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.

It was one hundred and six years ago that Albert Einstein stated that the speed limit of the cosmos was the speed of light – 186,000 miles per second.  The speed of light, the “c” in the equation E=mc2, has, since Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, been accepted as a fundamental axiom of science.  It is one of the foundations of quantum physics and much of scientific endeavor ever since.

This is why there has been such an uproar over the findings of a recent research project on neutrinos recently conducted at CERN, the European Center for Nuclear Research.. Neutrinos, sub-atomic particles were measured as traveling a distance of 450 miles (720 kilometers) 60 nanoseconds faster than it would take a light beam. Even this miniscule difference raises the possibility that the speed of light is no longer the upper speed limit of the universe.  Einstein himself once said that, if you could send a message faster than the speed of light “You could send a telegram to the past” [It is a commentary on the speed of the last century’s pace of invention that Einstein used the word telegram, but that is something for another column, newsletter or even book]

So the science fiction possibility of actual time travel and longstanding ideas of cause and effect might now have to be reconsidered.  The most published quote in reaction to these ...]]> [Note:  This column was published in the most recent Shift Age Newsletter.  You can sign up for a free subscription here.]

It was one hundred and six years ago that Albert Einstein stated that the speed limit of the cosmos was the speed of light – 186,000 miles per second.  The speed of light, the “c” in the equation E=mc2, has, since Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, been accepted as a fundamental axiom of science.  It is one of the foundations of quantum physics and much of scientific endeavor ever since.

This is why there has been such an uproar over the findings of a recent research project on neutrinos recently conducted at CERN, the European Center for Nuclear Research.. Neutrinos, sub-atomic particles were measured as traveling a distance of 450 miles (720 kilometers) 60 nanoseconds faster than it would take a light beam. Even this miniscule difference raises the possibility that the speed of light is no longer the upper speed limit of the universe.  Einstein himself once said that, if you could send a message faster than the speed of light “You could send a telegram to the past” [It is a commentary on the speed of the last century’s pace of invention that Einstein used the word telegram, but that is something for another column, newsletter or even book]

So the science fiction possibility of actual time travel and longstanding ideas of cause and effect might now have to be reconsidered.  The most published quote in reaction to these findings came from a theorist from CERN, Dr. Alvaro de Rujula: “If it is true, then we truly haven’t understood anything about anything.”  He further went on to say “It looks too big to be true.  The correct attitude is to ask oneself what went wrong.”

The group that reported the results was the Oscillation Project with Emulsion Tracking Apparatus or Opera.  The Opera group agreed with Dr. de Rujula and said they have published the findings in order to have them scrutinized. The findings are so astounding and fundamentally hard to accept that the hope is that they are either corroborated and confirmed with another experiment, or that some yet to be found flaw in the measurements of the experiment can be found.    100 years of scientific endeavor, training and thinking have been called into question.

Is this a moment such as finding out that the earth revolves around the sun or that the earth is round?  Is this one of those times when totally accepted scientific thought is proven wrong? Is this one of those moments that decades and centuries from now will be looked upon as a breakthrough threshold of science?

Given that it was the Opera group that is asking the question, we have to say, sorry folks, that it isn’t over until another scientific team sings.  If these findings are corroborated, then it will most likely be in 2012.  What if it was corroborated on 12/21/12, the date that the Mayans said that the world as we know it will change?

In January, I started to say that we should stop calling it the “Greek Debt Crisis” and start talking about it being the potential death rattle of the Euro.  In August, I suggested a 30%-60% chance the Euro would collapse.  A couple of weeks ago, when the “Euro solution” was widely trumpeted in the media, people who knew of my view of the situation sent me links about it.  Not so fast, I said.  This is not the final answer; it is a temporary delay of inevitable further mass meetings of politicians to try to save face.  There was no solution there, just an agreement to move forward and hope to arrive at one.

