[This column was first published in the Shift Age Newsletter #27]

Eight years ago I first began to write and speak about the future full time.  Then, as always, I was asked about what accurate forecasts I had made.  This told me of course that my legitimacy to some degree would be based upon this.  So I did start to make forecasts.

The second thing I realized was that most people, and certainly people who lead institutions and companies, are interested in what will happen six months to five years out as that is what is their primary …

In the past I have written that as a futurist, it sometimes feels like I live in a state of déjà vu. I spend a lot of time researching and looking into the future to develop the forecasts and trends that I write and speak about. I experience them, see them, and have varying degrees of certainty when I publish or present them.

Since 2011 began, so many of the forecasts and trends I predicted over the last four years are coming true, I feel as if I’m in an almost constant state of déjà vu. Now, as I spend some …

In my last column I wrote about Dubai and that it is a 21^st Century city.  As a futurist I felt at home being there as it feels like a city that is fully looking forward rather than stuck in a legacy past.  In this column I want to take a look at some of the dynamics that have shaped this city to be so forward facing.  Too many cities in the world are stuck in the past, the recent past or are looking into the future completely through present day problems.  What can other cities learn from Dubai?

Dubai exists …

“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 …