In the past I have written that as a futurist, it sometimes feels like I live in a state of déjà vu. I spend a lot of time researching and looking into the future to develop the forecasts and trends that I write and speak about. I experience them, see them, and have varying degrees of certainty when I publish or present them.

Since 2011 began, so many of the forecasts and trends I predicted over the last four years are coming true, I feel as if I’m in an almost constant state of déjà vu. Now, as I spend some 22 hours traveling from Chicago to Singapore, scanning stacks of periodicals from around the world, this feeling is amplified.

I will write a lot in the coming weeks and months about all these forecasts and trends. As a futurist, I should be judged in part on how accurate I am, so it is indeed gratifying that many of the events/trends I predicted have become reality in 2011. The purpose of all these upcoming columns is to be able to point to actual events as the manifestations of what I have been speaking and writing about since 2006, when this blog began, and 2007, when I wrote The Shift Age. This will help explain the truly transformative time we are now entering. In a few years, the world will look quite different from what it did in 2010. The early evidence is everywhere in 2011.

Here are some of the trends and forecasts …

01/01/11 is the second digital New Year’s Day in a row.  A year ago it was 01/01/10, also zeros and ones, the two digits of the Information Age of computers.  That column, called “The Transformation Decade” seemed to resonate immediately as it was widely sourced in the blogosphere and retweeted globally on Twitter.  I created a presentation, “The Transformation Decade: 2010-2020” that was widely requested and delivered around the world this past year.

The definition of ‘transformation’ is ‘a change in nature, shape, character and form’.  The Transformation Decade therefore will be the ten years when most of humanity and its’ institutions will change nature, shape, character and form. This transformative force will sweep most along with a palpable sense of acceleration and change.  In advising companies for example, I have said that old management theories that applied in the 20^th century are no longer sufficient, that only leading from a place of transformation will keep companies current with the world around them.  To not operate with a dynamic sense of the definition of the word transformation will risk decline and obsolescence.

In the past four years, and in the three years since my book “The Shift Age” was published, I have said two things.  First, that the Great Recession of 2007-2010 is a reorganizational recession as it is the economic transition between two ages, the Information Age and the Shift Age.  Second, that we are already in the Shift Age but that the perception and acceptance of a new …

In the Industrial Age we lived with an economy based upon atoms.  In the Information Age we created an economy based upon bits.  The zeros and ones in the title of this column of course represent the digits upon which the Information Age is based.

On 01/01/10 I wrote a column naming the decade 2010-2020 the Transformation Decade, explaining the term and what will come to pass in this decade.  As regular readers know I believe we have left the Information Age and entered the Shift Age, hence the title of my book “The Shift Age”.  Since January first of this year I have been speaking about the reality that 2010-2020 will be the first full decade of the Shift Age and that the first two years of this decade are “digital” years.  What I mean by that is that the regular six digit writing of dates in the two years 2010 and 2011 has a number of zero and one dates.  This of course is true whether you use the American month first protocol or the European day first protocol.  October tenth is 10/10/10 either way, as is 11/11/11.

The last time there were two such digital years was ten years ago and then a hundred years before that.  Now I am not a numerologist but I do think there is something to this in the sense that we have two digital years in a row as the transit between the Information and Shift Ages.  Of course these two …

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 the past year I have found that framing conversations about certain topics with the context of being of the 20^th century or of the 21^st century to be clarifying for most people.

I have written extensively about humanity being in transition between the Information Age and the Shift Age.  Those who have heard me speak or read my writings come to understand and accept this.  That said, this is a higher concept than the simple reality of the calendar.  No one can dispute the numerical fact that we are 10% into the 21^st Century, unless you want to debate whether the scientific concept of linear time verses the older concepts of cyclical time or chaotic time.

Once you start to look at the world, its’ institutions and both business categories and specific companies, through this 20^th versus 21^st century filter, things become clearer.

Here are some examples:

I could go on for pages, but the lists above should both provide clarity and food for thought.

A very simple way to look at the world is through this filter as it will bring clarity as to what will last and what won’t, to what will be significant and what will not be.  It is clear that companies created in the 20^th century that …