As a futurist I often feel as though I live in a déjà- vu world. I write about something and then months or years later it occurs or becomes something that is on the minds of a lot of people.

This is the first of what may be occasional columns from years past written here that, for one reason or another, are relevant to what is currently going on in the world.  As a futurist I try to write “ahead of the curve” or to take a “future look at today”. Sometimes old columns resonate today.  This is one of them.

The recent – and ongoing – flap about privacy settings on Facebook is just the latest incident that makes us think about our privacy in this age of connectivity and social media.  When we are confronted with this issue, predictably we seem to recoil and speak about invasion of privacy.  We get upset that our personal data is or could be shared with people we don’t know.

Facebook, with  almost too numerous to count privacy settings, is clearly a conflicted company when it comes to privacy.  It has a culture, purpose and business model that is completely about sharing, or sharing completely.  A complete surrender of privacy is the ideal.

To focus on Facebook and other social media as a place of concern for privacy is myopic.  We all long ago gave up privacy for the sake of convenience.  In the larger scheme of things we have willingly, if not fully consciously, …

Many of you have been loyal readers of this blog for years and to all of you I loudly say thank you!  As many of you may know, about four months ago I became a featured contributor on Oprah.com writing a column every other week.  In fact, since I started to write that column it is clear that a lot of the new email subscribers to this blog are readers from www.oprah.com/davidhoule .

The columns I write there are different in subject, tone and address issues not covered here.  I would like to use this column to direct you to some of the columns you might find of interest.  To those new readers from Oprah.com I thank you in advance for your patience as you may have read some or all of these columns before.  If not, here is a chance to catch up on what you missed.

The Future of Shopping In this column I take a look at shopping past present and future.  For those of you that enjoyed my columns on Dubai, I discuss how the future of shopping can be seen there.

Your Kids Are Different …. And It’s OK!  Part One As parents we realize how different our kids are from us, how the landscape in which they have grown up is so different from the landscape of our childhood and youth.  In this column I take a look at the Millennial generation.

Your Kids Are Different….And It’s OK!  Part Two.  Here …

In my last column I wrote about Dubai and that it is a 21^st Century city.  As a futurist I felt at home being there as it feels like a city that is fully looking forward rather than stuck in a legacy past.  In this column I want to take a look at some of the dynamics that have shaped this city to be so forward facing.  Too many cities in the world are stuck in the past, the recent past or are looking into the future completely through present day problems.  What can other cities learn from Dubai?

Dubai exists today because of the vision of a city that was birthed and built by three successive leaders who systematically implemented that vision.  The Al Maktoum family has ruled Dubai for the past 200 years.  In 1958 Sheik Rashid took over as the ruler of Dubai and was a very hands-on ruler, making twice daily trips through the then small town, seeking interaction with the populace.  He saw that the future necessitated the construction of infra-structure, services, and an open policy towards the rest of the world.  His view seemed to be decades ahead.

In 1968, the United Kingdom decided to end the treaty it had in place with the seven emirates.  Three years later in 1971 the United Arab Emirates was formed and the seven states put in place a Supreme Council that oversaw all the general policies of the U.A.E.  This council operated – and operates …

In recent columns, here and here, I have written about how looking at the world through a lens of centuries can help to clarify what is in ascendancy and what is in decline.  Is something 20^th Century or is it 21^st Century?

I recently spent five days in Dubai.  Dubai is truly a 21^st Century City.  It is a city built for and in this century.  It is based entirely on a vision of the future.  As a futurist I look into and think about the future.  I look at trends, patterns, dynamics and directional energies to see what lies ahead.  It is clear that many large entities and certainly most cities do not really focus on the future let alone the long term.  Most are preoccupied with current problems, the next quarter or the next year.  This is not the case with Dubai.

50 years ago Dubai was a small town of thousands resting of a couple of sandy spits of land and now it is a sprawling city of 1.5 million.  Due to the benevolent and visionary leadership of three sheiks over the last 60 years a forward thinking city has been created.  What this vision has manifested is truly remarkable.

Many of you have heard of the huge debt issues that surfaced last fall in Dubai.  This is true, with many building sites idle.  This is no different that all the building sites, vacant blocks and endless numbers of dark McMansions littering the landscape here in …

We just celebrated the 40^th anniversary Earth Day.  Earth Day has been a remarkable creation that, over the last 40 years, created awareness of environmental issues.  As with many other issues, a coordinated, well promoted day long event has worked well in this media saturated world.  Pick a date, work tirelessly for months, create awareness and provoke large numbers of citizens to take part, take action and demonstrate, all to highlight a cause.

As someone who has written numerous columns on my blog about alternative energy, I was inundated these past few weeks with companies, publishers, PR agents, architects, energy start-ups and associations pitching me story ideas related to Earth Day.  Every one beating their environmental drum, loudly.  This is to be praised and acknowledged.  The difference for me was then instead of one or two requests a week to interview someone or write a column, I was getting half a dozen email pitches a day in the weeks leading up to Earth Day.  All I kept thinking was: “Make every day like Earth Day, all year long.”

When the first Earth Day occurred in 1970, some 20 million people took part in some way.  It was this huge initial success that turbo charged the environmental movement in the U.S. and around the world.  It could be argued that the first photo of the whole earth from space taken in 1968, the resultant Whole Earth Catalog, landing a man on the moon in 1969 and then Earth Day a year later were …