Future View from 30,000 Feet: Shift Age Forecasts

Since 2011 began so many of the forecasts and trends I predicted over the last four years are coming true I feel as if I39m in an almost constant state of damp233jamp224 vu Now as I spend some 22 hours traveling from Chicago to Singapore scanning stacks of periodicals from around the world this feeling is amplifiedI will write a lot in the coming weeks and months about all these forecasts and trends As a futurist I should be judged in part on how accurate I am so it is indeed gratifying that many of the eventstrends I predicted have become reality in 2011 The purpose of all these upcoming columns is to be able to point to actual events as the manifestations of what I have been speaking and writing about since 2006 and 2007 when I wrote The Shift Age This will help explain the truly transformative time we are now entering In a few years the world will look quite different from what it did in 2010 The early evidence is everywhere in 2011Here are some of the trends and forecasts I have made listed with the events that are now making them real for the world and a damp233jamp224 vu experience for me flying at 39000 feetHumanity would not globally exit the Great Reorganizational Recession of 20072010 until 2011Clearly we are slowly and tentatively exiting the reorganizational recession this yearAccelerating Electronic Connectedness one of the three fundamental forces of the Shift Age would manifest itself in part with great political upheavals as connected individuals blow down the walled gardens of ignorance and political tyrannyTunisia Egypt Bahrain Libya as the beginning The nervousness in Yemen Syria Saudi Arabia and China is palpableOil would trade in the 90120 per barrel range for most of 2011 and would cross 100 a barrel in the first half of the yearAs of this writing the price of Brent crude is 104 a barrel and 94 on the NYNEXThe warming of the planet climate change and increasing abnormal weather would have a profound upward effect on the price of food commodities with possible dire economic consequencesCorn wheat and rice futures are way up compared with 20093910 and current estimates are that some 40 million people in developing countries will fall from the middle class this year because they have to spend the vast majority of their household income on foodWork and Place will separateCisco39s Telepresence suites and those of its competitors are being built around the world in everincreasing numbers Skype just came out with group video service and as of last year more than 50 of IBM employees worked from homeHigh TechHigh Touch amp8211 Technology will become ever more tactile and personalI checked in at the airport yesterday with a touch screen used my iPhone at the airport and my wife is playing a scrabble game and surfing the Internet with her fingers on our iPad Sometimes it looks like people have a deeper personal relationship with their touchscreen devices than with the humans around themVolatility in metal commodities and global stock markets will be the constant for the next few yearsGoogle or Bing the last six months of trending for global stock markets and the futures price of practically any metalStates and Municipalities would face and declare bankruptcyJust look at and read the media every day amp8211 a very serious stress on our countryThe above is just a partial list of the forecasts I39ve made amp8211 the ones that everyone can now see not just this futurist Damp233jamp224 vu all over again Watch this blog my Free Newsletter and the Shift Age Trend Report for deeper discourses in the coming weeks and monthsWelcome to the Shift Ageamp160

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Future View from 30,000 Feet: Shift Age Forecasts

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