We have entered one of the most transformative, disruptive times in the history of brands and marketing. The ever-accelerating rate of change in almost every aspect of communications, technology, media, social change and connectivity has left brand marketers struggling just to stay current.

It is this reality that led me to collaborate with brand and market research guru Owen Shapiro to write “Brand Marketing: The Future of Brands and Marketing” which was published in September.

I have had a several year relationship with Owen and his firm Shapiro [formerly Leo J. Shapiro & Associates] since my first book “The Shift Age” came …

What might the future of the Internet be?  What can it be?  How empowering can it be for Capitalism and Democracy in the 21^st century? What must we do to maximize the positive possibilities the Internet provides humanity as we stand at the fork in the road Buckminster Fuller foresaw decades ago: – Utopia or Oblivion?

As a futurist this is the perspective from which  I think about the current issues of “net neutrality” or the “open net”.  The current debate on Net Neutrality is now center stage due to a court ruling forcing the FCC to suggest a new doctrine.  …

It is the end of November 2012.  We now know who the President of the United States will be for the next four years.   We know all about the results of Black Friday and Cyber Monday. A month from now we will know that the Mayan Prophecy did not mean that the world would end.  Shortly thereafter we will see how Congress and the President have done a partial or full ‘kick the can down the road’ with the fiscal cliff.

So Now What?

We can be sure that the media, with all their ever shorter news cycles and arrays of talking …

01/01/11 is the second digital New Year’s Day in a row.  A year ago it was 01/01/10, also zeros and ones, the two digits of the Information Age of computers.  That column, called “The Transformation Decade” seemed to resonate immediately as it was widely sourced in the blogosphere and retweeted globally on Twitter.  I created a presentation, “The Transformation Decade: 2010-2020” that was widely requested and delivered around the world this past year.

The definition of ‘transformation’ is ‘a change in nature, shape, character and form’.  The Transformation Decade therefore will be the ten years when most of humanity …