Futurist Blog

Last week I went through the process of analyzing how much of what I learned in college that I’m still using today. This ended up being a difficult thing to assess and quantify. While most of my undergraduate coursework was focused on human...

Last week I was speaking at the MD&M West Expo in Anaheim, California on the “future of manufacturing.” With over 2,000 manufacturing exhibitors filling the convention center, there was no small amount of interest in this topic. With China...

How many pills do you take on a daily basis? According to a 2010 study by Colorado State University, about 68% of American adults take multivitamin supplements. At the same time the average American fills 12 prescriptions a year. After spending...

What are the odd of you ending up age 65-70 and having regretted your entire life? As people edge towards retirement, reflective moments like this can be a gut wrenching experience. If you’re like most, the odds are well over 90%. For many, the...

A recent TEDx talk about solving traffic jams started by asking the simple question, “Who is in charge of the daily bread supply for the city of London?” Food supply chains have become enormously complicated, but as it turns out, there is no central “bread czar” for...

What, in your mind, will be the most powerful entity in the world 100 years from now? As we look around us today, it’s easy to point to a single nation as being the most powerful. But will that still be true 100 years from now? The most...

When was the last time you used Google’s search engine? Were the results more or less relevant than the searches you did a year ago? Early on, after Google had developed its breakthrough search algorithms, they realized the Internet was a very fluid environment that...

The first time I watched Star Trek and heard Captain Kirk utter the phrase - “Set your phasers to stun!” - it occurred to me that these future weapons featured a number of different settings. While most people assumed a simple two-position...

The year is 2018 and the Norwegian Nobel Committee, the organization charged with selecting the winner of the famous Nobel Peace Prize, has changed their process. They’ve decided to host a global election to allow the people of the world to...

There is great value in theunknown. My good friend Jeff Samson put it this way. “If I am ignorant of something and it is suddenly presented to me, I may find it innovative. The other option is that I will be annoyed by it, but eventually when...