Stories of the 21st Century
The ‘big stories’ of the 20th century included - electrification, suburbanization/home ownership, mass motoring, plastics (polymers), consumerism, broadcast media, American geopolitics, and industries built upon microscale science & engineering (microelectronics/microbiology) most notably information technology, agricultural science and pharmaceuticals. While these ideas and technologies seem commonplace today, they were once disruptive and beyond the imagination of most people only a century before.
What are the stories that might define life in the coming decades?
It is always impossible to have a single point prediction about the future, but the following ideas might evolve in ways that are unimaginable to us today- and find their place in the history books about the 21st century!
The shift of importance from a nation-state to planetary perspective around continued global economic integration, industries expanded and built from nanoscale science & engineering, expanding role of biology (e.g. bioenergy, biomanufacturing; synthetic biology; genomics/proteomics), decentralization of energy (distributed power generation and ‘packet’ distribution), transformation of urban environments and our notions of personal space around electric-H2 vehicles, transformation of regions around autonomous vehicles, role of the social web/social media, emergence of a map-oriented (geospatial/locative) pop culture, and the rise of a ‘culture of balance‘ driven by aging populations.
These are the broad themes and shifts covered in my research, writing and speaking.
[Note:
I am not a trend-spotter or a cool-hunter! As a professionally trained futurist I hold no delusions of an ability to predict a single point end-state into the future. I too cringe when self-declared ‘futurists’ dive too deeply into the world of pop-culture predictions and media-friendly sound bites. My focus is on leading conversations about disruptive change, not identifying the next killer app or technology to hit the streets. I am one of many members of an emerging profession of foresight practitioners who help organizations make better decisions and avoid surprises by questioning their assumptions about changes ahead. We explore the wide range of social and business implications related to plausible alternative futures.]
Contact -
Garry Golden garrygolden (at) gmail (dot) com cell - 34(sephen) - 4(six)3 - 7412