Futurist Thomas Frey: Question: As physical books go away, and computers and smart devices take their place, at what point does a library stop being a library, and start becoming something else?
Continue reading… “Future Libraries and 17 Forms of Information Replacing Books”
Futurist Thomas Frey: Five years ago was the beginning of 2007. George Bush was President, Arnold Schwarzenegger was governor of California, Barack Obama wasn’t very well known, and Saddam Hussein had just been executed in Iraq.
Continue reading… “The 5-Year Pipeline”
Futurist Thomas Frey: What music comes to mind when you try on your new pair of jeans? Does that “music in your head” somehow change when you try on a different brand?
Continue reading… “Rethinking Retail and 18 Examples of Change”
Photo of me demonstrating an unuual thermoelectric generator
with NY Times Correspondent Matthew Wald
Futurist Thomas Frey: On Wednesday I was invited to speak on a panel at the 2012 National Electricity Forum, an event sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, in Washington DC.
Continue reading… “Dismantling of our Power Industry Infrastructure”
A picture of me speaking at yesterday’s TEDxReset in Istanbul.
Futurist Thomas Frey: Yesterday I was honored to be one of the featured speakers at the TEDxReset Conference in Istanbul, Turkey where I predicted that over 2 billion jobs will disappear by 2030. Since my 18-minute talk was about the rapidly shifting nature of colleges and higher education, I didn’t have time to explain how and why so many jobs would be going away. Because of all of the questions I received afterwards, I will do that here.
Continue reading… “2 Billion Jobs to Disappear by 2030”
Futurist Thomas Frey: Michael Migliozzi and Brian Flatow started a website called BuyaBeerCompany.com in November 2009 who’s lofty goal was to buy the ailing century old Pabst Blue Ribbon beer company. Working to match the $300 million sale price, in less than two years the pair had attracted over 5 million investors pledging upwards of $280 million, with an average pledge of $40.
Continue reading… “Crowdfunding: 23 Unusual Ways it May be Applied”
Futurist Thomas Frey: If you were traveling between Boston and Washington, DC, and had the choice of either flying or riding in a driverless car, which would you choose?
Continue reading… “Driverless Cars: A Driving Force Coming to a Future Near You”
Futurist Thomas Frey: After spending the past three days scouring the showroom floors at CES, watching people become overwhelmed by what they saw, I tended to be more underwhelmed by what I didn’t see.
Continue reading… “25 Technologies I Didn’t See at CES”
Futurist Thomas Frey: On December 29th, Verizon announced it would begin charging a $2 “convenience fee” for any customers paying monthly bills with a credit or debit card via the Internet or telephone.
Continue reading… “Power to the People: The Great Consumer Backlash”
Futurist Thomas Frey: The sixth law of the future states, “The “unknowability” of the future is what gives us our drive and motivation.”
The fact that the future is unknowable is a good thing. Our involvement in the game of life is based on our notion that we as individuals can make a difference. If we somehow remove the mystery of what results our actions will have, we also dismantle our individual drives and motivations for moving forward.
Continue reading… “Year in Review: Top 10 Articles on FuturistSpeaker.com”
“High expectations are the key to everything” – – Sam Walton
Futurist Thomas Frey: On a recent shopping trip, I went to three separate stores and had difficulty finding what I was looking for. On each of these occasions I talked with a staff person and they told me about an option that either wasn’t apparent to most customers, or that I hadn’t considered.
Continue reading… “Flooring the customer: Retail 2.0, the rebirth is coming”
Futurist Thomas Frey: Understanding trends is more of an art form than an exact science. But for those who can read the tealeaves, and make bold moves, leveraging trends can give them a serious competitive advantage.
Continue reading… “28 Major Trends for 2012 and Beyond – Part 2”