I have long suggested that the Eurozone should allow Greece to become the third-world country it seems to want to become.  When was the last time the terms “innovation,” “strong work ethic,” or “growth economy” were accurately used in the same sentence as “Greece”?  In a country where 10% of the work force is employed by the government, ...]]> The Eurozone is a mess.  Mathematics, common sense, recognition of a changed reality, and, yes, democracy have all taken a back seat to a deep-seated, ego-related loyalty to a broken idea from the 20^th century.  This is one of a number of situations today where legacy thinking from the last century is propping up institutions and ways of looking at the world that will soon dissolve in the face of new forces and ways of thought of the 21^st century.

In January, I started to say that we should stop calling it the “Greek Debt Crisis” and start talking about it being the potential death rattle of the Euro.  In August, I suggested a 30%-60% chance the Euro would collapse.  A couple of weeks ago, when the “Euro solution” was widely trumpeted in the media, people who knew of my view of the situation sent me links about it.  Not so fast, I said.  This is not the final answer; it is a temporary delay of inevitable further mass meetings of politicians to try to save face.  There was no solution there, just an agreement to move forward and hope to arrive at one.

I have long suggested that the Eurozone should allow Greece to become the third-world country it seems to want to become.  When was the last time the terms “innovation,” “strong work ethic,” or “growth economy” were accurately used in the same sentence as “Greece”?  In a country where 10% of the work force is employed by the government, where tax avoidance is an embedded cultural practice, where the 3-hour lunch is common in spite of a 24/7 global economy, what were the Europeans thinking?  They weren’t.

Each time Greek debt repayment guidelines and economic metrics have been set forth, they have always turned out to be no longer valid.  Greece is in a downward economic spiral, and there is clearly no way the massive amount of accumulated debt can be repaid in the foreseeable future.  The Greek people know this.  There is no question the Greeks lied to get into the Eurozone, lied about their government budgets, and then lied about their ability to make rapid changes to their economy to repay the debt they received through their deception and the greed of the European banks.

The answer has been clear for months.  To avoid the real threat of a financial contagion that spreads to Italy and Spain, the plutocrats spending hours negotiating should have done the obvious: They should have stated that since Greece was clearly in violation of all terms so far negotiated, they were being jettisoned from the Eurozone; AND, they should have indicated that the dramatic increase in funds to prop up the region was being redeployed to erect a firewall around Italy and Spain.  Cut the losses, stop contagion in its tracks, and get on with fortifying the banking system.

The Greek government, with loud demonstrations and strikes a weekly occurrence, briefly floated the idea that the Greeks should vote on whether to accept the onerous terms of debt repayment – which will ultimately destroy their economy in the name of protecting the banks – or returning to the drachma and suffering some short-term severe pain for long-term growth and independence, what do you think they would have done?  Why shouldn’t the Greeks vote for self-rule, rather than imposed rule of other countries primarily interested in preserving their banks?  So once again, the can has been kicked down the road, the markets swoon in reaction, and we are left with a situation that will only worsen and drag out the misery.

The old guard – in age and thinking – that architected the Eurozone would not accept reality.  More than two years ago internal IMF reports said that Greece was effectively bankrupt.  Instead of dealing with that reality then and there, they made all worship at the altar of devotion to the Euro above all else.  Now two years later there is more indebtedness that has had the effect of both spiraling the Greek economy into severe recession and also putting the banks of Europe – and therefore the global economy- at great risk.

What we are seeing here is the legacy thinking of the 20^th century keeping European leaders from facing the financial realities of the 21^st century.  What sounded like a noble idea – unifying a continent to better compete with the United States and the emerging China – was born from a late-20^th century world view. That is still valid.  The problem was thinking the next step – a single currency – would be manageable. Rules for membership and debt levels were legislated and then universally ignored for the sake of the vision of an ever-growing Eurozone.  By not seeing clearly, by not enforcing the rules set forth, the leaders of the Eurozone find themselves in an untenable situation.  They can hold on to a vision that no longer works and force the entire Eurozone into a half-decade of no-growth due to massive deleveraging, or they can move swiftly to jettison Greece, shore up Italy and Spain, accept downgraded credit ratings for a couple of years, and emerge in 2013 with something that could in fact be a powerful economic and financial force.

Sometimes dire situations necessitate humor.  While this clip is humorous, the numbers are basically accurate.  Truth in humor.