Category Archives: Futurist

Omaha, NE (PRWEB) November 05, 2014

At the core of their mission, the Farm Credit Services of America believes "American agriculture has grown to become the largest, most efficient and productive food system in the world, but it remains a business of people." The FCS is hosting the Leaders Conference in Omaha, NE and their keynote speakers, agricultural trend expert Jack Uldrich and best selling author Joseph Grenny, will focus on how to maximize the leaders of the FCS's communication skills and ability to embrace change through forward thinking.

The theme of the event is "Transforming Tomorrow, and Uldrich will deliver his keynote "Foresight 2020: Ten Trends Transforming Tomorrow." One of Uldrich's main missions it to get his audience to think, not just outside the box, but also to be original, creative, imaginative, artistic, innovative, and resourceful within the box. He actively encourages his clients to take time to just think, if you can afford to, "take a whole week just to contemplate."

One concept he shares with his audiences is the 'disappearing word.' "To better understand the future," says Uldrich, "I frequently advise my audiences to be aware of descriptor phrases that will fade away in time. For example, we no longer say 'color TV,' its just TV. The same will eventually be true of 'precision' agriculture and 'prescriptive' planting. Soon, itll just be referred to as agriculture and planting. Ultimately, through encouraging his clients to think, he seeks to help his clients turn new ideas into strategy and action, and transform inspirational leaders with the power of awareness, to influence and shape change.

Uldrich who addressed the FCS in April will be discussing a number of business, political, social, economic, demographic and technological trends with the leaders in Omaha. Some of the trends he will be covering are precision agriculture, data mining/business analytics, biofuels, hydroponics, vertical farming, synthetic biology, cloud computing and supercomputing.

In addition to the top ten trends, Uldrich will also highlight how members of FCC Services can learn to embrace ambiguity;" why finding a reverse mentor could be crucial; and why taking small risks may very well be the safest thing they can do to position themselves for success in the years to come.

Uldrich, who is also recognized as a leading expert in the field of change management and unlearning, has addressed dozens of agricultural corporations and associations, including the PMA, Novozymes, Land O' Lakes, Ag Spectrum, MosaicAg, Case IH, The Christian Farmers Federation, The Iowa Institute for Cooperatives, The Agricultural Adaptation Council of Ontario, AgGateway, the California Ag Summit, along with several other clients in a variety of industries, like ABB/Thomas & Betts, Fiatech, United Healthcare, Cisco, IBM, and Wells Fargo.

Following his keynote in Omaha, Uldrich will round out the week speaking in Austin, Texas at the Clearesult Energy Summit providing a customized presentation on the future of energy efficiency, business and technological trends.

Parties interested in learning more about him, his books, his daily blog or his speaking availability are encouraged to visit his website. Media wishing to know more about either the event or interviewing Jack as a futurist or trend expert can contact Amy Tomczyk at (651) 343.0660.

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Transforming Tomorrow, Together: Futurist Jack Uldrich & Author Joseph Grenny to Keynote FCCS Conference in Omaha

Syracuse, N.Y. Syracuse.com, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary, asked business leaders, futurists and scholars to predict the most high-impact developments in technology over the next five years and 20 years.

Here are the predictions of Anthony Rotolo, a technologist, futurist, author and professor at Syracuse University's S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications: What will be the most high-impact developments in technology over the next five years?

I think the most high-impact developments in technology over the next few years will be be related to mobility not just the smartphones we know today, but new types of devices that will extend what we can do with technology on the go. The Apple Watch, for example, is a sign of things to come, but future versions of this idea will offer even more features to change and expand how we communicate and connect with each other, and also how we understand ourselves.

This means smarter health and fitness technology, faster and more secure ways to pay for the things we buy, enhanced cars and homes, and a more seamless integration of technology into all aspects of our busy lives. In the next five years, we will continue to embrace the benefits of a digital world where content and products are available on demand. What will be the most high-impact developments in technology over the next 20 years?

Twenty years from now, we will see far more dramatic results in every aspect of our digital world. "3-D printing" technology will be one of the driving forces that quite literally reshapes how we live and work. Just as information was digitized and shared online, so will the physical objects in our homes and stores become digital, downloadable and able to be produced almost instantly.

Today we are seeing only the smallest beginnings of 3-D printing, and already this technology is helping everyday people make their ideas and creations into real objects right at home. Doctors and scientists are already able to 3-D print custom prosthetics, while architects and contractors are 3-D printing homes and NASA prepares to send 3-D printers into space. In 20 years time, we will see widespread access to 3D printing at home, work and in school.

With the ability to fabricate real, usable objects from digital files, the tangible world will begin to behave like the digital information we know today. Soon we will be able to "send" real objects to each other, or quite literally download and print a new product, article of clothing, or perhaps even a new car!

