It’s 2030. You’re managing a company that produces artificially intelligent internet connected consumer products. As you glance over your co-working hub you see people on their laptops, some in their virtual reality haptic gears. They are meeting with their teams 5000 miles away. Some are chatting with their robotic assistants which have become trained enough to…
Marketers are feverishly trying to figure out how to advertise to Generation Z or Homelanders these days. One strategy is trying to make ads that Generation Z will share. But is this really a good idea? And if so, will Generation Z share your ads in their social media channels anyway? Most probably, they won’t. They will share…
Yesterday I had the pleasure of seeing a talk by Dr. Devorah Heitner, the author of Screenwise and site Raising Digital Natives. Dr. Heitner has the unusual disposition that she doesn’t believe digital technology and social media will lead our species into an apocalyptic downfall. Nor does she jump on the technophile bandwagon so often…
Do you lead a group of children and want to engage them in future thinking in an effective and meaningful way? Please fill out the contact form for workshops and futuristic game play. You never know what future they will reveal to you, but it can make your job leading them make much more…
The challenges younger generations face today can at times feel overwhelming. Often the source of responsibility is pointed at older generations who are presumed responsible for the mess younger people now have to deal with. I believe “blameworthiness” is an undercurrent that contaminates, rather than enlighten our ability to understand the dynamic of age cohorts sharing the contemporary at different phases of their lives. Instead…
It’s probably no surprise that “after the millennials” has been one of my key search terms for a while. I first started researching this generation in their infancy in the early 2000s, at a time when very little had yet been written about them. Covering this topic felt very much like entering a land where no man or woman has ever been. Then…
I recently came across an article in Aeon called “Against Generations“, which is one of the harshest, yet most eloquent critiques of generational research I have read. Author Rebecca Onion disagrees with the epistemological justification for segmenting people based on age cohort, and (rightly) contends that much of the research is arbitrary and the categories…
Research Chefs Association is the leading professional community for food research and development. Its members are the pioneers of the discipline of Culinology – the blending of culinary arts and the science of food. I recently attended their conference on the Future of Food, where I held a speech about Generation Z and their attitudes…
Ford’s recent report on Generation Z fails to mention the most obvious elephant in the room: Teens don’t care about cars anymore. Statoil recently published three scenarios for energy use in 2040. Not even the most low-carbon scenario envisioned the possibility that fossil fuels could constitute less than 75% of total energy consumption in 25 years. It…
One of the most important generationally relevant must-reads from last week is this piece from Dr. Profeta . It was republished at slowfamilyliving, a website that goes against the grain of our era’s current tendency to hyperparent. In his Your Kid And My Kid Are Not Playing In The Pros Dr. Profeta weights in on the…
