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 ...]]> 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 countries.  In one month!  That is something that has never happened in human history.

Six months ago, if someone said “Occupy” to you, you would ask for clarification.  Today that word has meaning.  It has become a meme.  “We are the 99%” is now a meme.  The power of the Occupy and 99%/1% memes, are so global and so powerful now because they are both memes and movements.

This connectedness is now faster than most 20^th century institutions, let allow 18^th century institutions such as the United States Congress.  The recent SOPA and PIPA controversy happened not just because of the mobilizing power of the Internet, but because connected memes to movements are infinitely faster that the processes of Congress.  They are also more powerful than the 20^th century institutional distribution system called Hollywood.

Hollywood has a long developed habit of paying politicians (where have you gone Jack Valenti?) to do their bidding.  As a futurist I have to say that they are on the wrong side of history.  Here is a suggestion to Google, You Tube, Reddit, Tumblr and specifically Rotten Tomatoes, and any other site that carries videos.  If Hollywood tries to ham fistedly try to censor the Internet again, what you should all do is take down all the reviews of current movies, all the video trailers of movies about to open from your sites.  Hollywood uses the Internet for free to promote their 20^th century distribution models.  Have the Internet companies ever complained to the studios about all the free and often primary promotional resource they have provided?

So, as I often say, welcome to the Shift Age!  Memes become Movements.  Six years ago, when I started this blog, I picked the name evolutionshift( my name on Twitter- please follow) as I see a coming evolutionary shift in consciousness ahead.  Memes to Movements is one of the first significant synaptic steps in that direction.

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 ...]]> 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 books to be published by years end.  These books will not only be about the future, they will be published in an entirely new model as of course the book publishing industry is in a state of transforming itself from the way it has been to the ways it will be.

So, stayed tuned, open your eyes and minds, loosen your strongly held positions and accept that we are all alive in the most transformative of times.

Now for a couple of things to touch on as the year begins, one looking back and the other looking at the present.

TEDx Pittsburgh

As a professional speaker and futurist it was a profound honor to speak at the TEDx conference in Pittsburgh, brilliantly coordinated by Leadership Pittsburgh.  This is one of the many TEDx conferences around the world licensed by TED and TED.com. The theme of this conference was “Power”, presented in five sections.  I was honored to lead off the first section called “Ascendant Power” with a presentation called “Flows”

There were incredible people and incredible presentations the entire weekend of November 19-20, 2011. My thinking was changed during that weekend.  I strongly recommend that you go to the conference site and take a look.  Your thinking might change as well.

CES

CES, the Consumer Electronic Show, is currently going on this second week of January 2012.  CES is one of the biggest conventions in the world with more than 140,000 attendees.  It has been a very significant convention as it is when the electronics industry shows the world what will be the next big things by the end of the year.  It is beyond a gathering of tribes of gadget folks and content folks.  It is usually hosting lots of live media feeds, local news reporters breathlessly reporting to the viewing audiences back home all the cool things they can buy next Christmas.

Well, the best days of CES are long gone even if more people attend.  Its’ significance diminishes every year.  This is due simply to the ever accelerating rate of change and innovation which brings transformative products to the marketplace weekly.  I attended CES a year ago and all the breathless hype was about how everyone would soon be watching 3-D TV at home, the coming of 3-G and about all the tablets from companies like HP and Blackberry that would threaten the dominance of the iPad.  Uh, sure.  The only tablet that is doing that to any degree is the Kindle Fire, announced in September by Amazon and selling well now.

This is not a criticism of CES it is just that the rapid rate at which transformative products come to market has rendered getting together with 100,000+ of your closest friends every January a residual iconic event of the 20^th century.  What was cool and cutting edge for a year is now cool and cutting edge for a month.

The year is 2012.  Hang on and be fluid.

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 ...]]> 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 is the broad nature of the demands being made. Across the board we are in an era of almost unprecedented creative destruction of institutions and ways of thinking. There are so many things out of kilter, there are so many social and demographic groups that are hurting and developing a sense of lack of fairness or wrong direction that Occupy has become a Rorschach movement where any group that feels disenfranchised can join in.

The fourth reason it is so powerful is that it quickly created a slogan that embraces so many:  We are the 99%!

The fifth reason, at least in the U.S. is that there is so much intense dissatisfaction with the two political parties. Simply put, they are a co-dependent duopoly. The Occupy movement has very quickly triangulated the larger political and social conversation away from this duopoly.  It is almost amusing, if not pathetic, how awkwardly both parties are dealing with the Occupy movement.