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Futurist Anthony Rotolo: New devices will extend what we can do on the go

COLLOQUY Interviews Author and Futurist Mike Walsh
COLLOQUY interviews author and futurist Mike Walsh about the changing landscape of loyalty, technology, and his presentation at the 2014 COLLOQUY Loyalty Sum...

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COLLOQUY Interviews Author and Futurist Mike Walsh - Video

Washington D.C. (PRWEB) November 04, 2014

In our ever changing and rapidly paced world, future-proofing one's business is a key component to success. Futurist Jack Uldrich makes a living traveling the world and writing on how to do just that, and Grant Thornton is bringing him in to address their Advanced Manager Program in Washington D.C. to speak with 62 of their up and coming leaders from all around the world. Individuals from 33 countries will be represented at the event. The purpose is to help these young leaders prepare for a swiftly shifting workplace in the coming years.

Founded in Chicago in 1924, Grant Thornton is one of the worlds leading organizations of independent audit, tax and advisory firms and they works with a broad range of publicly and privately held companies, government agencies, financial institutions, and civic and religious organizations. By fostering responsible entrepreneurship, Grant Thornton helps their clients grow and fuel a thriving economy. Similarly, Uldrich does the same thing by inspiring clients like Grant Thornton, Verizon Wireless, The American Medical Association, ABB, Emerson and McGladrey to embrace change and prepare wisely for the ever shifting sands within their specific workplace.

Uldrich's work is based on the transformational principles of unlearning or freeing yourself from obsolete knowledge and assumptions as a strategy to survive and thrive in an era of unparalleled change. He argues that creativity and action are more powerful and versatile than knowledge. "Leaders must become aware of the extraordinary changes taking place across todays global landscape. In fact, the Internet of Things (also known as the Industrial Internet) has alone been estimated to be a $15 trillion business opportunity in the coming decade," says Uldrich.

He will round out his speaking engagements this week speaking at the Farm Credit Services Leaders Conference in Omaha, NE., and the Clearesult Annual Energy Summit in Austin, TX.

Parties interested in learning more about Jack, his books, his daily blog or his speaking availability are encouraged to visit his website. Media wishing to know more about either the event or interviewing Uldrich as a futurist or trend expert can contact Amy Tomczyk at (651) 343.0660.

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Business as Unusual: Futurist Jack Uldrich to Address Grant Thornton's Up & Coming Managers

Futurist Says Humans Evolving Into A New Species
Even though evolution can take thousands of years to occur, it appears that humans are already amidst a change within the species. Human evolution is a long ...

By: GeoBeats News

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Futurist Says Humans Evolving Into A New Species - Video

The Future of Knowledge, Learning, Education and Universities: Futurist Speaker Gerd Leonhard
http://adf.ly/70849/mcnwithfullapprove This is the full-length video of my talk at the Utrecht Center for Humanities on September 20, 2013, on the topic of t...

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The Future of Knowledge, Learning, Education and Universities: Futurist Speaker Gerd Leonhard - Video

Let me be up front about it. Im a Feschuk flipper. When my Macleans arrives, I go straight to the back pages and find Scott Feschuks humour column. I bet thousands of subscribers do the same. Feschuk is the countrys funniest wise guy, and most weeks there are laughs in every sentence.

And I can pinpoint the moment I realized that his new book The Future And Why We Should Avoid It: Killer Robots, the Apocalypse and Other Topics of Mild Concern is every bit as delightful as his magazine columns.

It came on page 19, when Feschuk describes Google Glass as a dork monocle the perfect description for what the company claims is a hands-free, voice-activated, augmented-reality headset.

Feschuk takes a sardonic yet sobering look at whats over the horizon for our tech-obsessed culture.But sober is the last thing youll want to be in Feschuks future world, in which microwaves sneer at you and dancing robots play the trumpet when not doing a piss-poor job of vacuuming.

Its even more fun to read about the stuff Apple would be bringing to market if Feschuk ran the company, products such as the iCouch. It lets you update Facebook by shifting your butt, and is marketed as a better version ofGoogle Heinie.

Feschuks timing is perfect, now that personal tech and wearable tech are such a part of our daily experience.

Hes at his sharpest on the arrival of connected appliances.

The iToaster with an embedded GPS so youll never again lose track of your bagel does not exist, not yet anyway, but LG has introduced an oven that can download recipes and display them on a built-in screen, he notes.

And thank heavens for that, because until now there has been no way to obtain recipes other than by computer, iPad, smartphone, book, magazine, cereal box, soup can, memory, guesstimation or grandmother. And who has ever got one of those handy?

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Futurist and funnyman, Scott Feschuk has a new book-type thingy

Glen Hiemstra - Founder of Futurist.com, Author and Speaker on the Future
Glen Hiemstra is the Founder of Futurist.com. He attended his first WFS annual meeting in 1982. An internationally acclaimed expert on long range trends and ...

