitor how much and how fast you walk can daily exercise be turned into a game. If your grandfather can then compare this exercise performance with that of his friend the two can engage in a healthy competition that will benefit both.

What if the camera on the cellphone can also monitor what items your grandfather purchases at the store. How might this eating habits improve. The same is true with using technology to determine whether he’s taking his drugs at the right time and in the right amount.

The possibilities are virtually limitless. As sensors become to be embedded in shirts suddenly not only can the quantity of exercise be monitored but the quality as well by awarding him points for maintaining his heart rate above a certain level every day. If he does it for 5 out of 7 days in a week, he could be awarded additional points.

It might sound slightly silly but I’m convinced that as sensors come to be embedded in everything from carpets and shoes to pill bottles and pop bottles, the technology is going to be employed in innovative and creative ways which can improve the quality of people’s lives. The only question is whether the aging services facilities around this country will be proactive in engaging in this revolution.

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ZigBee’s Growing Future

Unbeknownest to most people the number of ZigBee radio chips shipped has been doubling every year in recent years, hitting 20 million in 2009. In 2010, the number is expected to reach 100 million. Soon, it will be 200 million and then 400 million—and, well, if you know how to jump the curve you’ll understanding how the technology will not only effect consumer electronics and utilities but how it may also change human behavior in unexpected ways.

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To Create the Future Cultivate a Beginner’s Mind

Thomas Huxley once encouraged people to: ”Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abyss nature leads, or you shall learn nothing.” I really like this quote because, as regular readers of this blog know, I think we can all benefit a great deal from ”thinking like a child.”

A correlary to this is the idea that “inexperience” is not always a negative characteristic. This is especially true if people’s experience precludes them from understanding how the accelerating pace of technological change might change their future in ways which are completely unexpected or maybe even foreign to them. To this end, I highly recommend this article, entitled ”Judgment Trumps Experience,” which appeared a while back in the Wall Street Journal. One sentence in particular stands out for me. It reads: ”And often, especially in today’s dizzying world, we need to understand what Zen Buddists call the ‘beginner’s mind,’ which recognizes the value of fresh insight unfettered by experience.”

It’s a wonderful quote and in today’s “dizzying world” it is more appropriate than ever. Now, if you want to take this message to heart and become what I call an exponential executive, the question you must ask yourself is this: What are you doing to cultivate your own “beginner’s mind”?

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New Keynote Speech: The Future Requires Unlearning

As long-time readers know, I have been focused on the concept of “unlearning” for some time now. I dedicated an entire chapter to the idea in my book, Jump the Curve and have also developed a separate website that is serving as a notebook for my forthcoming books on the topic—the first of which will be released later this year.

To this end, I am happy to announce that I have developed a corresponding keynote presentation on the topic and will be partnering with one of America’s top speakers bureaus, Leading Authorities, to bring the talk to the public. It is a perfect motivational or keynote speech for any business, organization or institution that knows it must drive change in order to survive ... but is running into resistance from those “leaders,” managers, employees or customers who refuse to unlearn the old ways of doing business.

Below is a brief description:

The pace of technological change is accelerating. Today’s organizations are living in a world where “constant change is the only constant.” New advances in biotechnology, nanotechnology, and information technology are bringing forth exciting and unexpected discoveries every day, while the expansive and growing power of the Internet, social networking and the open-source movement are fueling the fires which threaten to consume much of today’s existing business landscape.

Life-long learning will obviously be more essential than ever in this chaotic and churning environment; but often lost in this new emerging reality of exponential change is the fact that before an organization can seize tomorrow’s opportunities it must first unlearn old, obsolete knowledge as well as unlearn the old ways of doing business.

In this fascinating, informative, entertaining, interactive and enlightening presentation, noted global futurist and best-selling author, Jack Uldrich—who has been hailed by BusinessWeek as “America’s Chief Unlearning Officer”—will not only explain why unlearning is a critical skill for your company or an organization’s employees, he will also demonstrate how unlearning can help:

-- Successfully navigate a future where the pace of scientific and technological knowledge is doubling every seven years;
-- Prepare for competition that doesn’t yet exist; and
-- Seize opportunities which are, today, only on the periphery of their imagination.

If you are interested in learning more about the presentation, I invite you to contact Leading Authorities directly at 1-800-SPEAKER or 1-202-783-0300.

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A Wave to the Future

I recently released an updated version of my book, Green Investing: A Guide to Making Money from Environmentally-Friendly Stocks. One area I was not bullish on in the short-term (but am long-term) is wave power. To this end, I encourage you to read this article from today’s Technology Review which reports that Scotland is developing a 1.2 gigawatt wave power project. As one industry spokesman says, “This industry is about to grow up.”

If the project is successful—and this is a big ‘if”—wave power could generate as much as 15 to 20% of Scotland’s electrical energy needs. In the U.S. the figure could be as high as 10% if the country were to develop wave power off the coasts of Hawaii, California, Oregon, Washington and Massachusetts.

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The Future is Black and White

The future won’t be either black or white—it will be black and white. In the field of architecture and design, people are often use to choosing between form or function. In the future, as a result of advances in nanotechnology, this age-old debate will become less relevant. As proof, I submit this article discussing a new technological advance that will allow the roof of the future to be both black or white—depending upon the temperature outside. (On cold days it will be black to absorb sunlight and on hot days it will turn white to reflect sunlight and keep the building cooler.)

