April 27, 2012

How to Spot the Future (John Naisbitt)



Interesting - this is kind of what I do, as well, but using Twitter, Google Reader, and Flipboard instead ;)How to Spot the Future | Epicenter | Wired.com

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2012/04/ff_spotfuture/

Thirty years ago, when John Naisbitt was writing Megatrends, his prescient vision of America’s future, he used a simple yet powerful tool to spot new ideas that were bubbling in the zeitgeist: the newspaper. He didn’t just read it, though. He took out a ruler and measured it. The more column inches a particular topic earned over time, the more likely it represented an emerging trend. “The collective news hole,” Naisbitt wrote, “becomes a mechanical representation of society sorting out its priorities”—and he used that mechanism to predict the information society, globalism, decentralization, and the rise of networks.

Get my free iPhone & Android apps http://mobileroadie.com/apps/Futurist
Apr 27, 2012 2:22:21 PM

The comments to this entry are closed.

NEXT POST
Green Affluents: The Newest Market Segment? (Co.Exist on Future-Proofing ;) Interesting take on "future-proofing" brands, below; great example with BMW. Made me think! Green Affluents: The Newest Market Segment | Co.Exist: World changing ideas and innovation "...the big insight here? With the rise of megacities, consumers will most likely drive less. But they’ll continue to search out exciting ways of getting around. By intersecting this need with BMW’s expertise in creating exciting transport, the car manufacturer is today cornering a market that to many other companies is still invisible. It’s futureproofing its brand. BMW i Brand Manager Uwe Dreher says that a surprising insight is guiding the carmaker. Dreher says that in the course of research the company conducted as part of the new sub-brand’s development process, the team discovered a group of affluent consumers—particularly in the San Francisco area—who were expressing their politics by driving seemingly downmarket cars. As Dreher said, “It seemed incongruous for someone to live in a $5 million home and drive a $35,000 Prius instead of a Porsche or Ferrari. But that’s what’s happening.” www.futureof.biz Get my free iPhone & Android apps http://mobileroadie.com/apps/Futurist Related articles "Remember, Al Jazeera can topple authoritarian regimes but cannot get carried by Comcast (and is..." (futureof.biz) "Until the late 1960s, the United States was the world's dominant manufacturing power. Today,..." (futureof.biz) Video interview with Green Futurist Gerd Leonhard, review of... (greenfuturist.com) "A new type of capitalist activist, the Charles Dickens of futurism, Gerd Leonhard is a green..." (futureof.biz) Gerd Leonhard: Cool IT leader board (mediafuturist.com) Oil Industry: Electric Cars Are No Threat (huffingtonpost.com)
PREVIOUS POST
Short video on privacy / publicy, date-is-the-new-oil (Fora.tv & Swissnex event in San Francisco) Here is a short, 3 minute excerpt from the SwissNex event in San Francisco (April 11, 2012) we will publish the entire video soon, as well, on Gerdtube. For now, you can see it here. My slideshow is here Related articles "Apparently, for a few hundred years, the total energy demand of humanity has risen steadily at about..." (futureof.biz) Data is the New Oil: The Journey from Privacy to Publicy - swissnex (stoweboyd.com) Data is the new Oil, Privacy becomes... Publicy? (my presentation at SwissNexSF) (mediafuturist.com) Gerd Leonhard: New video: My Keynote on Broadband Futures (from the future with high-speed broadband conference in Auckland) (mediafuturist.com) Gerd Leonhard: Future of Broadband: TeleMedia Ecosystems (from Auckland) (mediafuturist.com) New video interview: the future of social media, paid content, data-oil, marketing and communications (mediafuturist.com) Futurologists speak out at LawTech Futures 2012 (good summary of my talk) (mediafuturist.com)

Gerd Leonhard

Keynote Speaker, Think-Tank Leader, Futurist, Author & Strategist, Idea Curator, some say Iconoclast | Heretic, CEO TheFuturesAgency, Visiting Prof FDC Brazil, Green Futurist

The Futures Agency
steve
techonomy
Alan Edgett
The Typepad Team
David Rosen

Search

Other things I use

Recent Comments