Future
22 Days and Counting
In just 22 days the World Futurist Society Conference begins, approximately 1000 futurists from around the world will converge at
WorldFuture 2011; Moving from Vision to Action.
The Conference is being held at the Sheraton Wall Centre downtown Vancouver, British Columbia. If you haven’t registered to attend this forward thinking conference, get on it, you will learn much from many no matter what your curious about.
If you are fast enough you see my picture in this promo, yep, I’m speaking on Saturday July 9th at 8:30AM on The Future Of Business, see you there:
My Interview on CIVL Radio With Justin P. Goodrich
I was interviewed recently by Justin P. Goodrich on his Radio Program “The Way I See It” and I always touch a few nerve endings when I talk about the Future Of Business in public.
For those who didn’t catch the interview, I have it for you below, please give me your thoughts / comments, good or bad. Thanks for all who visit owengreaves.com, without you, there is no success.
Many Blessings, Owen
Just click on the link and become edumacated : )
The End Of Organizations As We Know Them – Thomas Power
You have read it here over and over again, I am not the only one sharing the message about the death of the industrial age, how community will over power corporations unless they embrace them, join them and even buy them. Big business must change how they think, small and medium business owners must change the way the think, there is much pain coming in this paradigm shift.
Thomas Power has a few words on the topic of community and love, I’ll let him continue the message you find here often on this blog. This is one of many great talks on the changes yet to come. Enjoy!
The Future Of Business – Access Trumps Ownership
As business re-invents itself, as it stumbles into the future, much of what we know to be tried and true is no longer working. As trust of big brands and certain industries continues to shrink, we need to consider newer ways of building that trust we took for granted. In 2006 Chris Anderson of Wired Magazine shared in his book, The Long Tail, Free is a business model. Jeff Jarvis writes about the model in his book called, What would Google Do? Gerd Leonhard talks about putting things out there, in the jungle, give much of your value away, where getting paid is a walk of faith, if you bring value, you will get paid. He has some interesting insight in his talk The Price of Freedom, he explains why ‘free’ content can still pay in the long term. I may be over simplifying the free model, but there is a bigger model to discuss, and it is related to the free model, it’s far bigger and a much more interesting model to consider.
People want something that allows them to participate, something of value that can’t be simply copied, something scarce that is worth paying for, but want to try it, taste it, smell it, before they hand over the cash. This is a faith walk because you don’t know where or if the money will come, it’s a YES / NO / MAYBE, complete ambiguity, complete faith in the consumer. Even if you are not giving it away outright, you may be letting them have access to it, to your product, your service or platform. The key word here is platform as I discussed in an blog post a few days ago.
We are entering a society that doesn’t value ownership, we would rather rent it or borrow it when shared, long before buying it. The longer you sit out here on the NET, the world gets smaller, you find like-mined people much quicker, and some are sharing the same message you may be sharing. That doesn’t matter, each of us has a voice, each of us has something of value to share, each of us sees things differently, our voice matters, so share your take on things. Give yourself away, let people rent you and your content. Build a platform that can’t be ignored, then share it.
I came across an interesting TED talk by Lisa Gansky called, The Future of Business is The MESH. In this talk she shares that access will trump ownership, that a brand is a voice, a product is a souvenir, we are in the pursuit of better things to easily share. The need for aligning value with the true cost. I love finding new people sharing the same message you find here on this blog, and I love sharing their work with you.
Here is Lisa’s talk, it’s a short 15 minutes, enjoy!
Is Technology Taking Mankind To An Unhealthy Place?
I have been talking about technology for over 30 years, in my opinion, technology is taking mankind to an unhealthy place. There I’ve said it. Many of you think I am a pro technology man, more than I am a pro business man, the reality is, I’m both, but technology is merely a tool to get business done, even though technology is leading us down the road Neo in the Matrix have been down before.
I was born in the late 50’s, I’m a Baby Boomer, I have seen technology evolve, technology started it’s takeover of mankind with the handheld calculator. When I was in school, it was forbidden to use a handheld calculator in class, today, you can’t finish school without one. Technology is now raising generations unable to think, the arts are being eliminated because technology wants to do all the creative thinking for us. Everything technology today has gotten smaller, so small it can be injected into your blood stream, blood cell sized nanobots! These types of technologies will eventually make us live for ever, birth perfect babies, have perfect health. Ray Kurzweil predicts the singularity, where technology and man merge, will become a reality by the year 2045. Technology is being embedded into everything, including the human body. Is this a good thing, I’m not convinced it is just yet.
RFID chips were to be injected or planted into humans at one time, this can be done today, but I think the push back has forced big brother to shift gears. Instead of planting or injecting, the technology is carried by you and I through credit cards, bank debit cards, drivers licenses, and all these chips can be scanned by anyone as far as 50 feet away. That means the dark side can scan your credit card, create a new card with your account details, almost, if not, completely steal your identity. All this in the name of technological progress. For every technological good, there is an equal bad for all of us. We are more willing to embrace carrying these technology cards because they aren’t intrusive, it’s not painful or difficult to do, but that isn’t entirely true is it? We are being lulled into carrying these cards, using all these cool mobile device, geo-location, the 4squares and the like. We can’t not be found, everywhere we go we can be tracked, and most of us are happy about it. But what if there is a war of any-kind, corporate war, technology war, or a war where life is threatened. Those in the working corporate world become the enemy, those who work for technology companies, countries and man against man all become the enemy, where then do we hide? We can’t.
There is a a scripture in the bible that states, the meek (weak) shall inherit the earth, maybe it should be the Geeks shall inherit the earth. As much as I am concerned where technology is taking us, I also see much good, but I more worried about the consequences of a society that is too eager to embrace any technology without having some foresight. Everytime we mess with the human body, the earth, and or creation of anykind, we put ourselves in a place that can’t be reversed, is that smart?
Man is the problem, we complicate everything, we shackle ourselves, we don’t really know what we are dealing with in the bigger picture. People far smarter than I believe they know what they are doing, I’m suspicious to be completely transparent. So what do we do, we can’t go backwards, it’s too late. You couldn’t take technology (computers) out of our homes, our cars, our businesses, or take away handheld devices, we would be completely immobilized.
I get nervous everytime the major tech companies come out with a new product, we tend to do everything in our power to get in line to get it, without even thinking if we need it. Our future needs better planning behaviour than having the latest greatest in our hands, life is not about having the most toys, and or about being the first one to have it.
As you can see I’ve been ranting, I am worried about mankind, I am worried about you. We all were created to do something great on this planet and it’s different for each one of us, we were DNA’d to play a role, to make this world a better place. Technology doesn’t solve that problem, it merely allows us to get more done in a day, nothing more. There are no shortcuts.
Stephen Covey once said, “we are the only creatures on this earth that have the ability to stop and think before reacting”, let’s all exercise that muscle when it comes to embracing new technology or existing technologies. It may be too late, younger generations, the under 20 and generations to come may not be taught to stop and think. There is a huge discussion here, and I am only scratching the surface, I would love to hear your thoughts.
Do you believe technology is taking mankind to a healthy place?