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A Funny Look at the Future of Newspapers

The fine folks at The Onion have done it again. If you’re looking for a little relief from the fast-paced nature of today’s technological change, I invite you to watch this hilarious two-minute video clip. Enjoy!

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Moving from the Mainframe Model of Health Care

I encourage anyone interested in understanding the future direction of either healthcare or aging services to watch this insightful and informative 17-minute TED presentation from Eric Dishman.

For other articles relating to the future of health care, check out the following:

Look Inside for the Future of Healthcare
Social Networking: The Future of Health Care
The Future of Health Care is as Near as Your iPhone
Healthcare is the “Verge” of Something Big
Here Comes Intelligent Medicine
The Future of Healthcare is Accelerating
Personalized Medicine’s Accelerating Future
The Future of Health Care: Preventing Disease
Health Care Providers Need a Second Life
The Future of Health Care: Part 3 (Robotics)The Robot Will See You Now
Hospitals Robotic Future: Part 2
Hospitals Robotic Future: Part 1
Hospitals Get a Lift

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Look Inside for the Future of Health Care

“If the current rate of miniaturization continues, by 2020 approximately 2.500 transistors—equivalent to microprocessors of the first generation of personal computers—could fit into the area of a typical living cell.” This quote comes this interesting article in Nanowerk.

For other articles relating to the future of health care, check out the following:

Social Networking: The Future of Health Care
The Future of Health Care is as Near as Your iPhone
Healthcare is the “Verge” of Something Big
Here Comes Intelligent Medicine
The Future of Healthcare is Accelerating
Personalized Medicine’s Accelerating Future
The Future of Health Care: Preventing Disease
Health Care Providers Need a Second Life
The Future of Health Care: Part 3 (Robotics)The Robot Will See You Now
Hospitals Robotic Future: Part 2
Hospitals Robotic Future: Part 1
Hospitals Get a Lift

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Cisco’s Vision of the Future

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The Future of the Internet Requires Unlearning

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The Future of the Internet Requires Unlearning

”If this is the information age, what are we so well-informed about?” So asks David Gelernter is this excellent essay in Edge entitled, Time to Start Taking the Internet Seriously.

Rather than rehash Gelernter’s entire article, I just want to highlight a few key concepts:

1. To date, the Internet has been about increasing the quantity of information. To get to the next level, it must concern itself with the quality of information.

2. To do this, Gelernter suggests “turning Cyberspace on its side, so that time instead of space is the main axis.” As a metaphor, he likens today’s websites to a stained-glass window which has many panels leaded together. What the Internet must become is a rushing flow of fresh information that can nurture new ways of thinking.

3. To this end, Gelertner argues the Internet of the future “can help us change our ways of thinking.”

4. In order to do this, however, the Internet move from away from it’s “culture of nowness.” As Gelertner suggests the Internet’s ability to focus like a laser on the “now” has a couple of unhealthy implications. First, a focus on “now” prevents many people from learning more about “then.” The current Internet is also “a machine for reinforcing our prejudices.” Sure, people can use it to find ten different perspectives on a story but, instead, many of us use it to review the same story from ten like-minded people.

Before Gelernter concludes with an optimistic vision of the Internet (which he says is “The best is yet to be"), he reminds his audience that “We would be fools to doubt our ignorance.”

As someone who is focused on unlearning, I think it is wonderful reminder that we must all have some intellectual humility. Or, as John Brockman writes in the introduction to the article, “Many of the people that desperately need to know, don’t even know that they don’t know.”

What don’t you know about the Internet of the future and what might you have to unlearn in order to embrace the fullness of its future potential?

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Powering Your Own Future

"Your home effectively becomes its own power station and gas station,” says Dan Nocera, an MIT chemist and co-founder of Sun Catalytix, in this short and informative video which describes his company’s innovative “direct solar fuels” or “electrofuels.”

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Mapping the Future of Video

If you want a peek into both the future of mapping as well as the future of video, I encourage you to watch this 8-minute video from Blaise Aguuera y Arcas at the recent TED conference:

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Video Killed the Video Star

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Erasing into the Future

“Only the hand that erases can write the truth”. So wrote the German theologian, philosopher and mystic Meister Eckardt more than 800 years ago.

They are still good words to live by.

In the middle of the 19th century, blackboards were all the rage. In fact, some universities, seeking to gain a competitive advantage, even advertised that they were the only college within “a 100 miles” to sport the new technology.

This historical analogy is worth keeping in mind as university’s today tout that they offer every student a laptop or, perhaps, house the only high-tech lab “within a 100 miles.” The technology is no doubt sophisticated and it does offer a real advantage but it is important to remember that it will eventually be replaced by something else.

The real question, of course, is how soon. Far too many teachers, professors and schools continue to rely on blackboards not because they are the best tool (although they still do have a role to play) but because their hands can’t erase their old habits and behaviors.

We are racing into the future but for those organizations unwilling to unlearn and change all they are really doing is erasing their students future.

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Is the Future of College $99 a Month?

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