By: speakerchannel

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Glen Hiemstra - Founder of Futurist.com, Author and Speaker on the Future - Video

The interior of Scarborough's Futurist Theatre.

The Theatres Trust has warned that Scarboroughs Futurist Theatre will face demolition after the proposed bidder for the site was named as theme park Flamingo Land.

Details of the bid made by Flamingo Land a theme park in North Yorkshire were released in September under Bidder B. However, Scarborough Borough Council has subsequently named the company in response to public concern.

If successful, Flamingo Land Coast will include a glass-roofed botanical garden, a rollercoaster, and bar, restaurant and function spaces.

Mark Price, theatres at risk adviser for the Theatres Trust, said the trust had had the Futurist on its theatre buildings at risk register since 2006, adding that the venue currently provided the only indoor venue in Scarborough capable of hosting large scale touring theatre and musical productions needing a flytower.

The 2,150-seat venue was built in 1921 and was used as a theatre and cinema up until its closure in early 2014, which followed years of uncertainty.

The theatre is owned by the council, which decided to close it after negotiations over a new contract with the venues operator broke down.

A report on the future of the theatre also found it to be no longer sustainable.

Price added: We regret the loss of the Futurist which has provided Scarborough with a fully equipped lyric theatre and cinema for over 93 years. It could have been restored to its former splendour and been a real asset for the town.

Bids for the site closed in August and Flamingo Land is working on the project with Leeds-based property and construction company, GMI Estates.

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News: Theatres Trust fears Futurist demolition after theme park bidder is revealed

"I wanted buzzwords," William Gibson says of his early writing ambitions. "I wanted buzz-neologisms, really." He scored with "cyberspace," the term he coined in a short story and popularized in his 1984 novel "Neuromancer," to describe, well never mind, you know what cyberspace is.

But we didn't then. In an era when "Dynasty" and "Dallas" dominated the airwaves and people marveled at the first Apple Macintosh computer, the idea that personal computers might connect to a notional space for business and communications that could be broken into, hacked that was the stuff of fiction.

"It's fairly common for other people to say that lots of things in 'Neuromancer' subsequently came to pass, but I don't myself say that," Gibson says with a laugh. He's talking by phone from his home in Toronto, short, frequent bursts of laughter underscoring an element of absurdity, amusement.

The burden of his prophetic debut novel is that he's frequently thought of as a futurist, although he dodges when asked about the label. His fiction resists it: In his new novel, "The Peripheral" (Putnam, 496 pp., $28.95), two story lines in different futures intersect via an unexplained, quasi-quantum technology. The science is more fairy tale than futurist, "very hand-wavy and vague," Gibson says. "That's a deliberate and I think comic violation of what some people would suppose my job description to be."

"The Peripheral" is a fast-paced mystery that takes place in two futures, one several decades hence and the other 75 years beyond that. The latter is a much-transformed but recognizable London; the former, a rural American town with little going on but an illegal drug trade, a megastore called Hefty Mart and an indie 3-D print shop. With these worlds mysteriously intersecting, the book's heroine, Flynn, witnesses a murder, inadvertently putting her small town in danger.

"It became colored with my childhood sense of what a small American town is like, which is a very Southern sense of what a small American town is like," Gibson says. Raised in South Carolina and Virginia, Gibson's voice has a soft Southern lilt, interrupted by "agayn" for "again," "bean" rather than "been." Gibson drifted to Canada during the Vietnam War and stayed; he's married and raised his family there.

Gibson is a countercountercultural baby boomer: He went to Woodstock and thought it was a bust, never got Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run" but was transfixed by "Nebraska." "That was a really powerful influence on my work," he says of the stripped-down, bleak record. "When I heard that I began to think what it would be like to apply that aesthetic to science fiction."

The outsider looking in: Gibson savvily applies that to his own relationship with technology. He was late to give up his flip-phone because not having an iPhone allowed him to observe "dispassionately, anthropologically" how other people interacted with theirs.

It's an interesting approach, needing to be close to technologies that promise the future but not too close. He tells a pre-Internet days story of being at the bar at a science fiction convention and hearing two women former Pentagon key-punch operators talking about computer viruses, then obscure and mysterious. "I just went home completely full of it. I didn't really know anything about it I was decoding it poetically," he says. "I operate from the vernacular poetry of technology and from watching how people interact with technology."

Twelve books in, Gibson knows his process. "What I have to do is write a first sentence that's capable of sucking me through the white wall of the blank first page," he says. "Once I'm really working, I'm never not working, which is kind of a drag. The process sort of constitutes an altered state, and it can take days to do it, get the altered state up and running. I've learned to put everything on hold and just stay there."

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William Gibson coaxes the future out of the present