It was just reported that, as expected, there are now more Internet users in China than in the U.S. As of last month there were 253 million Internet users in China as compared to 220 million in the U.S. What is striking is that in just the last year, the number of new users in China was 90 million, or a growth rate of more than 50%. That annual increase in users is more that the total number of users in most countries in the world.

There are several interesting aspects to these numbers. Of course, since China is the most populous country in the world with more than 1.3 billion people, it will ultimately have more of most any category of people, based on size alone. It is interesting that there seems to be an age divide in China. Not only are 70% of the country’s internet users under the age of 30, 90% of the new users in the last six months were high school students. This reflects the fact that the booming economy in China is led and fueled by those under the age of 40 as many of the older generations are still anchored in the past.

It is possible that, if current growth rates continue, China could have twice as many Internet users as the U.S. within two years. It is when that happens that Internet usage in China will bring about significant change. The 253 million Internet …

The tag line of this blog is “A Future Look at Today”. It is not a political blog, nor is this a political column. I have assiduously kept politics out of this space leaving partisan conversations about campaign issues to others. There is a lot of heat around partisan politics and such heat can prevent clarity. As a futurist I think about the future by looking at the trends, patterns and dynamic forces that exist or are beginning to form. Readers of this column come here to get a sense of what might happen and why. That is the purpose of this column today.

In my “2007/2008″ column published on January 1, 2008, before the Iowa caucus, my forecast for the 2008 election was:

“.. it looks to this observer that 2008 will be a Democratic landslide year on the order of 1936 and 1964. Who will be the President in 2009? The junior senator from Illinois.”

This forecast was and is based upon history, and an analysis of certain forces currently reshaping the world today. As a number of people who eagerly made bets with me in 2007 can attest, I have been saying that Barack Obama would be the next President of the United States for more than a year. The reason is that he represents, embodies and is utilizing powerful new forces that are in ascendancy today.

Disintermediation

Disintermediation has been, and will continue to be one of the most powerful forces in the …

Regular readers of this column may have noticed that in the past two months I have gone to a once a week posting.  That has in part been due to weeks of non-stop travel, speaking engagements and book signings.  I now find myself  being able to sit at my writing table for a whole week. A wonderful feeling! As a result, I will be posting some shorter columns over the next two weeks, addressing a backlog of topics that I have wanted to write about.  Those of you that have let me know you appreciate the slightly longer thought pieces, don’t worry, I will come back to those soon.  

A couple of weeks ago I launched a YouTube channel.  For at least the past year, people have been suggesting that I do video blogs or vlogs.  Since YouTube has become the place for videos, it made sense to create a channel there.  The idea is to create short videos that deal quickly with a single topic. Short attention span theater. Currently there are nine videos up, and I will be adding one or two a week.  The first group of videos relate to the themes that I speak about to audiences around the country and have written about in my new book “The Shift Age”.  While the subjects I write about here at Evolution Shift are usually topical, I want the videos to have a somewhat longer life so the subject matter is about this new age we are entering.

The link …

Growing up as part of the baby boom generation, a distinct memory is the air raid siren tests.  Every Tuesday, if I recall correctly, at 10a there was the test of the air raid siren blaring across the entire city of Chicago.  This was to prepare us for the possibility of a nuclear attack from the Soviet Union (so we could crawl under our desks as instructed by our teachers).  Since it happened each week at the same time we knew it was a test.  If it had happened on any other day, I might not be writing this column today.

The other thing I remember were those times, while riding in the family car, of listening to the testing of the national alert system via the AM radio airwaves: “This has been a test of the emergency broadcast system”.  What examples of communicating to the populace; sirens that pierced the air of every population center in America and the then ubiquitous AM radio band.  The air raid siren being the industrial age amplification of the town crier and the AM radio being the most widely distributed form of electronic media at that time.

All this came back to me a couple of weeks ago when I read that the FCC had approved a plan for an emergency alert system that would send text messages to cell phones. This system is expected to be in place by 2010. Now that 75% or the population have cell phones and we carry them every …

This is the second year for Evolution Shift to present you with a general forecast and somewhat more specific predictions for 2008.  The forecast for 2007 is here for those wanting to check out the accuracy of what was predicted for last year.  In addition I made some transitional 2007/2008 predictions last week, tying up the year end. 

We are now leaving the Information Age and entering the Shift Age.  The transition between these two ages began in 2006, gathered speed last year and will be even more fully felt in 2008 and 2009 when it will generally be understood that we in fact are living in a new age.  This is the underlying dynamic that is shaping most of the general trends and some of the specific trends and predictions below.

General Trends and Dynamics

1. The Flow to Global will continue to accelerate. Humanity is now entering its’ global stage of evolution.  Ultimately the only boundary will be planetary.  The global economy is the first stage of this dynamic.  This flow is the underlying force of many of the changes, disruptions and reorganizations that are going on.  It is also why many of the traditional terms, measurements and definitions used for the past few decades no longer seem quite right.  Barometers and cause and effect relationships of the recent past seem less valid year by year. We are no longer in the 20th century or the Information Age, therefore new terminology and reference points are needed..

2. The Flow to Individual …