Events
2009 - a year for Playing 'Catch-Up' (Part 1)
Monday 19 January 2009
This is Part one with Part two (looking at who will probably better off at this time next year) to come shortly. If you are in a position to sharpen your thinking, catch a breath or use some time to improve your understanding of the ways in which we create our societies, then I have a three items to recommend to you for this year - two books and one search engine option. The books offer additional ways to the consider some of the scientific research we hear about (without being too 'jargon' laden) and the search engine is arguably one of the best pieces of technology I've seen for quite some time.
First up the books which I'd recommend you include in your 2009 reading priorities.
John Grant's 'Corrupted Science: Fraud, Ideology and Politics in Science' was published in 2007 by 'Facts, Figures and Fun' and may not have made it into your basket for holiday time. Don't miss it. If you'd benefit from understanding the way in which science is used to support dubious political and personal positions, with great case studies and blatant 'lies' in science, then you ought to read this book. It'll certainly improve your 'BS Detector' when the next piece of psuedo science is thrown at you to support an less than supportable case.
'The Carbon Age' by Eric Roston is the next book, published late last year by Walker & Company it is a wonderous look at the atom that is 'Carbon', its various forms in combination with other atoms, how we manipulate it and what The Carbon Age really means for us as a species. A bit more science heavy than Corrupted Science, Roston poses the position that Carbon Dioxide greenhouse gases and the like that are top of mind and highly reported at the moment are natural events that circulate carbon in various forms as part of an earthly cycle but that we have added the breakdown of the carbon atom such that we now threaten life as we know it. It is a scary proposition and one that forces a need for action, not complacency in terms of addressing the way we are adding to the speed and size of the cycle. The book falls a bit flat towards the end before picking up again and by then you should have a greatly enhanced understanding of what we are really talking about when we talk the age of Carbon.
Finally I'd like to recommend a Search Engine tool called Searchme.com that could well be the shape of search engines in the future. If you've read my writings over the years you'll know even as a futurist I am a technology sceptic, having seen and read more claims about innovations in technology that I can recall. You'll also know that I am a pragmatist and am fully supportive of any technology that can really improve the things we do. This search engine presents you with a visual view of the front page of websites that contain the subject you've entered into the search bar. You can then simply scroll past each page quickly reading the headlines before skipping on to the one you want or trying again - just like reading a magazine. I'm a huge fan of Google and as the new search engine builds, suspect I'll be using Google less and www.Searchme.com a lot more and if you have a preference for viewing images rather than reading lots of text (as traditional search engines present things to you), then this new beta format is one of the game changing ideas.
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Events
Tuesday 8 May 2012
Have just spent a few hours discussing the Future of Money, hosted by James Bibby at Microsoft in Sydney and facilitated by Peter Vander Auwera from SWIFT/Innotribe. I'd like to flag that everyone understood that the session was way too short for such a big topic and everyone would agree that we just scratched the surface (not that the scratch would leave too much of a mark just yet). The session was a kick start for a group from a wide variety of interests: banks, payment providers' IT specialists and some specialty consultancies.
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Wednesday 2 May 2012
Ernst & Young and GreenBiz have completed a survey of business executives looking at the development of Corporate Sustainability around the world. The report shows that there has been a clear rise in awareness; that employees are a core source driving sustainability actions; that reduction of costs is a core appeal and that return on investment in sustainability actions is required to be judged in the same way as other corporate investments. For me this poses a dichotomy of thinking - the environment was built up over millennia and our use of it has taken just a couple of centuries yet we judge sustainability actions at the same 'speed of delivery' criteria. That poses a challenge and is perhaps an unrealistic set of expectations.
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Tuesday 24 April 2012
On the eve of ANZAC day here in Australia ABC Radio Darwin's Vicki Kerrigan chats with futurist Marcus Barber on the future of war - what the future triggers of war might be and how war will be fought
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