It is time to slowly say good-bye to the “job” as it has been known in our lifetime and the lifetime of our parents.  The parents of baby boomers were the first full generation that lived with the general concept of “life-long employment.” Baby boomers left college and stepped on lower rungs of a “career path.” Now, after three consecutive “jobless recoveries,” it should be clear that jobs as we had defined them are disappearing.

Since the collapse of Lehman Brothers almost three years ago, a number of people who had recently lost jobs due to downsizing, bankruptcy and lack of …

As many of you who subscribe to my Shift Age Newsletter know, I co-authored a book with Jeff Cobb on transforming education. Shift Ed: A Call to Action for Transforming K-12 Education was published in April by Corwin Press.

Now, three months later, I am happy to report that the response from the education community has been strong and extremely positive. Two conferences that had me as the keynote speaker purchased copies of the book for all attendees, and the feedback from these educators has been so positive that I am humbled. In addition, several school superintendents have purchased …

I find that the insights I gain relative to the future often come from reading small articles, graphs or photos that are buried deep in periodicals be it in printed or digital form.

Amidst all the media coverage of the past few weeks on Weinergate, American Idol, Dancing with the Stars and who is or isn’t running for the Republican nomination for president there were two separate articles about water buried in the back pages of the New York Times.  The significance of these two short articles about water to me far outweighs all the coverage on the more popular subjects.  …

In a recent column, I expressed how, as a futurist, I often feel like I live in a déjà vu world. I am called upon to deliver forecasts about the future. I spend much time researching and thinking about trends as well as economic, social and technological dynamics so that when I make the forecast, I have “lived” its reality. That may sound odd, but it is often the way it seems to me.

Since 2006, I have been extremely accurate in my forecasting of the price of oil. I don’t know the natural gas, shale or coal markets …