To many, the absolute collapse of the magazine industry in 2009 may seem stunning.  What is stunning to me is that the industry didn’t see it coming and take steps to avert this collapse.  Once again, another industry can only see a year ahead and thinks that a down year – 2008 – would be followed by a flat or up year. Historically in the advertising business that has been the career experience of the senior executives, so why not look to the past for reassurance?

The Big Three auto companies had an insular culture that didn’t pay attention to outside …

“The chances further down the road seem to me better on the fuel-cell side than on the battery-electric side”

There are a number of readers of this blog and members of the audiences when I speak that just seem to think that hydrogen fuel cell autos are a pipe dream that has no chance of becoming a reality in the next decade.  Comments like the quote above provoke a general dismissal as not being realistic.

During the last three years, I have forecast that 2010-2015 would begin the age of the electric automobile and that 2015-2020 would begin the age of the …

The Rio Olympics are the first true Shift Age Olympics.  While the Beijing Olympics were the first of this new age, the Rio Olympics were the first selected in the Shift Age.  The Rio Olympics point to the fact that we are not only in the global stage of human evolution, but that the major players of the 21^st century will different than those of the 20^th.

In the past two years, I have spoken all across North America about the fact that it is not just China and India that will rise in influence in this new century but that …