The three forces of the Shift Age are the Flow to Global, the Flow to the Individual and the Accelerated Electronic Connectedness of the planet.  There are 7 billion humans alive today and 5.3 billion of them have cell phones.  3 billion people connect to the Internet every day.  These are the forces and the numbers that are shaping most of the change and many of the headlines in media today.

The Accelerated Electronic Connectedness of humanity is perhaps the most significant dynamic in the world today.  It amplifies the first two flows.  It is one of the two reasons that, 4 years ago I forecast that there would be, in 3-5 years, great upheavals in dictatorships and Islamic states ( I didn’t know to call it Arab Spring because I didn’t know it would be in a season).  The second common denominator of the Arab Spring is that 45 to 55% of the population of every country is under the age of 25.  Combine Millennials and Digital Natives with the ability to connect electronically and you have the commonality of the Arab Spring.

In the Shift Age, there is a new, rapid reality of Memes to Movements.  In a recently uploaded video I speak briefly about this.  Think about Occupy Wall Street.  As I wrote in a recent column, the Occupy movement went from some 75 people demonstrating in a small park in Manhattan to tens of thousands of people demonstrating in hundreds of cities in 80 …

Well, here we are in 2012.  There is much about change and expectation in the air.  This is the year of the quadrennial presidential election in America, the ongoing drama about the future of the Euro and the next stage of the Occupy movement.  We continue to suffer the on-going debt overhang and hangover from drinking too deeply from 20^th century business models and ways of thinking.  The rate of change is ever accelerating and is now environmental.  Change and the anticipation of change is in the air and coursing through the global consciousness.  And yes, 2012 is the year of the Mayan Prophesy.

I will address all of these topics and more this year. It really will be a year to face and accept that we are truly in a new decade, century and age.  Looking back, wanting to go back, and wishing for the time when it all seemed to make sense must be jettisoned.  2011 has been summed up as a year of incredible change.  From the vantage point of 2014 it will seem like the ancient history of early beginnings.  Get ready and develop more fully the quality of adaptability.  Any strongly held resistance to change may well bring obsolescence, failure, depression and ultimately irrelevance.

This futurist will provide what I see ahead and will, as the tag line of this now six year old blog says, provide “a future look at today”.  In addition to this blog and my Shift Age Newsletter, I am writing two new …

The Occupy Wall Street movement must be looked at from both a historical and future perspective.  If you have just received your information through the main stream media of this movement you do not have a clear picture of its significance.

Occupy is a historically unprecedented movement.  In one month it went from several dozen people in one small park in lower Manhattan to tens if not hundreds of thousands of people demonstrating in several hundred cities in 80 countries.  That speed of growth and dissemination has never occurred before.  One of the three fundamental forces of the Shift Age is at play here: the accelerating electronic connectedness of the planet. Since 2007 I have been saying that this is the most profound and powerful force at play with humanity right now and that it would initiate new forms of communications, movements and individual empowerment.  Never in human history has a movement moved from one city to hundreds around the world in one month. Ever!

The second reason it spread so fast is that its ethos – no vertical structures, only horizontal structures – is perfectly aligned with this connected global electronic reality that is web-like and flat.  It is a movement whose message is fully aligned with its structure and connectivity.  To get a sense of this breadth and flatness, take a look at this site just constructed by a friend and you will see the global connectivity.

The third reason that it is a very contemporary phenomenon worth watching …

Thank you, Steve.

That is what we all have been saying in the past few days, usually with emotion, often deep emotion.  Life went on pause when I first heard the news.  My wife shed tears.  The statements – visual and written – that poured in evoked even more emotion.  How Steve touched people and shaped their lives was stunning.  I sent a condolence email to a friend who has always been ready to convert anyone who isn’t living in the temple of Apple.  If I felt this sad, what was he feeling?

That’s the way it was the day we learned of his passing.  Did you look at and hold your iPhone differently in those hours after you learned?  Did your fingers pause on the keyboard of your MacBook Pro?  Did you hold your iPad to your chest for a moment, not realizing you were doing so?  As you put in a half-hour on the elliptical machine, did you look at your tiny Shuffle clipped onto your shirt and realize how much more enjoyable he made this experience?

It was of one of those few times in our lives when someone we never met died, and we were hit with a powerful feeling of stunned sadness – one that we will never forget.  The reality that he changed our lives, made our lives better, and for many, changed the trajectory of their lives all came rushing in.  We’ve felt this before.  Leaders like Kennedy, King and Kennedy.  Cultural figures like Lennon and …

The recent elections in Berlin brought a breath of fresh air to the old, dull, gray landscape of political parties around the world.  At a time when it is hard to tell the difference between parties as they espouse old, tired, out-of-date ideas, along comes something completely different – the Pirate Party of Berlin.

Prior to the Berlin elections, the predictive articles in the German press were all about the traditional parties and which of them would increase and which would decrease in popularity and legislative influence.  Much of the coverage related to the parties’ relative positions on the Euro crisis and whether the elections would be a mandate on Chancellor Merkel’s position on that critical issue.  It was expected that the ever-more-mainline Green Party – which had been an outsider when compared with the Free Democrats, the Christian Democrats and the other traditional parties – would increase its influence and legislative power.

Well, surprise!   An upstart party called the Pirate Party polled 8.9 percent of the votes, overnight becoming a new force on the political landscape.  Compare that with less than 2 percent of the vote for the Free Democrats, Merkel’s coalition partner, which, because its total was well below the 5 percent needed to remain in the statehouse, is no longer there.

In the post-election press conference, the winning legislators of the Pirate Party – all in their 20s and 30s – showed up in hooded sweatshirts, with one even wearing a Captain America T-shirt.  When the Pirate Party was challenged …