clair075

I wrote recently about my last trip to Dubai, and the impact it had on me.  Dubai is unusual because it combines a number of factors - an energetic leadership, a country and region hungry for growth and transformation, a significant investment pool, and a real "can do" spirit.  Clearly things are changing quickly there, and everywhere.  During the conference where I spoke we had several other speakers who were futurists, including Matthew May.  He and others talked about what they believe is about to unfold as we move ever more quickly into the future. Pause to acknowledge Daniel Pink I'd like to pause here and tip my hat to Daniel Pink, who wrote a really good book that is becoming ever more prescient.  Daniel Pink wrote a book entitled A Whole New Mind in 2005, and at the time the book had a nice reception.  His key points in that book were that automation would increase, replacing repetitive labor.  Anything that can be reduced to an algorithm will...

I've just returned from a trip to Dubai to speak at an innovation conference there. This is my third trip to Dubai, and I come away consistently amazed at what the people and the government are doing in Dubai.  When I return to the States people ask me what Dubai is like.  I joking tell them that I was visiting the future. In my three visits to Dubai, spanning only a couple of years, the development and progress has been really quite astonishing.  I've had the good fortune to lead innovation programs and workshops in a wide range of countries and regions, from Western Europe to South Africa to South America and in many locations in Asia.  There's no other place moving as quickly and with such purpose as Dubai.  In our event we heard stories about the decisions taken to place Dubai on the innovation map, where the sheikh asked his people to visit Singapore and Hong Kong, places with few natural resources that were thriving.  These insights were brought back ...

May you live in interesting times.  This is supposedly an ancient Chinese saying, replete with both opportunity and a veiled threat.  Interesting times can introduce great new innovations but can also inaugurate great conflicts.  Nowhere is this more evident than the evolving phenomena of autonomous vehicles. Innovators across the globe, from the large (Amazon, Google) to the small are all working on autonomous vehicles.  Futurists are already predicting the demise of the long distance truck driver, whose job will be eliminated momentarily by autonomous trucks spanning long distances.  Soon, we are promised, we'll commute to work reading our morning papers - except there won't be papers - while the autonomous vehicle takes us efficiently and safely on our way. If you are reading a hint of sarcasm in the above scenario, you are right.  We are reliving all of the hype about electric vehicles, circa 1991, when California demanded that 5% of all cars would be z...