“How do I love (bankrupt) thee? Let me count the ways.” This election year it’s hard not to take note of all the various ways in which the next generation is screwed. Younger cohorts will struggle with student loans, possibly endure continued high unemployment rates, foot most of the bill from the national deficit and…
It is widely believed that the solution to many of the world’s ills goes through the empowerment of women and especially female children. By allowing girls the resources and freedom to grow up healthy and educated we can reduce the world population, increase entrepreneurialism and reduce poverty. I thought this was a neat little video….
My last post brought up the endless discussion if people’s intelligence is mainly the product of nurture or nature. Now psychological scientist Christopher Chabris of Union College and David Laibson, a Harvard economist, have revealed that intelligence cannot be traced to a specific gene. Previous studies of identical and fraternal twins have led us to…
If you’re a parent like me you regularly crash into sleep in one of your children’s’ beds after putting them to bed around dusk. Then you wake up a few hours later and drag your sleep drunk self into your own bed where the night trolls start spinning your head with worries that have built…
Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend a speech by legendary, mother-of-all feminists Gloria Steinem at the AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center here in Austin. As a mother of three daughters I am anxious to learn if feminism is an ongoing movement that will continue to grow roots into the younger generations or if…
I Don’t Know How She Does It All. GPS- supported access to caffeine-related refueling stations. That’s how she does it! It turns out parents of the Homeland generation, i.e. the parent demographic who themselves tend to belong to younger Generation X parents and older Millennials, are more likely to use their mobile phones to get…
The 22/7 commission, which has spent a year looking into the response to the terrorist attack and massacre carried out by right wing extremist Anders Behring Breivik last summer, has released their report. Last year during the September 11 weekend marking the 10-years anniversary since the terrorist attacks in the U.S. I wrote a piece…
For a child born today, what will the world look like in 2100? This is the topic of a special section of The Futurist, September- October issue. Via scenarios and forecasts from some of the leading expert within foresight, we get a glimpse into what it will mean to be 88 at the dawn of…
After I wrote piece on generational archetypes and their characteristics for a newspaper a few years ago I was surprised by the number of animated reactions I received in the online comment section. People don’t like to be pigeonholed, even under my pretense of doing social science trend research. It turns out that when social scientists…
This is one of the most appealing parts of being a futurist! Just when we find ourselves surrounded by statistics on scarcity and gloom, the wise visionaries in our field see mostly hope. And I love TED too. How else would I endure folding laundry in the evening? Enjoy…