The power of this movement is clear in the sense that just by saying one word, “occupy”, people know exactly what you are referring to.  Think about that.  If I had said “occupy” to anyone reading these words six months ago you would have given me a blank stare.  Now I get your opinion.

In 2008 and 2009 I predicted tremendous upheavals in Islamic countries due to the Accelerating Electronic Connectedness of the planet.  That prediction became the Arab Spring.  Along with it, the Occupy movement represents a new Shift Age, 20^th century phenomenon.  Memes become movements with breathtaking speed.  Connectedness moves us toward a new realm of consciousness in ways never before seen.

The name of my first book, published four years ago was “The Shift Age”. Everything is now in some rate of shift.  The speed of change has become environmental; we live in an environment of change.  It is the global stage of human evolution.

My now six year old blog is named Evolutionshift and is also my name on Twitter.  The accelerating electronic connectedness is combining with our having entered the global stage of human evolution and is moving us toward an evolutionary shift or next stage of human consciousness.  The beginnings are unfolding before our eyes and in our minds.

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 ...]]> 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 Picasso.  Steve was one of those people.  It is impossible to imagine our present world without his influence.

We knew it was coming.  The change in his appearance made it clear.  Yet it was not something we allowed in – not yet.  It was sad to watch, yet the sadness at his death still moves me deeply as I write these words.

People who have heard me speak in the past few years sometimes thought I was shilling for Apple.  Steve and Apple represent so many of the trends and forces that are of our time and our time ahead.  Computers for regular people.  High touch and high tech.  Seeing and leading the future.  Giving people power through technological devices, allowing us to shape our lives, our way.  The app phone is the portal through which we see the world, through which we let the world in.  Computing and communicating anywhere, anytime, without the limitation of place.

Apple was a Morph Corp, the metaphor for corporations in the Transformation Decade.  Did Steve not lead the company through transformation after transformation?  Always morphing the company: computer company, music company, consumer electronic company, retailing company, the highest emotional content brand on the planet. That is why Fortune named him the CEO of the decade.  How about CEO of our lifetime?

Steve evidently was a difficult personality.  He was in good company: Beethoven, Mozart, Picasso, Lennon, Edison and Ford.  You can’t be different, demand excellence, stand firmly for the future with a vision that others can’t see, and not be in conflict with things as they are, with existing perceptions of reality.  No, he created a reality that others couldn’t see.  Once he shared it with us, it became our reality.  He created the future, which became our present reality.

He saw the future.  He created it for us.  He set the course and direction of so many technologies, companies, markets, ways of doing business, and how, in fact, we live.  He shaped our relationships with technology, and with the ones we love.

Death may end a life, but perhaps our relationships with Steve will live on. I keep feeling this sadness.  Steve’s death is an incalculable loss for all of us.  The only thing that tempers this sadness is what I see ahead.  What I see are luminaries standing up among us over the next 10-20 years, giving us wonderful things, showing us new ways to improve our lives.  They will all say it was Steve Jobs who gave them their inspiration.

A great futurist has died. His inspiration will live forever.

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 ...]]> 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 as possibly being a joke, several academic pundits pushed back, saying that the upstart group was truly filling a void for voters who were outside the mainstream, obviously young, and had felt underrepresented by the gray conformity of the traditional parties.  As millennial members of the Pirate Party stated, even the Green Party has gone mainstream.  Any analogy there with American millennials and Obama?

The Pirate Party ran on issues like online privacy, data protection, complete transparency in politics, and a promise to use online tools to give party members unprecedented power to propose policies in what they have called “liquid democracy” – a participation that is ongoing and of a deeper engagement than simply voting in elections.  Andreas Baum, the party’s lead candidate in the election, went further and defined transparency as “also being able to admit when we don’t know something.”  Wow!  That’s a concept that is completely foreign to the current landscape of career politicians, who are leading their respective countries down a careening path to nowhere, with mild panic and uncertainty.

With the U.S. moving toward the 2012 electoral free-for-all, the Pirate Party is not only a breath of fresh air, but, hopefully, a wind of change starting to blow across the electoral landscape of the democratic world.  The Democrats and the Republicans can’t work together, can’t come up with new ideas, and are therefore bashing each other with the old, tired language that continues to represent the legacy thinking of the last century.  Perhaps it is time for the young people of the U.S. to look closely at the Pirate Party of Berlin and craft an American version that could start to loosen up the deadening language, direction and ineptitude of the political party duopoly in the country.

In the 21^st century, the Gilbert and Sullivan soundtrack to The Pirates of Penzance will give way to the Pirate Party’s soundtrack of Metallica and Eminem.